The Legacy of our Mentors

[Hawnjigs]

Gone but not forgotten: Uncle Shu for his creative spirit designing his own jig heads and surface plugs. Uncle Oja for his off the beaten path adventuring. Most of all John McKean aka JiggerJohn for laying the foundation of my current jig fishing success.

Bout 15 yrs ago when I first started vacationing in CO and knew nuthin about catching fresh water fish met John online & kept in touch discovering we both preferred - short rods and minimal size & weight jigs. His Basher tie pattern - rabbit zonker and later mink + a bit of Flashabou took my fishing to a next level particularly trout. He improved the Basher with the addition of a shank propeller "Boolie" jig years later which still enhances my big fish jigs., in fact practically all of the current walleye, wiper, and catfish catches utilize a bead collar propeller jig head to attach soft plastics or Gulp.

John's quip "if it ain't troos ain't no use" is no joke, here at the tail end of the big fish season chartreuse plastics and Gulp have produced biggest of the season wallys & wipers + irresistable to sometimes best choice available catfish.

Hopefully their knowledge will pass on thru me to others when my time is done.

 

[hookup]

Phil Shaeffer was one of my early mentor's in tieing jigs. Learned to tie the rabbit hare jigs - piece of crosscut for the body and zonker for the tail.

So was Butch Neil. His bass jigs were well known to the river smallmouth community. Tad big of bucktail, then a body of silicon hair followed by a "pig" of some sort. Charlie Case introduced me to his small pigs and another guy named T taught me how to modify the soft plastic tail for more motion in the water.

I sent John a care package of both and he sent me a few of his creations.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Mr. Neal likely ain't pleased you misspelled his name.

Do tell how you can modify a plastic tail to improve it?

 

[Hawnjigs]

Forgot to mention my bud Jon for what I thought was a ridiculous idea to cut Gulp troos sinking minnows into thirds. Until he unequivocally out fished me one memorable day. I prefer halfsies which accounts for nearly all of my catfish, but Jon deploys them for all species successfully. Except for occasional night wally sessions when my pearl plastics get bit better.

 

[hookup]

Mr. Neal likely ain't pleased you misspelled his name.

Do tell how you can modify a plastic tail to improve it?

Spelling's never been my forte. Just ask Bill from RS LOL

Case's plastic pigs could be cut in certain places or plastic removed to improve the action on both the body and tail which imho attracts fish