Mike G

Norm, Worm rattles? Have you ever tried them, Jonn?

I see a Martha Bugger in the future.

Crafting lures and jigs is every bit as challenging as tying flies. I am an amateur crafter; Jonn is a pro. This continues my homage to Jonn’s swimbait by giving it one of the greatest compliments, imitation. I set myself the challenge of making a swimjig out of materials that I already had estimating my material costs from catalog prices as I went along.

Starting with the jig -$1.00.
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I had some of these Weedless Arky jigs on hand. Since the weedgard was already installed I could not powder paint it. I trimmed the weed guard down to 10-12 bristles. I left the black finish alone and added stick on eyes to dress it up putting a coat of Sally’s over the whole head. The jig had a decent collar for the skirt application but lacked a hook to hold the trailer. I made one out of #5 Tooth Proof wire and secured it to the hook with black thread coated with more Sally’s. To keep the hook from pulling out the front end is bent back and tied down under the thread. Costs were 55 cents for the jig and 45 in paint, eyes,thread, wire etc.

The Skirt-55 cents

Clamping jig by the eye worked well for tying on the siliskirt sections. I used 2 black, 2 blue and one grey pad segments. I secured them around the collar with black thread and more Sally’s. Skirt segments thread and Sally’s estimate to 55 cents Lesson learned: use medium thread. The D wt rod wrapping thread I used really built up during the course of tying on all those SS segments.



The Trailer-45 cents.

I noticed these 4 inch shade baits that both Cabelas and Barlows carry in some attractive color combinations. I figured out a way to trim the belly off to make them more like Hammer swimbaits. Lesson learned: trim from back to front with sharp scissors (at least 3 inch blades). Trim just a little bit at a time.

The Reveal!


So I got it all done for $2.00 materials and free labor. It is a bait I would pay for. But it ain’t a real Jonn’s swimjig. How can Jonn sell his for only $4.00 including the trailer bait? Don’t ask.

Liking that 30-60 deg hook!

Mike,

why couldn't you just use the cheap hook up front and cut the barb end on that one, at least that's what I did?

Rob,

I bend my own fish segments using #12 stainless wire. It is even cheaper than using hooks. The value of a fish shank, home made or purchased is that it is one piece and the rear loop can't pull off. Considering all the work in a segmented fly, who wants to make one that might pull apart.

Lots of potential there especially if you are clear that you are talking width, not length.

Jonn,

Here's a reason to put the hook in front. You can save money by using a 5-10 cent Aberdeen hook for the rear segment. After you tie it, cut it off at the bend. No need to use a 30-50 cent fish segment for the rear section ever.

Tim,

Referring to Tom's dumbbell weighted fly as a slider threw me. I am used to using the term for floating flies like Sneaky Petes and other creations designed to make minimal disturbance on the surface.

Then I came across a SW fly called the Borski slider that uses dumbells.

So slider means either a surface fly for bass and panfish or a bottom hugging fly for bonefish.

For craft fur I tried the trick of ordering one swatch for a dollar to get five more free. It did not work. The order calculated to $6. You can get more free, however, since accounts are keyed to email addresses. So family, friends, and neighbors can be tapped to request free swatches. If I could I would give a hint to the employees at Tom's restaurant about an easy free way to butter up the boss.

I like the fly, Jonn. I kinda wonder why you put the hook up front which requires fiddling with a loop of some sort to attach the tail section. I am not sure there would be a big difference in hooking since the fly does not look that long anyway.

It's a goat, antlers and all. Someone needs to photoshop Gordon's brother into the picture before we can tell how long it is.

Packing them up.

The Stealth Bombers are ready to fly in my custom made swap box.

That funny foam head that looks like the Picasso gives this fly great properties. It is a three way fly. The primary mode is diving on a short strip followed by a seductive wobble to back to the service. On a slower retrieve it is a slider. If you give it a hard twitch, it pops. Count on the dark gray Distinctive Husky fur to create a lot of action and a sharp silhouette against the sky when fish look up at it.

OK Rob, To make it perfectly clear, that is Tim's wife in the foreground tying ribbons. Tim tied the gurgler pattern at the Rockford breakfast event. So I thought his swap flies would come with hare ribbons. But now Terry brings up the interesting question of how they catch the hares. Maybe that is how Tim keeps so trim.

Just a wannabe.

Jonn,

And thanks again for the demo in Rockford. That is what sold me. BTW what do they cost? $_______ a good deal at twice the price.

I have had a Peak vise for quite a while. I like it but with the standard jaws it does slip with hooks larger than size 2 and it is not the best vise for tying deer hair bass bugs. I have used it to tie trout flies as small as size 16

 

I have not not bothered to replace the Peak Vise or get the jaws made for larger hooks because I don't tie that many flies larger than size 2.

Just a note. Peak sells larger saltwater jaws for $38.

No ribbons?

cool, but won't work with existing photos methinks...................

That's what Photoshop is for. Cut and paste.

Yes. I would participate in a swap just to get one of those.

Ever think about using a 30-60 deg hook for this inverted pattern?

This is a naked unashamed blatantly commercial endorsement of Jonn's swimjig. Why should a person who has all the equipment and skills to make a swimjig buy Jonn's? Because they are so darn good.

At his presentation in Rockford I came to see all the work Jonn puts into the things. It begins when his elf hand pours the leadhead on a premium hook. That includes putting in a second tiny hook to hold the traiker. In the picture of the Bucketmouth you can kinda see that hook next to the hookshank directly below the hook point.


But there's more. Jonn personally does a bangup job of powderpainting, baking, and clearcoating the jighead. And more. there's a secret way Jonn ties on the skirt materials to make them puffy. Finally there's the weed guard made from an exact numder of mono strands-not too little, not too much.

Let's not forget Jonn's honesty. Notice that in the article he describes five of the six finishes as attractive to fishermen and one, the shad, as a fish catcher.


Bottom line you gotta buy a Shad Pattern for the fish and a couple others because they're so darn pretty.

Hah. This all presupposes a standard way to measure a fish. I once measured a bas that delivered readings of 19,18, and 19 on the same wet bump board. First it was 19 till I closed its mouth the way you are supposed to. Then it was 18 till I compressed the lobes of the tail the way you are supposed to. Then it was 19 again. This was a pretty controlled measurement-no parallax. The nose of the fish was up against the stop on the end of the board and the tail was flat out top of the ruler on the board. Now if one were to use a yardstick or a flexible tape... That is why I say ask Jamie and go with whatever he says.

Your brother is doing a good job of long arming it. That is an old In-Fisherman trick. To make the fish look bigger stick it way out toward the camera. After Ron Lindner, Jimmie Houston is the best at long arming it. It is based on using parallax to distort the apparent size relationship between objects in the picture. Dr. Rob Optics can tell us about it in detail. The only objective 1:1 size relationship in the pic is your brothers hands since they are on the fish. Based on that I say more than 18 and less than 22. Maybe 20.

jamie (James Riani) was really good at estimating true sizes from photos since his work in photography and graphics gave him a lot of practice. He is a site member though I do not see him posting much lately.

I have both of the vises you are considering, and I hate the peak and love the griffin. For me it's all about hook-holding ability, and the peak slips everytime. Keep in mind I mostly tie size 2 and above, but the griffin has zero problems holding hooks of all sizes. Not worth he jump to the peak unless you just need a heavy pedestal for portability. But that can be arranged for any vise. Screw peak.

Interesting. Tim confirmswhat Joe Cornwall memtions in his review on FFO. "The manufacturer says the standard jaws are designed for size 2 to 20 and they are correct. Forcing the standard jaws to hold a 1/0 hook resulted in some vertical slippage under tension - no big bass bugs! Okay, so the guy who designed it told the truth and I tried to make it do more... can I be critical of that?" No, just have to respect the limits of the design.

On the other side, In the book, Al Beatty gives high marks to the Griffin jaws in gensral. This might push a Griffin product to the front of the list. I think the Griffin Blackfoot Mongoose looks to be better put together than the Spider. It came in second in the FFO ratings. And it is made in the USA. It would get one around the slippage problem with hooks bigger than #2 that Peak admits it has.

PS no problems like that with the Danvise.

NORM,

I think the notice in the bulletin set it right. We see it so often in the movies where the hero beats the train that we might try it ourselves. But you rightly pointed out, it is a race you can't afford to loose. And you only need to see it once the other way.

PS Terry, I found that brass disc I was talking about. It is almost 7 inches across and weighs 6.5 pounds. Do you think it is heavy enough to use for a pedestal for my vise? Also since the shaft on my vise is metric, do I have to convert the weight to kgs?

The problem is that the guy who takes the pictures doesn't get his picture took.

It was a good event worth risking my life on US 20 to get there.