Posted by Jake Hendrickson on 3/13/2019 to
Articles
by Jake Hendrickson
I would have to say that a jig of some sort is tied to the end of my line 95% of the time while out on the water. I learned how to jig fish at a young age from my dad, who showed me the finer details of how to fish a jig properly. He told me to visualize what your jig is doing when you are lifting, twitching or snapping it through the water. I went through many different styles over the years trying to find one that I found to perform the way I wanted. Through my searches I happened upon getting into making my own jigs, starting out with your standard collared round head jig, and now most days I have a tear drop style jig on my line.
I started pouring jigs roughly 10 years ago and haven't stopped since. It has turned into a very fun and rewarding hobby that keeps me experimenting with colors and jig styles. To produce a quality jig head time after time, you need the right equipment. Do-It Molds provides all of the necessary components to achieve your ideal jig. I will go into detail the components I use and some tricks I have found to be helpful over the years.
Teardrop Mold: This mold is hands down my favorite to use. I fish a lot on the Mississippi river and the jig style does very good cutting through current. As you can see in the couple pictures I took of the mold, I have modified it at the eye of the jig and near the bottom to accommodate a long shank VMC 2/0 hook. I started using this hook because with the bigger plastics I throw on a daily basis, I wanted a hook that would sit lower on the bait, giving me a better hook up percentage. I have also "smoked" each cavity to help with the jig releasing easier from the mold, and to give you a cleaner finish to the lead.
Vinyl Paint: there are multiple techniques to give your jigheads some color; airbrush, powder paint, and vinyl paint. my personal preference is the vinyl "dip and drip" method to finish off my jigheads. I will start off with dipping each jig into a white base coat and hang them on my wooden rack to drip. Usually one or two dabs onto the cardboard will stop the dripping and are left to dry. From there I either move to a second color, or recently I have been doing something a little different in using spray paint to give my jig a two tone look as you can see in a few of the pictures.
Jig Eyes: Sticker or Paint? I have gone both ways with this. I started off using the 5/32 and 1/4" sticker eyes to accent the jigs, but recently have moved to paint. the reason I now use paint is for me its quicker, and you don't have that chance of the sticker peeling off at all. I use different sized wood dowels to create my eyes.
Final Touch: To finish off the jig and give it a nice hard finish, I end with dipping it into CS Paint UV Blast Seal Coat. I have found this seal coat to give the jig an extremely hard finish, and will prevent the gooey mess you sometimes get from the plastic and jig being in contact for too long.
Tackle crafting is a hobby that lets you experiment and create whatever you want. It gives me great satisfaction to catch fish on jigs and plastics that I make myself. Do-It Molds it a great company to work with, and will continue to provide top notch products for the tackle crafting enthusiasts.
