Joined
·
4,755 Posts
I almost feel silly posting this, because it's too simple.
I have been playing around with this roll-your-own lure for a while and have been absolutely killing the trout and bass with it, so I thought I'd share it since it's so easy to put together and it works.
The lure consists of a curly tail jig with an attached spinner on a safety-pin type hookup that makes it look in many respects like a small spinnerbait, but the action is quite different from a spinnerbait. Here are the parts:
![]()
The pre-rigged curly tail jigs I got from Wal Mart ($1.97/pkg), and the little gold spinners were picked up at Sportsman's Warehouse. There are four sizes of spinners, size 0, 1, 2, and 3. The ones shown are size 1. All you do is attach the jig to the safety-pin latch of the spinner and you are ready to go. For trout, use 1/8 oz. jigs and #1 spinners, as shown above. For bass, go bigger; use 1/4 oz. jigs and #2 spinners. Here are the finished lures, one of each size:
![]()
If they look a little "smashed" it's because I laid them on a scanner to take their picture.
You might think this is just too simple to be worth spending any time on, but these perform better than the original jig, and better than a same-size spinnerbait.
The magic is in the double action. On retrieval, the curly tail is wiggling and swimming through the water like a fish tail, while at the same time the gold spinner is fluttering and glittering just above it to attract attention. The action of the two parts together is just plain dynamite. I have been testing it on trout for maybe 10 days and have caught around 60 rainbows on it. I think small metal spinners (Vibrax for example) can do just about as well, except with the homemade arrangement I don't have to respool at the end of the day because my line got all twisted up.
I have tested the larger one on bass on two different outings. The first time I caught 15 and the second time I caught 23. No keepers. I don't think that was the lure's fault though. If you think that sounds like too many fish --- well, I just gave you the instructions to try it yourself. Nothing could be fairer than that.
The Roadrunner is a similar looking lure and is available in stores. It has a curly tail and a spinner blade permanently attached just below the jig head. It doesn't seem to give the same action. I have Roadrunners too, and the home brew lure outcatches the Roadrunners at least 10 to 1.
Another similar lure is the Beetle Spin. In fact if you would put a curly tail grub on a Beetle Spin they would be just about identical. That might be another path you could take to get the same result. But you do need the curly tail - which the Beetle Spin does not have - plus the spinner to get the best result. If you go that route, let me know what happens.
I like to fish these things at shallow depths, say 2 to 6 ft. below the surface. Fish that hang out at those depths are also the fish that are most likely to hit this lure. You don't need a fast retrieve, just enough to keep the spinner going is fast enough.
They are cheap to make, so give it a try. If you like the way they work, maybe we can think of a name for them.
Regards, Walking Eagle
I have been playing around with this roll-your-own lure for a while and have been absolutely killing the trout and bass with it, so I thought I'd share it since it's so easy to put together and it works.
The lure consists of a curly tail jig with an attached spinner on a safety-pin type hookup that makes it look in many respects like a small spinnerbait, but the action is quite different from a spinnerbait. Here are the parts:
The pre-rigged curly tail jigs I got from Wal Mart ($1.97/pkg), and the little gold spinners were picked up at Sportsman's Warehouse. There are four sizes of spinners, size 0, 1, 2, and 3. The ones shown are size 1. All you do is attach the jig to the safety-pin latch of the spinner and you are ready to go. For trout, use 1/8 oz. jigs and #1 spinners, as shown above. For bass, go bigger; use 1/4 oz. jigs and #2 spinners. Here are the finished lures, one of each size:
If they look a little "smashed" it's because I laid them on a scanner to take their picture.
You might think this is just too simple to be worth spending any time on, but these perform better than the original jig, and better than a same-size spinnerbait.
The magic is in the double action. On retrieval, the curly tail is wiggling and swimming through the water like a fish tail, while at the same time the gold spinner is fluttering and glittering just above it to attract attention. The action of the two parts together is just plain dynamite. I have been testing it on trout for maybe 10 days and have caught around 60 rainbows on it. I think small metal spinners (Vibrax for example) can do just about as well, except with the homemade arrangement I don't have to respool at the end of the day because my line got all twisted up.
I have tested the larger one on bass on two different outings. The first time I caught 15 and the second time I caught 23. No keepers. I don't think that was the lure's fault though. If you think that sounds like too many fish --- well, I just gave you the instructions to try it yourself. Nothing could be fairer than that.
The Roadrunner is a similar looking lure and is available in stores. It has a curly tail and a spinner blade permanently attached just below the jig head. It doesn't seem to give the same action. I have Roadrunners too, and the home brew lure outcatches the Roadrunners at least 10 to 1.
Another similar lure is the Beetle Spin. In fact if you would put a curly tail grub on a Beetle Spin they would be just about identical. That might be another path you could take to get the same result. But you do need the curly tail - which the Beetle Spin does not have - plus the spinner to get the best result. If you go that route, let me know what happens.
I like to fish these things at shallow depths, say 2 to 6 ft. below the surface. Fish that hang out at those depths are also the fish that are most likely to hit this lure. You don't need a fast retrieve, just enough to keep the spinner going is fast enough.
They are cheap to make, so give it a try. If you like the way they work, maybe we can think of a name for them.
Regards, Walking Eagle
