Mississippi guide needed jigheads he couldn’t find, so he came to the conclusion: he had to make them himself. Here’s the happy result of D-I-Y crappie tackle.
Torch Tindle has an enviable problem: the crappie he regularly catches on the lakes where he guides are too big for standard-sized jigheads.
Searching the retail market and not finding what he wanted, Tindle, from Cleveland, decided that making his own was the best way to correct this problem.
“I fish a lot on Grenada and Sardis, Enid and a few other Mississippi lakes, and our crappie are just huge,” said Tindle, who runs Torch’s Guide Service. “The problem is that most manufacturers use hooks in their jigheads that are too small for our fish.”
Tindle discovered long ago that a standard 1/16-ounce jighead, a size he uses when long-line trolling, comes equipped with a No. 2 hook. He said he needed something bigger, like a 2/0 Aberdeen jig hook.
“With the smaller hooks you lose a lot of fish,” said Tindle (662-515-0175). “I do a lot of long-line trolling during the spring and summer, and the fish come off before you can get them to the boat. Since I started using the bigger hooks, I hardly ever have one get off.”
After doing some research, Tindle ordered jighead molds offered by Do-It Molds and added a little homemade ingenuity to fine tune the result.
“The standard mold wouldn’t accept a 2/0 hook, so I took the mold over to my wife’s office,” he said. “She’s a dentist, and with one of her dental tools, we made some adjustments, enlarging the opening so it would accept the bigger hook and the crane swivel that I’ll attach a spinner blade later on in the process.”
Making his own fishing tackle opened up another facet of fishing for Tindle that has become an enjoyable pastime.
“For me, it’s therapeutic,” he said. “I’ve built a whole tackle-making workshop, and I’ll think about what colors or sizes I need for an upcoming trip and go spend a few hours making what I need.”
The first step in making any bait involving a leadhead or body is to obtain a good, reliable mold and a lead pot for melting and pouring lead into the mold. Custom molds can be made by a quality tool-and-die shop, but the price for custom work can be expensive compared to a pre-made mold that will cost around $50, even if you have to do a little tinkering with it.
A good melting pot will ensure even lead heating and pouring and can be obtained for less than $100. Some good advice about obtaining lead: purchase pure lead from a plumbing supply store rather than use scrap lead, such as old tire weights, that contain a lot of alloys and don’t pour well. It’s best to pre-melt the lead into smaller, easier to handle bricks. During the meltdown process, any by-products will separate during the melting and can be skimmed off before placing in your lead pot. The lead is then heated and poured into the cavity in the top of the mold.
The jigs harden within seconds of pouring. The excess lead, called the “sprue,” is clipped off, and the jighead can be shaped up before it’s ready to paint.
Tindle paints his jigheads using powder-coat paints. He’s found the best way to get the powder to stick evenly is to heat the head with an electric heat gun and then dip the heated head into the paint.
“One tip I learned is to use 3/32 heat-shrink tubing to cover the hook eye and the end of the swivel,” he said. “If not, you have to chip the paint out, and that slows the process down. The (tubing) shrinks onto the eye of the jig, and then you can pull it off easily after it comes out of the powder coat.”
Rather than stick the heated head into a jar of powder paint, he uses a fluid bed, a device that aerates the powder so it doesn’t clump on the head. This helps coat the jighead evenly.
Tindle will collect a handful of freshly painted jigheads and heat them in a small toaster oven to bake on the finish.
“None of this stuff costs a whole lot of money,” he said. “I made the fluid beds out of PVC pipe fittings and a coffee filter. I use a cheap aquarium air pump to aerate the powder paint. I think the toaster oven cost me about 25 bucks at the Wal-Mart.”
Tindle said you don’t have to add spinner blades to the jigheads, but he wouldn’t fish without them because the water in the lakes he fishes is generally muddy. He orders spinner blades online and clips these onto the crane swivel that was molded into the bait.
“I prefer willow blades,” he said. “I use sizes 2, 3 and 4 and use some with smooth blades and some with hammered blades. I also use a variety of gold and silver blades. On occasion, I’ll use the round Colorado blades because they put off more vibration.”
Tindle admitts that there are many tackle makers more skilled than he is, and that the internet is loaded with YouTube videos from some real pros showing how to create spectacular paint jobs on tackle, tie hair jigs and trailers and make different kinds of tackle — and not just for crappie.
He said that for crappie anglers who long-line troll as he does, it would be close to impossible to describe what depth a handmade bait will run at without trying it on your own.
“You can throw the trolling chart away, because there are just too many variables,” he said. “The spinner blades make the jig weigh more, but when it’s trolled, it creates more turbulence that causes the jig to ride higher than you’d think.”
He described additional variables as boat trolling speed, line diameter, the amount of line out, the weight of the jighead and the style and size of spinner blade attached to the jig.
His suggestion was to find a sandy flat in 10 feet of water and troll the baits using your normal presentation, adjusting boat speed and line out, the two easiest variables to adjust, and write down what combinations put the bait at the depths you want it to run.
All in favor, say ‘eye’
Guide Torch Tindle said he would be the first to admit that putting eyes on jigheads is much-more aesthetic to the angler than to the fish. He said in the generally muddy Mississippi waters he guides, crappie hone in on the size, vibration and color of the bait and have committed before they have the chance to look the bait in the eye.
Nonetheless, adding eyes to jigheads is possible and does make for more-attractive baits.
Adding eyes to molded lead jigheads can be accomplished in a couple of different ways. The first and easiest is to take the finished jighead, dip a small model brush or the end of a small dowel rod into epoxy paint and dab the eyes on.
“Some folks use epoxy paint; others prefer model-car paint, which is pretty close to the same thing. Another option is oil-based enamel paint,” he said. “You can just make a one-dot eye or you can let the outer eye dry then add a inner dot, like a pupil.”
The second method — the way Tindle does it — is to buy commercially made stick-on eyes. Jig molds that are created to accept stick-on eyes will list the size eye, measured in millimeters, needed for that size jig.
“Another tip is the glue on these eyes is not good,” said Tindle. “I use a dab of Loctite glue or Gorilla glue on the back of the eye before I stick it on.”
Tindle explained that in most situations, he adds a clear-coat finish to the jighead to help seal the eye in place and make the bait more streamlined.
“You can dip the bait in a clear coat and then hang it; you can dip it and then bake it again,” he said. “One problem to look out for is if the clear is too thick, it will create a small cone like a nose on the bait if you dry it upside down.”
Tindle settled on using an automotive clear-coat that comes in a spray can. A couple of shots on either side of the jig, hang the bait for a few hours and it’s good to go.
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