Custom Panfish Jigs

[Nathan]

So with Spring upon us and waters warming, the panfish are becoming more active, this is my first year of tying custom jigs for crappie, bluegill ect ect. I've been mainly focusing on crappie jigs but also do some trout jigs, I'm always happy to learn new patterns, color combo's, productive jigs ect. So I figured I would make a thread all about these jigs and maybe I can learn a thing or two from you pros.

Just to start off here are some of mine,

These are my general formats, normally some rubber strands/legs for the tail material and either chenille or dubbing for the body, I make my own dubbing so I can get just about any color I want but green and pink are what I have been using mainly....I want to get some more colors of ultra chenille for the worm jigs though.

So lets see some jigs. :)

-Nathan

[DAVID L EITUTIS]

MAN THOSE ALL LOOK SUPER NATHAN !!!!!! ALL ya need now is a Chartuese micro chenille one and you are set ......Very clean simple work Nathan ....

[Jim Gronaw]

Very nice...I'll post some soon.

[dick tabbert]

Lookin good

[carl hendrix]

welcome to the bottomless pit of tying!! 

[Allen Morgan]

That's the truth!

[Nathan]

Haha thanks, I've been fly tying for a few years so I am well use to the pit. I also tie salmon and steelhead jigs. :P Not having a job what little money I get disappears before I even know it!! But I love to tie so I definitely don't regret learning.

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

I know how you feel. I've got a job - but no money.
My dogs disappear when they see me coming; it's the only way they can keep my fly tying mitts away from the hair on their tails.

[Allen Morgan]

Nathan, you have no idea of the can of worms you just opened!  However, I feel this is a good thing.

A couple 1/80th crappie jigs I did last year.  Crappie, Bluegill, and LMBs have fallen to these.

I had originally named this one a "spider jig", in reference to the North Country Spiders (a kind of soft hackle) from Britain, but our own Jeff Abney called it a "Mantis jig", and I like that name better.  This jig has caught Crappie and Bluegill, so far....

This is one of my "Heavy Heads", a tungsten bead-head fly, technically, but heavy enough to act as a jig.  It's a Peacock and Starling soft hackle fly pattern.  Once things warm up, I plan on giving this one a workout in deeper water.

[Nathan]

Nice jigs! My beads are also tungsten to get down quicker, I just started tying on leadheads though.

I've been using a trout magnet in natural worm color to catch 90% of my crappie since I started crappie fishing last summer, going to try and get some brown micro chenille to replicate a trout magnet like my little worm jigs. Just waiting on the water to warm up so I can get to testing!!!

[Nathan]

Heres a few I tied yesterday, just having fun and messing around with some new stuff.

[dick tabbert]

Nice Nathan there are endless ways to tie a jig which happens to be the way I fished for year and will never give it up completely.. Be working with the fly rod and flies this year somewhat but my heart belong to ultra lite and a jig. Maybe thats why I love my 2wt fly rod.

[Nathan]

Thanks Dick, all the patterns and color combinations drive me crazy! I think of a certain way to tie one, then I think of all the variations of that pattern...glow in dark, flash, changing up the colors...my mind is an unorganized fly and jig database. I too love jigs, last year was the first year I ever really fished jigs though. My first jig was a trout magnet, I honestly did not see potential in them, they looked good I just couldn't see them catching many fish, let alone trout. Well I used one one day after my meal worms were not working and caught a bunch of picky fish, then caught fish on them all summer. That was pretty much the only thing I used if I wasn't throwing flies. My heart belongs to fly fishing though, sometimes I will throw jigs on the fly rod but ultralight fly rods don't toss heavy flies very well. I started really tyng jigs last fall right about the time it got so cold that the fish went off the bite, this summer is going to be epic hopefully with the arsenal of jigs I have tied so far.