Favorite artificials

[Nick Holt]

My name is Nick, and I just came across this group.  I pour my own plastic panfish baits, but also use only one commercial artificial.  Here's my list:

 

1.  Not a new idea, but a great one in my book.  It's a hand made plastic spider.  It's made from a 1 1/2 inch curl tail grub body (tail cut off at the juncture of the body),  then I thread colored spinner blade skirt material to make the legs.  I've been using them more than anything else.

 

2.  Black one inch curl-tail grub either slowly retrieved or jigged.

 

3.  Slow sinking black ant pattern when fly fishing.

 

4.  Joe Renosky's Keystone minnow in trout pattern.

 

5.  Small poppers for fly fishing.

[John Sheehan]

#1 Sounds like a great tip !Thanks Nick. Gills love rubber legs on poppers and foam so why not on grub bodies below the surface.In fact I tie spinner bait rubber onto small ice jigs and catch gills but never thought like you and fixed them to grubs.

[Don Lucas]

Wow sounds like a good idea, i'll have to try it. I also liked Johns idea of tying rubber to an ice jig. I am learning something everyday around here. The 'gills are in trouble!

[charlie flanders]

for an even more lively leg try using thread! black on light color body and bright color on dark body.

I also use rubber legs as antennas and tail spikes.

Five favorite lures:

Jigs: feather, plastic body and with "Power bait"

small spoons

small flatfish

flies

teardrop with "Powerbait"

 

the thing i like about fishing artificails is not have to worry about keeping bait fresh/alive. Berkley "Power grubs and maggots" are my goto bait and I tip most everything with them. just a half of one can mean the difference!

[David Dillman]

I usually fish with a 1/32 oz jig.  i always use plastics.

1. I use a assortment of curly tail grubs.

2. An assortment of charlie brewer 1 1/2 slider grubs.

3. Apex swim baits in 1 inch and 2 inch sizes.

4. Southern pro crappie stinger.

5. I just started using the Swedish pimple spoon with one of these plastics.

Dilly

I usually tip the hook with crappie nibbles or Gulp alive waxies.  Those are my favorites, fished finesse style.

[Jim Gronaw]

Right now, my preffered baits are the hair jig I tie called 'jig-a-bugs' and the slow-sinking plastic options I have rigged up with rubber skirted legs. Both imitate slow-falling aquatic insects and are fished with 2 pound line on micro-tackle. Above...1/64th oz jig-a-bugs.

Plastic options that are doing well now on pre-spawn, staging fish. I imagine my arsenal of favorites will change once the spawn is completed.

[Nick Holt]

Thanks for the response Jim.  The plastic bug you show in the second photo is on of my got to baits at just about any time of the year on my friend's 3 acre pond.  I first saw them on a You Tube video from a Kentuckey Afield video.  They work great.  I still stick with my hand injected curly tails, and when the gills snap the tails off, I turn the bodies into the bug.  Nick