Cylinder Bites

[John McKean]

Prompted by a top soft plastic lure designer, and based on my own extensive experiments over the past three years, I've witnessed that hundreds of my best bluegills fell head-over-fins for a tiny CYLINDER placed on a small jighook's bend. I merely carve 1/4" high  "cans" from  rugged Fishbites (a very effective, popular saltwater oriented scent material) rounded minnow and shrimp bodies. During straight retreives these aromatic circular chunks, which apparently freshwater bluegills absolutely LOVE, acquire water pressure in such a manner that any light hair jig wobbles and swims much like a Rapala plug! Even during the drop , a  1/32 oz to 1/20 oz jig will slowly dive with an alluring side to side shimmy. Strikes,even on tough days, are most enthusiastic, with big 'gills zeroing in on the tasty,action creating cylinder!

[John McKean]

Yep, just right rigging to create wobble. Tho I'd suggest inverting the grub on those bottom two, so the thick end is on top. This works best with 1/32 to 1/24 oz jigheads and no 8 or 10 hooks ;for heavier jigheads a bigger dianeter "can" shape(crosscut section of a bass worm  or Fishbites swim body) is better.

[Kelly Peterson]

Thanks, inverting is not a problem. Those are 1/64 and 1/32 ounce jigs and the waxie is 1/2” long and about 1/8” diameter.

[Vince (Vinnie) Fusco]

I have used Fishbites (shrimp flavor) for several years now to catch Whiting in the 

gulf. They are very tough and stay on the hook real well. I can.t wait to try them on gills. 

[John McKean]

Vinnie, It was that toughness, as well as aroma (tho we humans can barely smell it), of Fishbites material, that really convinced me to cut cross sections (i really enjoy their Fightclub shrimp bodies, due to their roundness) of the swim lures they offer. I've found that bluegills go directly for these small, hand carved cylinders when attacking, and that's exactly where the hook point is nestled!

[carl hendrix]

YEA BUDDY;; I WOULD LIKE TO SEE A PIX OF THESE TO !!  NOT TO MENTION;; WHERE DO YOU GET YOURS FROM ??

[John McKean]

Hi Carl, Usually we freshwater fishermen have trouble locating the Fishbites products anywhere inland (tho this should change with their new "rind" product ,intro'd for our sweetwater jigs), so I order mine directly from their Florida location. My favorite for clipping the cylinders is their shrimp bodies -  https://fishbites.com/product/ffc-fightn-shrimp/   These  lures are round and tapered, so you can clip a nice bunch of varying sized cylinders from each lure, plus even the shrimp "legs" are good dressings for tiny jigs, as in the manner that Kelly shows in photos above!