Heads
A few years ago there was no problem, we could buy any jig head in the tackle shop, provided, that it was spherical and ended with a hook, which broke on the catches. Currently, the choice is wider thanks to the availability of specialized hooks and cheap aluminum molds from the USA, in which American anglers cast their own heads and sinkers of various shapes.
Very generally, the following features can be distinguished among the heads, sometimes occurring simultaneously:
1. accelerated descent – a useful feature when fish are reluctant to bite and stay close to the bottom or in strong current - this is often the case during summer
2. slow descent – the lure is longer visible to the fish which is important in very cold water when their reactions are slowed down, when fishing in shallow places and, when they forage in the pelagic zone at a certain depth. This is how perch behind the shoals of smelt or big pikes behind the whitefish move
3. central balance – the lure drops almost parallel to the bottom
4. front balance – she dives her head down quickly
5. positioning on the bottom with the hook raised, for fishing in stagnant or running water with different hook lifting angles. Standing heads are often attacked even when they lie motionless on the bottom for a while, and in stagnant water! especially decorated with floating rubber bands or feathers
6. anti-snag jigs. Among the many systems, it is worth mentioning: a broom, system Y, wire covering the tip of the hook and securing it with a piece of soft plastic, sometimes forming an integral part of the bait. In order to limit the number of obstacles, you can also make rubber bands in a special way, i.e. by hiding the hook point inside the bait
7. round or barbed collar. The first is best for decorating with feathers and bristles, the second one protects the plastic bait better against slipping
8. the presence of an additional luring element – a blade from a spinner or rattle.
Plastic lures
There are many plastic lures on the market, they started with 6 basic models: grub, shad, frog, cancer, tuba, worm (see pictures).
Our anglers mainly fish with thick, shad and the frog (spring). It is related to lingering belief, that even when pulled completely evenly, a spinning lure should be very sharp, noticeable movement. Yes, it can and should be, if our activity during fishing was limited to winding the line. The jig method allows you to breathe life into the plastic, dead replicas of crayfish and other creatures, and completely fancy figments of the imagination, which are not found in nature – luckily, because fear would be to go into the water. Crayfish is the most popular food for predatory fish and larger quiet foraging throughout the year in many reservoirs, especially those inhabited en masse with the brindle species, resistant to pollution. The lure can be armed with a single hook – preferably self-winding and weighted with olive threaded on a line or put on the hook of a standing head.
Plastic imitation perfectly imitates a live cancer. After jumping and stopping, he unfolds the pliers and moves his legs. As I mentioned at the beginning, we let the bait lie down for a while, keeping the line slightly taut. Although it cannot be seen through the water layer, she lives", despite, that we are not pulling the line.
Soft plastic worms are enormously popular in many countries, ns are just gaining the market, accounting for a few percent compared to the sales of shad and coarse. Until recently, the reason was the lack of equivalent hooks and heads for arming them, as well as the lack of information and a certain distrust of anglers. Below I present the most popular ways of arming them.
The last method may raise doubts due to the large distance of the end of the lure from the hook and the possible possibility of the fish being pulled by the tail.. I think, that there is nothing to fear. Large fish absorb the entire worm very quickly and often attack it from the head. The worm is buoyant, so it stands upside down at the bottom, as if he was trying to screw into the bottom. The relatively small hook in this head is designed to be undetected by the fish while biting and sticking in when trying to spit it out.. I have seen many times how fish with a small mouth had large leeches in their stomachs, which swallowed easily. If we get rid of these fears, we can arm the worm with any head, for example, this one, which will absolutely not lie on its side, np. football jig. Fishing with a plastic worm is effective all year round, and most of all in the fall. A few words about tube jigs. The head weight is covered with a layer of rubber, so it does not scare the fish when they hit the rocky bottom.
It is a fast falling lure ideal for summer fishing. She became the prototype of many modern lures, I mean the so-called skinheads, or the heavily advertised "fiying lure". Special heads are used to arm the tubes, in case of difficulties in purchasing them, just wrap the shank of the jig hook with lead tape and the head is ready.
A separate area of baits for the jig method is represented by feather compositions, hair and other similar materials. They are baits for connoisseurs and I have deliberately left their discussion for the end.
