Experiments with jig hooks

 

Since I’m still looking for flies that go deep without hooking anything at the bottom, these jig hooks are the perfect answer. You can tie almost every existing pattern on them, with the hook upwards.

If you read my blog regularly, then you know that I like to start with a deceiver pattern, to end up with something entirely different. So to find out what I could do with these hooks, it seemed like a good idea to start with some deceivers.

All these flies are about 9 cm long, tied on a Gamakatsu JIG 22, size 4/0. and they all have a (4,5 or 5 mm) tungsten bead inside the head.

Next to the usual material (feathers from a Chinese cock neck and bucktail), I’ve used Angel Hair in the tail as flash, and Steve Farrar’s SF Flash Blend over the bucktail.

Chartreuse and bleeding red under the chin. With some doll eyes and UV Clear Fly Finnish to fill up the space between them.

 

The same in yellow.

 

Here I’ve used a rabbit zonker strip for the tail instead of feathers.

Light and dark olive bucktail, with olive and wild olive SF Blend.

 

A classic redhead bunny.

I’ve tied some other things in between, which aren’t worth mentioning

(that’s experimenting).

But the pattern that I ended up with is this one.

 

Yellow rabbit zonker strip and yellow angel hair for the tail, and a brass wire dubbing brush with electric yellow SF Blend (cut into shape).

 

The same in orange (the SF Blend is orange, bleeding orange and hot orange).

 

And in olive (the SF Blend is olive and peacock).

I like this last pattern very much, so I will be tying more of these, and certainly on regular hooks without the bead as well.

The last four flies, I didn’t use doll eyes, but sequins and epoxy.

 

The last three flies I’ve attached some holographic eyes to the sequins first. That’s something I’ll do more often, because I kind of like the result with epoxy over it.

Since there aren’t that many colours in tungsten beads (not in Belgium anyway), I’ve been looking for a way to paint them. And this afternoon, I’ve found these colours of nail lacquer. Now, the cashier probably thinks I’m a drag queen in the weekends, but I really don’t care because I truly liked the look on her face.

 

And now I’ve got some foam to cut and some boxes to fill…