San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

So I took another stab at making 1/4 oz bucktails.
The ones I made a year or so ago were uglier, but caught a few fish.
Here's the latest effort.
Ultra minnow heads (same as in my tube baits), black nickel hooks, epoxy power paint, sealed wraps with Hard as Nails clear polish, so these may hold up in the bay ('til they get snagged). Takeaways:
1. There's a reason that Amazon fly-tying vise only cost $7.
2. Not a project to start with an hour to kill before bedtime.

Now if the weather cooperates I might get a chance to use these next weekend.

Did you make the heads too?

Yeah. Here's way too much information....but in case someone wants to fool around making these, they can learn from my mistakes.

Do-It Ultra Minnow mold. Works for tube bait heads, bucktails, and with slight mods, a tailspin/underspin lure.

Epoxy powder paint. You can paint 'em with nail polish and it works fine for bucktails.....but epoxy is much better for tube baits. So I pour a pile of leadheads, do the epoxy paint thing, then I can use the finished leadheads for bucktails...inside ScorcherZ tubes...or with a grub or worm stuck right on the jighead.

Owner hooks are about 30 cents apiece. But the hooks don't bend if an enormous fish (or a pier piling) grabs on. I also use Mustad and Eagle Claw sickly hooks for some jigheads. The wire's a little thinner, but the hooks only cost six or eight cents apiece. If I was fishing just reefs, docks and riprap and losing a lot of lures, I'd go with the cheaper hooks.