Tailbait Fever

I think I might have a bad case of 'Tailbait Fever!

..and my shoal of BBZs..

Spent an hour this afternoon making some solid stainless steel traces using 1mm 316 welding rods and Bucher split rings from Chico. Flexible wire and FC can be prone to part when driving a trolled lure into the Earth's crust beneath Windermere! I reckon these are about as bullet proof a trace as can made. Phil Blakey uses these all the time casting from the bank and the many big pike he catches don't seem to mind. Small loop for tying the braid to and a larger one to fit the split ring and I added a little epoxy to smooth out the twist after I took the pics.

Nearly ready for the river season and a few LAS boat events!

Dressed to Kill

Finally finished my urban camo spro/tailbait hybrid. Spent the morning working on the boat so I'm hoping to use these new lures on some Lakeland pike later in the week!

Barry Robinson Custom Lures

Look what the postie brought me today! - one of Barry Robinsons gorgeous custom lures - a jacktail in his fantastic black and white livery - absolutely over the moon with this and can't wait to show itto my river pike! Cheers Baz!

Tips On Rigging the Fiiish Black Minnow

After comments that they can be fiddly to rig I thought I'd pass on a few tips for easy rigging!

Apologies for the out of focus shots - it was a rush job

Treat the hanger as a 90 degree bend and push in through the ready made hole...

..it looks like this...

..gently pushing towards the tail rotate through 90 degrees until the hanger appears through the belly slit..

... offer the hook up like this... 

...and slide it round until itsits in the 'u' shaped part of the hanger..

..open the belly slit slightly and tuck the top of the hanger underneath..

..and keep rotating until the head is the right way up..

..bend the body so that you can put the hook point straight through the body..

.. it can be fished with the hook point exposed in less weedy or snaggy swims..

..or truly weedless with the hook point nipped into the skin of the body

Tie on, cast into water .....hang on!!!!

Shallow Fiiish

As some of you may know I've had more than a fair bit of success on the Fiiish, taking perch, pike, chub, trout, salmon and even a 9lb plus barbel on them. I've been waiting for these to become available for a while now and finally got some today - the shallow 6g heads for the 120mm Fiiish Black Minnow bodies. The 12g heads are just too heavy for most of my waters and I'm looking forward to being able to use the in shallow water more easily. The pike won't know what's hit them!
Thanks to Andrew at 'The Pike Shop' for getting them to me so quickly after getting stock in!

http://www.thepikeshop.co.uk/

Slip Sliding Away

One of my all time faves gets the camo treatment - a sinking Salmo Slider.

Tigger

Starting to get some lures ready to fish for the river opening and some of the LAS summer events.
This is a spro swimbait with a tail added. I think I prefer the urban camo colour scheme but wanted to try the same technique in other colours!