Still amazed at what fish strike!

[SenkoSam]

Uncle Josh had a pork rind trailer that worked 30 years ago when I first added it to a skirted jig. What I didn't know then was that fish strike primarily because of some particular action produced by a lure as it moves and not always the lure as a whole. I'm not sure I even suspected what it was about the jig trailer that made bass strike, but it must have to do with something beyond the jig skirt motion. But as I was looking through my supply of trailers I noticed this semi-resembler of the pork frog trailer (not that there is any resemblance to a frog or any other animal):


Copy of the original pork frog in plaster so I could pour my own in plastic:


Lunker City produced the plastic trailer in three sizes and when rigged on a skirted jig caught bass as well as pork. But this year I rigged it on a light ball head jig - no skirt - and watched it in the water. As with the pork-rind frog the thin tails fluttered just a good. So I figured why not attach it to a light jig and see what it might catch. It did well and for different fish species:


As usual, I found that swimming the jig horizontal to the bottom covered more areas where fish might be hanging out, but fishing it on the bottom like a skirted jig & trailer, it also caught bass (right photo). After all these many years using this jig trailer with skirted jig I never figured the design would work by itself. 

[wiperhunter2]

Must be the action of the fluttering tail that does the trick, correct?

[SenkoSam]

Most definitely the flutter/flag-like flapping of the tails. The body is shaped weird which maybe adds to the action but also provides a good target. I never would have imagined a sunfish would have attacked this lure if I hadn't seen it!