Home made Fligs

[lifeshort]

Watched TubeDudes YouTube on flig making and decided to give it a go. Made up a handful and headed for the lake. Pats sure look a lot nicer than mine.  Maybe after a couple thousand mine will look nicer. 
Baited up 2 rods with mine and 2 rods with the real thing. Cats seemed to like them both. Ended up with 20. 3 over 30". About half were on my homemade ones. Thanks for the help Pat.
pics are the homemade ones 

[TubeDude]

Watched TubeDudes YouTube on flig making and decided to give it a go. Made up a handful and headed for the lake. Pats sure look a lot nicer than mine.  Maybe after a couple thousand mine will look nicer. 
Baited up 2 rods with mine and 2 rods with the real thing. Cats seemed to like them both. Ended up with 20. 3 over 30". About half were on my homemade ones. Thanks for the help Pat.
pics are the homemade ones 

Excellent.  If they look good to the fish it don't make no never mind how they look to the angler.  Far too many of the lures sold commercially do a better job of catching fishermen than catching fish.  The offer is always open if you wanna come up for a show and tell on some of the refinements of flig making.  Took me a lot of years and a lot of foam to refine my techniques.  But I'm always happy to help others shorten the learning curve.

[Kent]

Don, you did good.

[jjannie]

Watched TubeDudes YouTube on flig making and decided to give it a go. Made up a handful and headed for the lake. Pats sure look a lot nicer than mine.  Maybe after a couple thousand mine will look nicer. 
Baited up 2 rods with mine and 2 rods with the real thing. Cats seemed to like them both. Ended up with 20. 3 over 30". About half were on my homemade ones. Thanks for the help Pat.
pics are the homemade ones 

We have been experimenting with our own flig making mimicking TDs creations. Ours never look as professional as his but the fish won't really care if presented properly.   So nice job. It's always fun catching on your own creations nonetheless.

[TubeDude]

We have been experimenting with our own flig making mimicking TDs creations. Ours never look as professional as his but the fish won't really care if presented properly.   So nice job. It's always fun catching on your own creations nonetheless.

Right on all counts.  The double whammy for using fligs is 1. presenting your baits up off the bottom and 2. providing some color and/or metallic flash for attraction.  Those things help draw in the fish.  If you are using the right bait the deal is sealed and you go bendo.  On some days it doesn't seem to matter much which color you use, but on other days the fish will show a marked preference.  I think it has to do more with what they can see best under prevailing conditions of depth, light intensity, water clarity, etc.  

As I mention in some of my writeups on fligs, I was given a couple of samples on a water in Arizona and found them to catch walleyes with worms much better than regular jig heads.  So I started the long road of making my own.  That was over 30 years ago...and my first attempts were pretty ugly.  But, again, they floated my crawlers and minnows up off the bottom with a bit of color and I caught fish on them.  Have killed and dismembered lots of foam pads since then.

[jjannie]

We have been experimenting with our own flig making mimicking TDs creations. Ours never look as professional as his but the fish won't really care if presented properly.   So nice job. It's always fun catching on your own creations nonetheless.

Right on all counts.  The double whammy for using fligs is 1. presenting your baits up off the bottom and 2. providing some color and/or metallic flash for attraction.  Those things help draw in the fish.  If you are using the right bait the deal is sealed and you go bendo.  On some days it doesn't seem to matter much which color you use, but on other days the fish will show a marked preference.  I think it has to do more with what they can see best under prevailing conditions of depth, light intensity, water clarity, etc.  

As I mention in some of my writeups on fligs, I was given a couple of samples on a water in Arizona and found them to catch walleyes with worms much better than regular jig heads.  So I started the long road of making my own.  That was over 30 years ago...and my first attempts were pretty ugly.  But, again, they floated my crawlers and minnows up off the bottom with a bit of color and I caught fish on them.  Have killed and dismembered lots of foam pads since then.

There's still hope for me yet, LOL That's encouraging to know.

[tktmsa]

Nice! I too have made I've made 20-30 fligs of all colors and sizes. Pat is the man. Now, I have to get on the water somehow.

[mule_skinner45]

Are you guys trolling those behind bottom bouncers?

[jjannie]

Are you guys trolling those behind bottom bouncers?

Bottom bouncers do work, you can also use 3-way swivels and even trolling sinkers - we've used them all.

[TubeDude]

Are you guys trolling those behind bottom bouncers?

Lots of ways to rig and fish fligs...depending on the water you're fishing, the species you are after and whether you are fishing from shore or afloat.  Some folks even fish them like dry flies or poppers with a fly rod.  Here is a writeup on the subject.
  FISHING FLIGS.pdf (Size: 2.11 MB / Downloads: 13)

Also, a video I put together LINK TO VIDEO