"TUBERUNNERS"

[TubeDude]

[cool]I have been toying with the idea of making a "Roadrunner type of jig head for fishing larger tubes. Tightlines got me motivated to actually work out a model and make some up. I started with my tube jig mold, and hacksawed a groove in the mold to allow me to mold in a piece of wire, where it would not interfere with putting on the tubes. Here's a pic of what I came up with, and a step by step for making and using them.



Step 1. A 3" piece of .027 wire, with a small loop around the hook at the head. When lead flows around it, it is solid.

Step 2. This is how it comes out of the mold. Need to trim off the "sprue" and make a slow curve over the back of the head.

Step 3. Make a small loop in the wire, and attach a #10 crane swivel before making a wrap around the wire shaft and trimming. Note the size 0 split ring and a size 3 Colorado blade. You can use whatever you want.

Step 4. Fully assembled head. Insert point of hook just below top of plastic tube...about where you want the hook eye to protrude. Moisten the lead on the jig head (with good old spit. Don't lick it) Ease the jighead down into the plastic and make the point of the hook either go all the way to the bottom or wherever it needs to come out in the tube for a straight fit.

Step 5. Fit the top of the tube up over the top of the jig head, anoint with fish attractant...and/or a piece of bait...and drop it to the fishies.

These should work well for bottom bouncing and slow drifting without imparting much motion. Even the slightest movement from above will activate the flutter and flash of the blade. I suppose that they will also work well for "swimming" retrieves or even slow trolling.

I'm going to make up some for introduction to the local basses.
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[BEARCLAW]

TD,

You are "The Man"....[cool] You should seriously consider writing that book. I've learned more from your wellspoken posts than years of fishing could have brought. Thanks for your willingness to share.. I bet the cuts at Scofield would love these in a red shiner imitation. Keep em' coming.. BC
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[loanfish]

Here is a bait I beleive would be a real winner for Strawberry. I have had the most success with tubejigs on the berry and with the Tuberunners you just showed us I think that may be just what we need. Dressed up Tubes tipped with a bit of crawler I think could be a deadly bait.[] GEE Thanks again TD!
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[TubeDude]

[cool]Besides Largemouths, I also have plans to introduce them to smallies and wallies. And, ya know what? I'd be willing to bet a bent hook that a white tube and spinner would interest some wipers. And...in chartreuse or fire tiger tubes...maybe even a toothy critter from Pineview.

Ya know, I got to thinking that the Roadrunner head is kinda streamlined, and that maybe you could even work a tube up over the head, with the spinner protruding. I played with it and WOW. It works. Here's a pic.



1. Insert the hook point where you want the spinner swivel to stick out, and push the hook through until you reach the head.

2. Rotate the head around, to push the hook eye through the hole and leave the spinner outside. Moisten the lead and slide the plastic up over the head.

3. When the plastic is properly seated, you have a double whammy...tube jig and spinner.

(I SHOULDN'T BE STAYING HOME. I HAVE TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS.)

Thanks for the kind comments, BC.
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[cableguy]

T.D Great pics and instructions. I have been thinking about making my own lures for a while now and you are my inspiration. I think they could make a whole forum or archives on just your lure making instructions. I have been looking through a lot of the old posts to find some more pics of your lures. I Know the answers to any of my questions are probably in there somewhere. I just looked on the main forum index and was surprised that there was no forum on the whole site dedicated to lure making.

Thanks for all of your great info, Cableguy
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[TubeDude]

[cool]Ya know, it is kinda strange. There must be a jillion fly tiers, but I rarely encounter someone who pours their own jigs...much less makes spinners, carved wooden baits or does all the fancy painting. It's a lot of fun and it definitely helps you be able to show the fish something they haven't already seen ten times before your lure goes by them.

A lot of lures are made by manufacturers that only think they know what we want...or the fish want. We have to buy what they sell...or make our own.

BINGO
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[tightline]

TD, I think you have a couple of winners. I think both would add a unique look to those fish that have seen 1000 tubes jigged in front of them before. I am interested to see what they do with fish that seem to hold right to the bottom and ignore a regular tube but get spooked when I throw a huge spoon in front of them. This may be just the ticket. Enough vibration and flutter to turn them on but not scare them away as the big spoons and heavy metal sometimes do.
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[fishnpro40]

td. i havn't done much tube fishing, but i like the looks of these. give us a report on how they work.
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[TubeDude]

[cool]Hey, TL, the same thinking ran through my carload of crooked cogwheels. Much of the vertical fishing I do is working over those neutral or negative mode fish that won't move to chase a lure...or that get spooked by too big a lure with too much action. I fish little, low and slow.

With that in mind, I also have been playing around with incorporating mini tubes as trailers and/or bait substitutes on my baitbugs and roadrunners. Man, I have been using minitubes since they first came out in the late 70's, and if there is one confidence bait I use,(besides Roadrunners) minitubes would have to be up there. So, I thought "Why not combine the two?"

I have quanitities of just about every color mini tube ever made...and I custom color a lot of plain white,pearl, clear sparkle and smoke sparkle too. In fact, if anyone is interested, I can do a color pictorial on custom coloring plastics...using lure dyes, colored markers and even mixing colored plastics to produce different colors.

Here is a pic (attachment) of some of my favorite baitbug colors, with some of the colors and sizes of mini tubes I will be using. I have already played around with these (successfully) in the past, but I have some new ideas and I;m going to give them a serious "field testing".
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[TubeDude]

[cool]Hey, FP40...any relation to WD40? (Sorry)

Man, if you have never fished tubes, you gotta get on board. The little ones catch every kind of fish there is. The large ones are probably one of the best things to have in your tackle supply for both LMB and SMB, as well as a lot of other species.

The big mack specialists fish a lot of the giant size tubes deep, on heavy heads...with or without a piece of fish meat on them. For most bass fishing you will have the best success throwing a fairly light head, to allow a natural sink (fall), and watch for the line to twitch, since a lot of hits come before the lure touches down on the bottom.

You can cast them from shore, let them sink and then swim or hop them up the sloping bank. Or, if you are in a boat or float tube, you can cast into shore and lift and drop them down into deeper water. Once you find the "zone", you can cast parallel to the bank and use a variety of retrieves to stay on the fish.

Tubes are kinda "do nothing" lures. They don't have action tails like twisters and swim baits, but the wiggling strands of tail have a big appeal to the fishies. They can be worked to imitate crawdads, small fish or whatever else you think the fish are feeding on.\

Colors...that's the subject for a lot of discussion. As a general rule, use the different colors with greens, browns and oranges...with maybe some blue highlights...when simulating crawdads. Use white, clear sparkle, smoke sparkle or confetti (rainbow sparkle) to represent small fish.

If you really want to learn about tubes, try to get someone experienced to take you shopping for the right tubes and heads...and then go with them on the water to get a feel for how to present them. Once you get the hang of it, you will be amazed at how well they fish. But, like everything, if you try to learn it all on your own, it will take longer and you can easily develop some bad habits...like typing.
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[tightline]

TD,I think you are the only guy I know who tries more stuff than me. My mind just doesn't stop and I figure you'll never be more effective than anyone else unless you try something no one else is using or doing. Now if I could only figure out some secret weapon or presentation for the tight lipped Muskies at Pineview. I get lucky and hook up every once in a while but I know they have to be eating all the time and passing up my offerings. And I know there are others that are far more effective than myself. I guess I can be happy I have caught any at all. I know Hells and Xman have been going at it for a while with nothin. And by Xman's pics you know he is a fisherman.

tightline
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[TubeDude]

[cool]I wish I had a magic wand I could wave and make the muskies more cooperative. However, they are legendary for their finicky ways. I have taken regular muskies, but have never had the pleasure of introducing myself to the Pineview side of the family.

I don't claim to know anything as absolute truth, but I have heard from longtime muskie hunters that a big part of the reason they are not caught more often, by more fishermen, is that just DO NOT feed all the time. They are like big brown trout and other big fish. The eat infrequently, but when they do, they glut. It may take them a half hour to round up enough groceries to fill their gut, and then it may be another day or two before they forage again.

What does that mean to fishermen? If you are not exactly in the right place at the right time, you ain't gonna get bit. That's why the expression "It takes a thousand casts to catch a musky." You have to outlast them. Then, if you are good, and if you are lucky...and if you are good and lucky...you get a tussle with a tiger.

Now, that being said, I have seen one person take more than a dozen muskies in one day (not me). I have also seen first time fishermen hang a monster muskie on their first cast.

Within the last month, I received a PM from one of the regulars on BFT who drove two hours from his home, plunked his tube in the water and had a tiger on within fifteen minutes. A boater who had been fruitlessly flogging the water to a froth all day, and who had just left the area the fish came from, motored over and got downright obnoxious. He felt the float tuber had no right to catch the fish, and refused to use the float tuber's camera to take a picture of the fish before ir was released.

The boat fisherman may have been a nice guy. Might have even been a BFT member. Them fish will do that to ya. We just can't be responsible for our actions when under the spell of muskie mania.

One of the other things I have picked up from several sources is that those toothy critters are not exactly fair weather fish. Like walleyes and smallies, they seem to turn on when the wind kicks up or a rain squall is moving through. It seems to trigger the feeding mood. Many of the country's biggest recorded muskies have been taken during foul weather.

Yeah, I don't know all the answers, but I have sure learned a lot of the questions.
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