I can't go fishing without using grubs, a curl tail or tube for most species and open water is not always where fish will be. Fishing stumps and heavier cover such as under tree limbs or submerged limbs requires a guard to prevent hang ups. Tried was a few wire weed guard designs and lost more fish than I would have liked, especially pan fish, so I discovered a design I tried out a few days ago and BAM! it worked even for small blue gills.
Tools:
wire cutters or
nail clippers(okay for fine wire)
30g wire
stainless steel wire pliers
ballhead jigs (I prefer 1/32 and 1/16 unless fish big and active 1/8 oz)
pipe (optional)
*Coated wire in the thicknesses shown I've used as a grub grip for over six years:
30g for small jigheads (1/32 oz);24g for jigs 1/16 oz and heavier
I don't know about you, but the barbs that come on jigs don't work and make a grub more apt to slide down after a dozen casts or a few fish. I know, "just use super glue", but that doesn't allow reuse of the lure. So, once upon a time I came up with the L-shaped wire
grub grip that's simple to apply to any jig and that allows more reuse of any soft plastic bait.
The
weed and stump guard takes less than 30 seconds to add to any size jig; the
grub grip a bit longer but both well worth it!
Note: the stainless steel wire only has to be wrapped once around the hook shaft and brought back through the line tie, cut to length shown and then bent at the ends.
Note: I add the grub grip after attaching the weed guard.
The coated wire I get from a craft store.
The AWG wire I get from EBay or Amazon.
