Plastics or Feathers

Which jigs do you prefer? Plastic or feathers? Why? Does it change with the season and what weight jig head?

Personally, I only use plastics during the spawn but that's only due to the type of cover I fish and losing hand tied jigs hurts much more (the pocket book) than losing plastics. You have to have some Thump Buddies from Constant Pursuit Outfitters for those spring slabs!!! I have found that feathers with have much better action in colder water as well. Plastic tends to lose some pliability in cold water in my opinion. I use 1/16th in almost every situation that I can get away with it. The main exceptios are when fishing deeper water (20 feet plus) or fishing in windy conditions. The main thing with weight for me is that I want to maintain constant contact with my jig....I want to "feel" what my jig is doing.
For most fishermen, the plastic vs. feather debate will usually boil down to confidence. You'll usually catch more fish if you're confident in what you are using. Hope that helps a little.

Hand ties year around but don't just use feathers. Lots of other colorful unique materials out there these days that add to presentation, size and color to give some unique offerings. Don't just look at traditional fishing tackle companies either-might be surprised at what you find at a local arts and crafts shop!

Hand tied most of the time but I tie my own. I do use plastics shooting docks .

Winter: feathers and plastics. Spring-Early Summer: Plastics. Deep Summer: feathers. Fall: plastics.

When I buy feather jigs, they are from Slab Syndicate. My plastics come from Constant Pursuit Outfitters.

Question for those who tie their own jigs ~~ Do you ever make a jig with a bit of a a feathered "head" and then use a plastic "tail"?

Sort of like something like this picture at the head and leave the back side bare.

This is exactly right in my opinion.

Never had issue with just using plastics all year. Simply a price thing.

With plastics you have a huge variety of lure designs and actions. Do they catch more fish than maribou or fur? Probably not depending
on how the lure is worked and where. But the nicest thing about plastics personally is discovering new designs when I can't fish (like now
with temperatures near zero where I live.) This includes pouring plastic into a mold, experimenting with different colors, cutting parts off one
lure an fusing it to another using a candle flame and taking a commercially made lure and modifying it with a razor blade IE shortening it or changing
its shape for catching panfish. Here are examples - many which have been posted by me on this forum:

Here I added a spike tail to a grub that used to have a curly tail:


In both examples I fused the parts of two lures together and wacky rigged using a 1/16 oz. jig head:
Slider worm tails:


Rigged on a jig head the usual way:


Grub bodies:


I took a claw off a bass lure and fused it to a grub body:

Dang if it didn't catch sunfish, bass and a catfish - all in the same outing!

Another claw hybrid example that worked:

As you can see, colors were varied and all caught fish.

Who says lures have to be small to catch panfish:

In the above example a Kut Tail worm was used with a 1/32 oz jig and also caught bass in shallow water.

Do yourself a favor and modify a curl tail grub this way:

The modified tail is far better with slow retrieves or beneath a float.

A few more ideas:


Now when it comes to lure size and jig weight, it depends on how large the fish are in a lake. Big fish - big lures and 1/8 oz jigs; medium size fish - smaller lures on 1/32-1/16 oz jigs. But nothing is set in stone as you saw with the Kut Tail worm and sunfish. Any of the above will catch fish and in many colors any day, small diameter braid with a 6# test fluorocarbon leader helps with lure action and strike sensitivity. Other lures I swear by: Crappie Magnet grubs, 2" tubes, Slider Worms, 2" - 2.5" finesse worm tail cut off a worm, Joker Grubs, Bobby Garland plastics.

One thing to always remember: fish light lures slow shallow or deep!

Both. There are times and places when one does better than the other. Feathers tend to get a better bite when it is tough. Usually in the dog days of summer and winter or early spring. When the fish are active and biting plastics are good to use.

I tie my own jigs, and have hundreds from jig swaps, but find myself using plastics most often.
If I want to change color, all I have to do is slip old off and new on.