Here’s how to make your own durable jigs with a wide range of color options, and the durability to stand up to the teeth of bluefish and doormat fluke.
Adding silicone skirts to a jig head is a great way to put a new spin on a classic lure. Although tying hair on jigs is effective, it is also time consuming and messy. Toothy fish like bluefish and fluke can shred up a bucktail pretty quickly. Silicone skirts are more durable, customizable, and the actions they give a jig is unmatched. Traditionally used for large/smallmouth bass jigs, silicone skirts can be added to any jig head and are deadly for big fluke (especially when tipped with a strip bait), sea bass and stripers. They can be tied on small jigs as light as 1/8 ounce, fished as a chicken rig or on jigs as large as 6 ounces. There are hundreds of different color combinations of silicon tabs that you can purchase online, which gives your finished product millions of possibilities. This also allows you to match the colors of the baitfish in the area you are fishing or the many different color Gulp grub options. Some retailers sell premade skirts that can be slid over the collar of the jig. Although they are great for convenience, they are only held on by a rubber band and are not very durable. Color combinations are also very limited in the premade skirts and they are a lot more expensive. The silicon tabs are sold in tabs of 100 and the price point is drastically cheaper. With a few basic tools, some silicon skirt tabs, and some painted jig heads you’ll be well on your way to stocking up for the coming season.
These are the materials and tools you will need to start making silicon skirted jigs.Start out with your painted jigs and add some eyes if you want. These painted jigs can be purchased online for a reasonable price or you can make your own.For each jig you will need four silicon skirt tabs and one piece of stainless steel wire around 5 inches long (I use trolling wire used for striped bass.).When using multiple colors, stack the different color tabs on top of each other to get a uniform look. You can experiment with how any tabs to use to get a lighter or fuller skirt. After your tabs are stacked stick the hook through the center of the tab place in the collar section.Slide your wire underneath the tabs. Make sure you leave more of the tab towards the front of the jig head and less towards the hook end. Loosely wrap the wire around the silicone tabs and collar two or three times. Make these wraps tight enough to hold the tabs close but loose enough so you can still adjust them. Evenly spread the tabs around the jig, making sure that you have more of the tab towards the head of the jig.With the tabs evenly spread out and positioned correctly, get your needle nose pliers and grab both ends of the wire. Pull tight on both of them to synch the wire and tighten it to the collar, locking the tabs in place.With your needle nose pliers, grab both ends of the synched wire and twist them multiple times to complete the synch. If your twist is too long you can cut it down or just bend it over. The only thing left to do is to cut the tab ends of your skirt to complete the jig.
A few of the many color combinations of jig skirts you can create with silicone tabs.
