Hey guys,
How many of you make your own jigs for walleye fishing? I fish a small river here in NW IA and usually hammer the walleyes in the spring and fall but I lose a ton of jigs in the snags. What would it cost to get set up with the molds, melting pot, paint, and all the other needs? I am thinking of just going with the mold that has cavities for 1/4 and 1/8 oz jigs. Good or bad decision?
Honestly… Its cheaper for most just to buy jigheads in bulk than it is to invest into equipment and supplies.
Absolute needs for efficient pouring is…
Bottom pour lead pot $70 +/-
Molds $30+
Hooks $50+/1000
Paint $30/pint $3/oz .. you need primer(white), and clear gloss at same cost besides your paint color(vinyl paint)
Jig hanging racks $20/hardware
You need a well ventilated area to work with lead and vinyl paint. A hood vent is a good idea unless you are making them outdoors.
Its stinky, toxic, time consuming, and expensive to make lures. Buying in bulk is very cheap if you do some research.. and they are ready to go fishing once in hand.
I would say it is worth it. It is a fun thing to do. If you can get the lead cheap, or free, it makes this real inexpensive. There are a lot of places to buy the components and at decent prices. Be careful, you might have 4-5 molds laying around before too long 
Austin,
Most molds will have a series of sizes ranging from an 1/8 to 3/8 oz. DoIt has a lot of different shapes but a ball head is a good all-around shape and will cost $30. A Lee melting pot is around $45. I question the need for paint but powder paint is around $5 a jar. Mustad and Eagle Claw hooks run around $6/100.
I used to make all my own jigs with custom paint jobs and the whole bit. Been down that road and it was a fun and time consuming winter hobby.
On the very negative side, it is a great way to fill your body with lead.
I have to agree very strongly with David Scott.
With the price and quality of jigs now a days, it just doesn’t pay to make your own anymore.
Boog
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On the very negative side, it is a great way to fill your body with lead.
… and nervous system damage along with cooking a few brain cells if you use the vinyl paint(even with proper equip). Vinyl paint is thinned Xylene and Xylol… very nasty stuff.
Powder paints are non toxic, but you still have to heat up the lead which has its own toxic values. For making any kind of bulk(not dipping on at a time into a jar) your looking at the high expense of the paint, fluid beds, and a whole new list of expenses. Powder is really the way to go.. but to make it efficient and user friendly, the proper equipment is ideal.
The name of the company that makes both the powder paint and vinyl is Component Systems. They carry anything you need for painting jigs with whatever method you choose.
Im not telling anyone not to pour their own jigs, or make their own tackle… but be very aware of the risk involved with dealing with toxins. If you frequently make tackle with the toxic products, you will eventually have enough exposure to have some type of long term effects(I learned hard way).
After you buy all the equipment, lead and paint you’ll never make up the investment costs in a reasonable amount of time with any savings you’ll see on making your own walleye jigs. Actually, my experience was the exact opposite… I actually ended up spending more per jig than if I had bought them in bulk. It is very easy to find good qualilty unpainted jigs in the 15 – 30 cent range depending on size, design and quality of hook used. If hooks are costing you 6 cents each and you invest $100 (low estimate in my opinion) to get the needed equipment you’ll need to pour and use up 1000 jigs before you recoup that first cent on your investment in equipment and materials assuming you’re able to save 10 cents a jig over buying them in bulk at 16 cents each.
At this point I think you need to take a look at how many jigs you actually go through in a season. How long would it take you to eat up 1000 jigs? 2 years? 3 years? I would bet most guys don’t go through 1000 jigs in 10 years.
And at that rate of return on investment, why even bother?
But… if you take enjoyment from making your own and catching fish on your home made jigs, well, who can put a price on that? If you’ve got time to burn and you either have the health issues taken care of OR don’t care about your health, go for it. 
I use to mold all my heads paint them and tie them in my younger days. But now that I lived this long, I just want to keep fish’n & hunt’n. Just to many health hazzards. I buy all my heads now.
Gundy 
The old saying “time is money”. Then I will ask you this how valuable is your time? making jigs of any style is very time consuming. I still poor and paint one style of jig only because I cant buy it( I call it the “yummy jig” because thats what walleyes and bass say when they see it) and when I do its only about once every ten years and when I do, I poor, paint and tie a butt load. This way I dont have to do it for a very long time..Pooring and painting jigs is not good for your health so must have the proper breathing stuff. If I need jig heads I just order them already poored and painted. Then, I take the time to hand tie and watch them come alive.
Is this really a huge health concern? What makes this so dangerous? The fumes from the lead? If you make them outdoors is this really as big of an issue?
As for the number of jigs I go through in a year? I fish a small river (little sioux) and usually fish it 50+ time a year. My dad, my brother, and occasionaly a gf or sister come along. It is quite common to lose anywhere from 3-5 jigs per person on a given trip. That equals out to 9-15 jigs per trip x 50 = 450-750 jigs per year. This is just on this river. Now that I figure this out it makes me not want to eat the fish in there!! Plus all of the other fishermen losing theirs!! 
So after figuring this out I would think that it would pay off in 2-3 years. This is not including when I go to the lakes or out to the Mighty MO.
The effects of the vinyl paint fumes can be horrible in short-term, the thinners are common with many of the thinners in aerosol type spray paints along with some other extremely nasty contents.
If your dipping one jig at a time from a small jar.. it will take a while, but you will eventually feel the effects. Mass dipping with larger quantities exposed will hit you faster, and 10 times harder. Without proper ventilation, or anything malfunctioning in your respirator equipment.. you will be *high* enough where you will actually have to think about breathing to do it properly after moving away from the chemicals.
Long term effect there is nervous system issues… Lack of feel(touch, impact, etc), amongst endless other possibilities of damaging your nerves.
Lead has its own list of issues which can be easily looked up on the internet… but dont stop at lead, be sure to look up Linotype poisoning, and any other common ingredient in *lead*. Most lead is nowhere near pure lead. It can poison you, cause health issues short and long term. One has to use great care if working with lead regularly. Common sense would say that one not exposed often for long periods of time shouldnt have the same ill effects of a person working with it regularly for years.
Most any chemical can be harmful. The amount of exposure makes a huge difference. Nobody thinks of gas fumes being bad because we only smell them while filling our gas tanks at the station… we would think of it differently if we were working at the refinery constantly exposed to higher than normal concentrations of the product.
As I said earlier.. I am not trying to scare anyone from making jigs… just be sure to use some extra precautions even if it seems excessive. A $50 respirator can go a long ways.
I pondered the thought a few times, I think I even have some hooks that I bought. Unless you have lots of free time, I don’t think it would be worth it.
My, Dad and I have made our custom jigs for as long as I cam remeber. Its a great hobby and is alot of fun you can make colors that you cant buy and sell them to your buddies. The cost in not that bad and if you look you can get real good deals on paint, lead molds and hooks. Between my Dad and I we carry over 1000, all year and can make any type of jig we can think of. I think you should go for it I sure am gald that my Dad tought me how to and I cant wait to pass it down to my kids
One of the biggest advantages of making your own jigs is to be able to put together the combination of hook size, head weight, and color you want AS NEEDED. This is especially important if you don’t have a store nearby with a decent selection of lures available.
If you decide to make your own jigs, I strongly suggest getting a mold with more than just the 1/8 and 1/4 oz. cavities – you’ll be glad later that you did. I’d also STAY AWAY from vinyl paint – that stuff’s nasty! Powdered paint is soooo much better to work with and doesn’t STINKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK like vinyl.
Dan
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One of the biggest advantages of making your own jigs is to be able to put together the combination of hook size, head weight, and color you want AS NEEDED.
If you decide to make your own jigs, I strongly suggest getting a mold with more than just the 1/8 and 1/4 oz. cavities – you’ll be glad later that you did. I’d also STAY AWAY from vinyl paint – that stuff’s nasty! Powdered paint is soooo much better to work with and doesn’t STINKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK like vinyl.
Dan
Very good points there: Dan 
I pour and sell them to the camp I work at. I sell approx. 5000 in a summer. The amount I make covers all my own jigs and I even make some extra cash on the side. I can pour 200 jigs an hour. Not counting my time if the jigs sell for 15cents a piece thats ??$30??? an hour (i think that is right, please correct me if I am wrong)….subtract the 2.5 cents/hook. Most lead in small amounts can come free or very cheap at that. Its a nice little way to fill in a bored evening or day off. I wear a thick containments mask and have a window beside my pot to keep the fumes out of my lungs. I do really enjoy doing it and am looking into making my own plastics sometime soon.
Where do you guys get your lead when you pour your own? Do you have to get “good” lead or can you just use old tire weights or the flashing from around chimneys? It seems to me that if I pour them outside and use the powder paint there shouldn’t be much of a health concern. If the concern is simply about handling the lead then why do we use them? I figure if I can get the pot and a mold for 60 bucks (used) I would come out ahead relatively soon. I usually just buy my jigs at Wal-mart for the river and they are $3/ 8 pack so I think it would be a good investment.
You say I should get the mold with more than the 1/4 and 1/8 ounce cavities but to me that just seems like it would be an incredible amount of work to make a 100 of them. You would have to do it 100 times; whereas if you had the 2 cavities you could cut that by 1/4.
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Where do you guys get your lead when you pour your own? Do you have to get “good” lead or can you just use old tire weights or the flashing from around chimneys? It seems to me that if I pour them outside and use the powder paint there shouldn’t be much of a health concern. If the concern is simply about handling the lead then why do we use them? I figure if I can get the pot and a mold for 60 bucks (used) I would come out ahead relatively soon. I usually just buy my jigs at Wal-mart for the river and they are $3/ 8 pack so I think it would be a good investment.
You say I should get the mold with more than the 1/4 and 1/8 ounce cavities but to me that just seems like it would be an incredible amount of work to make a 100 of them. You would have to do it 100 times; whereas if you had the 2 cavities you could cut that by 1/4.
Tire weights and flashing will both work – just don’t use too many tire weights at a time because they are harder lead and it won’t pour as well. You can also buy lead from scrap yards – be sure to get lead that’s “soft” (softer than wheel weights should be fine.)
I use a ladle to melt the lead for my lure making instead of a pot. It cost less and if you are going to use scrap lead I understand that the pots tend to plug up or drip from the slag, dirt, etc.
As to jig size, while 1/8 and 1/4 oz jigs are what you use the most now, heavier and lighter jigs also have a lot of applications – 1/32 to 1/16 for panfishing, 3/8 and heavier for faster current, etc. You’d also probably like a mold that has a 3/16 oz. size for times that 1/8 is too light and 1/4 oz. are too heavy. The molds with multiple cavities that are the same size, are used by commercial pourers that make THOUSANDS of jigs. With a little practice you will be able to pour several hundred jigs an hour with a mold that has one cavity for each size – even if you are pouring only one or two sizes at a time. Just my opinion as to mold size, but as you fish a broader varity of patterns that require other jig sizes you’ll end up buying another mold that has more sizes.
Good luck.
Dan
I use a 1/4oz barbed round head jig mold with 6 cavities. If you are using a top pour pot be sure to use cleaned lead and also continuously scoop the top gunk off the lead while it sits in the pot.
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