Every once in a while I like to hang on my jig what I cut my plastics teeth on…a tube. I have a box with some of the very first tubes I ordered still in thier original wrappers and its fun to step back in time and see how the measure up to today’s tackle. Generally the plastic used today makes the old stuff act that way, but they’ll still catch fish. More than anything for me its the colors that I can cook up that even today’s packaged baits can’t compare to. Tube molds are not easy to find and can be expensive, so I made up some mandrils out of stainless steel rod and began to dip some tubes for myself. Here’s one next to a penny for size comparison.
The purple glitter ahead of chartreuse has been one of my pet colors for years and some of those original tubes I have are in that color combination but the new plastic has action in the tails that the old can’t come close to and it allows for a serious amount of stretch, completely unlike the old plastics.
The tube shown is 1.25″ in length and slightly larger in the body diameter. The core is just a hair larger too and the one shown has a standard 1/32 head slipped in ane the eye of the jig just pushed thru the body wall. The 1.25″ size makes this a nice compact size of bait for the fall fishing that’s coming up, especially around pilings and sunken wood. I’ll have a report on the success of this tube soon.
They’re pretty easy to make once you create a mandril to dip. I have some 16 penny nails with the ends blunted and the shanks polished that work as well as the stainless rods I made. Once the color is on the rod you can trim to any length you want. This 1.25″ tube is bulkier thru the body than a standard tube and much bulkier than those little 1″ tubes. I’m thinking this is about a perfect size.
