Hair Jigs

Well, it’s getting to be that time of year when I start thinking about tying up hair jigs for next year. I thought maybe some of you guys would like to share what your favorite colors are for hair jigs. Thanks SNAKEYES

Black, dark blue/thin white belly, kelly green, purple, med. purple (cranberry), burnt orange…. and chart. No particular order. If i had to get stuck with just one color… some shade of purple most likely.

I would second the motion on the darker colors and maybe throw a yellow hair on a black head into the mix.

Mine would be orange head lime green hair, Lime head and lime hair, or the one the sauger really like is white head with purple hair.

I really like the purples and blues. A dark green has gotten my attention over the last couple falls as well.

I have Jimmy D exprimenting with diffrerent colors and sizes of hair for me lately. I had some real good luck in October with some real long hair sparse hair, but as the water has cooled the shorter sparse hair seems to get the nod from my past results.

Well I would have to go with blk/blk,blk/purple,blk/green,in that order..but you always need to have some others to try..mix and match..brn/orange is good..head color/tail color.
Been waiting till my hat was back in style before I posted. I wore it all day Saturday so I suppose I can post again……Good luck with the Bucktails…

You’re always in style in book book buddy…lol

for me colors seem pool dependant…. I like DeeZees selection on pool 2…. and James on pool 4….

Not much to add except that it is amazing how a couple years ago so many different colors were being used up and down the river, and now most or all of the colors mentioned in the above posts, will work solidly from pool 14 to pool 2,and on the Wisconsin River , too. The only combo I would add and I might have missed it in one of the posts is purple/pink. Lawrence

That figures, leave it to a guy with the dead skunk on his head to give away my hot colors. Oh, thats not a skunk. Thought maybe it was as it “stinks” that the secrets out on colors. Back to reality, good to see you back on the board again Bud. You don’t have to wait until “hat season” to post though. Been catchin all them eyes since you moved full time to Wabasha?

Yea!! But I wasn’t going to say anything about pink/purple…..my fifth favorite

Hey, That pink will match the pink maxima line for jiggin. Good thinkin!

Thanks for all the replies guys. I never thought of using the dead skunk color!!! Seriously, I use a lot of these colors already, I am suprised that no one mentioned white though, winter and early spring, when the water is clear, white has been good for me, any one else use white during these times. SNAKEYES

SHHHHH! People might hear you. Yes it works too!

You guys are a hoot, all added up there are maybe 27 colors combos here!! Mine are mostly the darker colors but white has been a killer on the Rainy River for me in the past.

How many of you guys feel it’s important to paint the jig heads, I paint them, but I’m not certain that it always matters. What do you think? SNAKEYES

I’ll put it this way: I’ve been in the boat catchin fish and the guy next to me isn’t and hes using another color. On the other side of the coin, the guy next to me is catching fish and I’m not. Then I switch to his color of jig and bam, fish on. It happens alot, too often that I keep buying jigs, cranks, floaters, blades, ring worms, superdoos, Kalin Tails. You name it, fish want it, got to have it. Do lures catch fisherman? You bet. But lures also catch fish and I want to catch fish so, you know the rest of the story, buy lures.

hey snakeeyes…
I know we spoke of this some before… one thing I KNOW for SURE about fishing is that details make a difference… the trick is KNOWING what detail is going to make a difference… sometimes the fish dont care about head color, shape or weight… but sometimes they care about all of that… and even sometimes the seem to like to have eyes painted on them too….. Im with Bill on this… Ive seen it WAY to many times… when color makes ALL the difference.. and if you can crack the code for what they want on a given day you can really score…. or on a tough day you can at least catch a few….. Ive seen it time after time on every body of water Ive ever been on…..

I think the object of color on jig heads is to make them stand out against the background colors.

Grey (the color of an un-painted lead jig) is a color too. Grey on a grey bottom could be hard to detect. Grey on brown sand would be easy to see.

I think having eyes painted on jigs… or having a dark spot that looks like an eye… is more important than a jigs color. Ghost minnows and shad… other minnow forage have big eyes. It looks more natural for a bait to have eyes, and gives the illusion of a “head” end to the bait. Lots of gamefish try to eat minnows head first.

However, crayfish have little tiny eyes… I am sure the fish do not look for eyes on creyfish before striking. There, it is the body shape and color they key on. Color of a creyfish egg sack is black or grey… so, a Super Do dressed on an un-painted head could look quite natural.

I like gold-plated jig heads more than painted ones… they offer much more flash… remember to sharpen gold plated hooks!

Dave Hoggard

Hawger, I have a mold that makes a jig head for shad tails and I like putting eyes on these jig heads. The last few years I have been using the 3D stick on eyes and the have been working well. Of all the years that I have pondered jig and lure colors and what color to use, Ive never given background much thought, other than water depth, clarity and sunlight. That is a very interesting point. SNAKEYES

Does anyone have a gold paint that matches the high gloss gold on the factory jigs? I have not been able to find one that gets as bright, help from anyone appreciated.

I know what you mean, I have not found a high gloss gold paint either. The best I have come up with is the gold glitter thats added to the clear powder paint, but as far as a solid color no luck. Let me know what you find. SNAKEYES

Hey Hawger, you have just cleared my mind from a serious fog in one area. I have wondered for years why my yellow jig heads will work so well in summer on wing dams and clam beds, but not on my favorite sand flat…. the jig blends with the sand! I would never have thought of that! That’s why I keep coming back to this site. Learn something almost every time, and hopefully help someone else out from time to time also!

Colors work real funny in some waters… blue worms may just kill them in a lake…. and 20 miles away, blue does not work at all… funny.
This is what I have seen in clear water lakes….
gold plated jigs out perform all other colors,
even those with or without eyes.
In stained/dark water, glow in the dark (espically when used in the daytime) works best…
with gold as my second choice.
Though I fish mostly gold on all my live bait jigs, my thought for fishing plastics is much different.
I perfer black heads! Why?
A black jig head on a ringworm or Super Do tends to relate the black pupil of the “eye” or the “head end” of the bait. I think this dirrects the fish to strike the head end of the bait… just my thought.
Look at any color Super Do rigged on a black jig head.
Which end of the bait looks like it has a head?
Now, match the body color and jig head colors… Which is the head end?
What I want is for the Walleye to hit is the jig end… not the tail end. A black jig head looks like the eye!

I never use green heads in the spring & summer… too much grass out there that looks just like the jig. I like black for a jig color in weeds. I hardly ever use brown jigs in the fall… too many leaves floating and on the botton that are the same color. That kind of thing… I do not throw yellow or brown grub tails in the fall for the same reason…. yellow and brown leaves everywhere!
Dave Hoggard

Hawger, I like your methods for chosing colors, do you think the the same methods work on the river with more stained water? I know what you mean, often mix colors between jig heads and plastics, such as hot pink and green tails. Thanks SNAKEYES

I am not a “river-rat” … and have spent much less time on moving water. I do listen to what is said on EFN and learn from others here on EFN, who are in the know.

I do know color is just as important in curent…. because I have had James tell me that all is needed on a paticular day is the brown over orange Super Do… and I’ll have Sauger after Sauger on it! Why brown over orange…. and not lime green that day? When lime green worked so well days before there or in a different spot & depth? Color has to be important on the river too. Do river Walleye have the same amount of time to “eye” a bait as do lake fish? I do not think so. In most cases in moving water, baits move fast too.

On a jig bite when you see a guy constantly jigging his rod… up and letting it fall (as you see so often up by the dam) these fish can not be getting a real good look at the baits.

But with a ring worm or espically a super do presentation… I think they are getting to see the baits longer… and better. I “hover” my do’s just above the bottom… basically holding the bait perfectly still about three inches above the bottom. Oh, I’ll do down and “bump” to check where I am at in relation to the bottom, now and then. But not do the “get jiggy with it” movements.

On ringworms, I try to bump the bottom constantly… almost slide the worms along the bottom. I feel for the bottom with the jig. The jig is moving more horizontal… not so much up and down.

These two different methods would give more time for a jig & plastic to be “seen” in curent.

Forever, I have fished pink jig heads with white tails. This is from the luck I have had on crappies with that color combination.

Like they say, there are some combinations that just work well.

Dave Hoggard

Thanks for the reply I think there is a lot of good information there!!