Some Thoughts on Hair Jigs.

Here are a few thoughts I have about tying up your own hair jigs. Please understand, this is how I do it. There is more than one way to skin a cat and there are certainly other ways to tie up hair jigs. Perhaps somebody will find these ideas to be useful.

Not all bucktail is created the same. The hairs closer to the end or tip of the tail are longer, thinner, and easier to work with. The hair near the base of the tail or closer to the body are shorter and thicker and most importantly tend to flare up when you tie them down to the jig. There is a lot of variation from one bucktail to thee next, so if you’re standing there looking at the display, look for thin crinkly looking hair. When you clip off a section of bucktail you end up with long hairs, short hairs, and a lot of fuzz. I clean out the shorts and fuzz before tying it down, as that stuff just adds bulk and makes it harder to tie it all down securely. Grab the hair near the tips, and use a comb or alternatively just flick it with your fingers to knock all that extra stuff out of the clump. Then square up it up with your scissors.

It’s worth buying a thread bobbin. It makes it much easier to control what you’re doing and apply constant tension.

Threads are designed for specific purposes. Fly tying thread is designed to do just that, and some of them are made for tying down something that requires lots of tension. I prefer to use G.S.P. or “Gel Spun”. It’s thin and very strong so you can really clamp down on the hair. Thick thread gets bulky and doesn’t work as well as you’d hope.

I like to add a little flash to jigs that are destined to be used in the murky waters of the Mississippi. I tie in some hair on the bottom side of the jig. Then take two or three pieces of Flashabou that are full length and tie the middle in on one side of the jig, move the rest of the Flashabou over to the other side of the jig, and wrap that down too. Then trim it to length. When you tie it it this way, it will never pull out. Then tie in the rest of the hair.

Finally I use a lot of glue. You can buy “Head Cement” wherever they sell fly tying materials. Or you can use finger nail polish. Cheap, readily available, works great. The current favorite is Sally Hansen’s “Hard as Nails”. Soak it up into the hair and the thread both.

I hope that helps!

SR

That describes my process all the way down to the Sally Hansen!!

Same goes for tying walleye flies.

I run 210 sized thread.

Am almost always trimming the length of buck before tying also, but I do make variety of long to short hair jigs for flavor of the day varieties. My buck is all Magnum sized tails so that’s probably why I’m so often cutting them down… originally bought them for musky baits, tying to springs to slip over wire for bucktail spinners.

I probably tied 100 flies in the past two weeks.

Great write up Steve

Thanks Steve, this is a really great post. Question for you, Andy, anyone with tying experience – do you have any recs for vices + bobbins? There’s a pretty big variance in prices for tying equipment and I’m mostly curious of things to look for and/or avoid when shopping.

Zooks, you can get a decent Bobbin at Cabela’s for $5 to $10. It’s a simple device but very handy. You can do a lot of tying with a regular bench vise, I did that when I was younger. The problem with inexpensive fly tying vises is that most fly tying is geared towards trout flies, which are tiny. Walleye jigs are much bigger and harder to hang on to. A fly tying vise that is strong enough to hold a jig will set you back $150 or more. I have a Regal and it’s a tank, but it’s over kill. Check your PM’s.

SR