Recently acquired an assortment of nice plumage, peacock feathers being my favorite as they hold their paddle shape around the "eye" in the water. I have been going a bit overboard dressing my siwash hooks... was wondering when a hook should be dressed, and when it should be left alone... I dont dress darters, but have put them on needles, redfins, metal lips... Im afraid I might kill the action on some...

SIDE THOUGHT: always wondered why sea grass trailing your lure means no fish, but a nice long black feather = fish...

sparse dress a swimmer Ivan and put a bit more on needles. Pencils I'd leave undressed trebles. Feathers will have more action but will not be as durable as bucktail.

And yea I've said the same thing about eelgrass too.

Dress everything but pencil poppers and darters.

I go against the grain a bit and dress some pencils as well. Sparsely tied so it doesnt effect the cast. Everything else besides spooks gets some bling. Hell even one spook has a very sparsely tied red bucktail siwash and the fish love it.

I dress all my siwash, none of my trebles. A nice set of white hackles on the back of a squid darter looks sweet. Same on pencil poppers. A nice dressed tail is almost always on my pencils. To each his own. :uhuh:

I like a big barbless single owner( sharpened to scratch glass ) with sparse grey hair on pencils. Keeping the mid treble. Doesn't miss much. The action is fine

If you dress a hook right it will outfish one undressed everytime. Try this recipe and see. Take a hook tie white bucktail with enough hair so it goes all the way around the hook. take chartruse krystal flash. cut off 4 full length peices and double over the thread and tie on the hook with 4 to 5 wraps. Repeat with 4 strands of holographic flashabou-silver base. Then tie a back with chartruse bucktail.Oh by the way use chartruse thread.Use duro super glue as it will hold best in the salt instead of head cement.When you tie them try to keep them proportional to the lure. If your entering a casting tournement worry about how far you can cast with a plug. You wanna catch fish dress the plug to do so.The canal and a few other places may need a long cast but most times your casting over the big fish right at your feet. Try it and see. Even some darters work better with a tail.But experiment or ourself. Ron