[Notaro]

Originally Posted by Saltheart

I'm just amazed that people don't know what the hey about eel skins. signs of a dying art in fishing.

When you skin them , you have to pull the skin down to just before the anal vent and stop. You then snip the little intestine attached at the inside of the skin. then you pull the rest of the skin off. If you pull the whole skin off without snipping the anal vent thingy , the skins rip from there down to the tail end or to whatever point the anal intestine string breaks.


You don't want the big rip in skins to be used on skin jigs with the hole in them or the style with the raised cowell that the skin is tied to. The water is supposed to flow throw the hole and puff up the skin. Some people do put a very small hole in the skins for the skin jigs cause they say a little draining out the tail causes it to be less filled out and the more slack skin wiggles better and that the water flows through it better. I think no hole or small hole is ok but a long rip do to not snipping the anal intestine when pulling the skin off is too much of a vent and the skin won't puff up on the skin jig.

Skin plugs usually need the much bigger diameter skins and they do not have water flowing through them and puffing up the skin. Therefore a tear or hole in the skin makes no difference when you use them on skin plugs.

When used on skin jigs , the intent is often to make them look like a bate fish with a side profile , that's why you want them to puff up. Skin jigs work well when the bass are feeding on herring because if you know how to tie them on right they look like a herring. The way to tie them on is to have the whole thing only about 5 to 7 inches long , like the baitfish. very few people know this and do it correctly. They all want it as long as possible. You want it very long on a skin plug cause its supposed to slither along like an eel or snake , etc. thats why the skin plugs usually have a metal lip like a danny swimmer , they need to wiggle. you want to retrieve them slow so its slow slithering wiggle , not fast like when the metal lip plug is swimming without the skin.On the jigs its can can be used like that but this time of year when the herring are around you want to rig skin jigs short and you want them puffed up with water.

So you are saying that I should used a skin that has a tear on the rear end and jigged it?