[Patrick]

You should be able to get Creek Chub Poppers at any tackleshop along the coast and almost any catalog. They are heavy so as soon as that sucker hits the water, start working it.

To pour your own jigs, you need a mold, forged jig hooks, bucktail, paint, thread and zap-a-gap (Krazy Glue or Zap Ca will work too)

The type of mold you need is one for tying bucktail jigs, not softplastic jig heads. Where the barb would be on a softplastic jig head, this has a groove where the thread will lie.

For making anything with lead, be careful. Lead is bad stuff. A good pair of welder's gloves or abestos gloves will protect your fingers. Hot lead is nothing to play with.
First coat the inside of the mold with baby powder. I don't know why but my dad has been making those lead figurines for years and he told me to do it so I did.

Close the mold. Pour the hot lead in. I recommend doing a few trys without a hook in there because when you pour hot lead into a cold mold(hey that rhymes), the lead will harden before it has a chance to fill the depths of the mold. Keep doing this until you get a full jig head. This means your mold is hot enough. Then remelt the trials. Put a hook in the jig molds, close the mold, pour the lead in, wait about 15 seconds, open the mold and drop the new jigs on newspaper. Keep making the jigs until you are satisfied. Take a look at your jigs. you might have a few rough edges, file the rough edges down or snap them off with a pair of pliers. Do this outside.

So now you have a bunch of unfinished jig heads. There are paints on the market that are made just for this. I think one brand is called Powder Tech or something like that. It is available through Cabelas. What you do is you take a lighter, heat up the jig head, dip it in the poweder. The granules melt and adhere to the lead. If you are making a white jig head thats fine. If you are making a different color, you want to put a primer coat on. Hang them up by the hooks. A piece of fishing line strung taut between two points makes a great drying rack. Then take a cookie sheet and line it with tinfoil. Spread the jigs out on the tinfoil and pop them in the oven. I don't know the temps or the duration offhand but the bottle should tell you. This hardens the paint so it won't chip so easy. Take them out and let them cool.

Next, a fly tying vice is handy. What you want to do is put the hook in the vice. This is very similiar to whipping the ends of a line or doing the wraps to a fishing rod. Take a piece of masking tape and tape the end of the line to the back the jig head. Then go to the far end of the groove and start wrapping over the tag end. Put some bucktail hair in and if you want to get fancy, some mylar flash. Work back over the bucktail towards the far end. Not too tight! Spread the hair evenly around. Tighten down the wraps and put a drop of glue down on it. Spread out the glue once it begins to dry. Now take a seperate piece of thread. Double this thread over so you have a "U". Put the connected side towards the jig head. Continue your wraps over the U. When you get to the end, cut the thread free from the spool. Feed it through the U. Take the two ends of the U that are hanging out and pull. This brings the the end underneath the top wrap. Put another drop of glue and as it drys, spread it out along the threads. Trim all the tag ends as well as any bucktail hairs coming out near the jig head. Take it out of the vice and you have a completed jig!

I know this is a lot of work. But you know exactly whats going into that jig. Too many companys are making these crappy jigs that will fall apart on you. Your bucktail will hold up. Lead is pretty inexpensive. I bought about 150lbs of finished sinkers for 12 bucks at a tag sale! And if you don't believe me when I say 150lbs, I'll let you lug the chest they reside in around for a while. I even found a few cool things in there, like a 20 oz sinker. I think there are a few more even bigger than that in there.

Give it a try and be careful. Make sure you wash your hands and all the stuff you used. Try to line everything with something you can throw out. Lead poisoning will kill your brain cells and if you plan to have kids or anymore kids, it might mess with your swimmers so be careful