my first tins...

[Diggin Jiggin]

Ok, these are a little rough but for my first try I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out.

Last year I started jigging tins for the first time in the canal and I had a lot of hits, but I was missing most of them when I tried to set the hook. Since the fish always seem to hit right after you drop the tin, I started to think the swinging hooks were folding up as I dropped the tin and thats why I missed so many fish. I tried to find tins with fixed hooks, but wasn't able to...

The other problem I was having is that I happened to find a spot that was holding fish as the tide died. I needed to cast 3 or 4 oz to reach them but as the tide died the current was too weak to move the 3 & 4 oz crippled herrings.

So hopefully these are what I am looking for... These are based on a just a plain flat tin. I wanted a flat tin with wings so that I could lift it and move it easy in a light current. I made the mold out of bondo and it came out kind of rough, but it was my first one.. lots to learn with this stuff.

Anyways, when the bondo dried I took a ball rasp and sandpaper and added a lot of depth to the tail so that it would be very tail heavy and drop to the bottom quickly.

I set up the mold so I could attach a wire line tie underneath or up in front so that I can experiment with the tie position. I was thinking with the tie underneath when it hit bottom the hook would always be pointed up so maybe I'd hang up less. These two have the tie underneath.

Ok, now for a couple of questions.

When I tried the first time, I poured the tin into the open mold (no top), and when it had hardened it was brittle and I was able to snap it in half. I guessed that with top open perhaps the top cooled too fast compared to the bottom, so I put a piece of wood over the mold and poured through a hole I drilled in the wood and when those came out they seemed fine (ie not brittle). Does that make sense ?

Ok, next question, is there a better source of tin than buying it as solder?