Bait mods

[OkobojiEagle]

Any of us who have fished for even a season or two have developed modifications to “improve” their favorite baits. Following are a few of mine and I hope others will share some of theirs.

Heddon Baby Torpedo… This bait works better for me as a single treble-hook bait. I remove the rear treble altogether and replace the front treble with a similarly sized kirbed treble hook. The rear hook hanger gets backed out ¼ turn to loosen the blade. To counter the bait’s body rotation caused by the spinning blade, I add one Storm suspend strip to the bait’s right rear quarter just below the horizontal mid point. After making these mods I tie the bait to my car antenna and let the blade spin during a 10 – 15 mile drive. Now this bait casts like a bullet, gurgles more freely without the body spinning and doesn’t foul nearly as easily.

3” & 4” curly tail grubs… Although I fish the softest grubs I’ve been able to find (Kalin’s & Berkley PowerBait), I want more action from the bait’s tail at slow speeds with light head weights. As a winter project, I thin the grub tails with an emory board until they hang considerably more limp than from the package. I don’t know if it is the increased limpness or the newly scuffed roughness of the tail’s surface, but after this mod my grub tails beat at noticeably slower speeds on lighter weight jig-head.

Texas rigged Brewer jig-heads… I carry a retractable Xacto blade in my tackle bag to cut a short slit along the top seam of grubs and worms I am Texas rigging on a Charlie Brewer Spider head. The slit is 1/3 – ½ the bait depth and extends from the hook point to hook bend. When I rig the bait I slightly skin hook the jig-hook point into either side of the slit. The entire hook point remains covered in the bait, the plastic hangs straighter and the point will pop out of the slit with less force needed.

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