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bucktails at night

25K views 37 replies 21 participants last post by  rjcappy 
#1 ·
preferred colors?-----


same as lures?(dark)"blurple"----or are white acceptable??--thanks in advance---
 
#5 ·
yea yea, white/black/ whatever.
it won;t do ya any good if ya don;t present them right. \
painted with pearl sparkle body w/white polar bear and a thin sliced 4in red and white porkie.
the bucktail is imo way too heavy with the whole rind so i slice the rind laterally and make a new tail ala doc muller/ the polar bear substitute lends less bulk and more visisbility and movement. funny thing is in "the fisherman" there is a muller article where this technique with the pork rind is shown. he states the thinner rind makes the sucker wiggle more. i agree. my articulated fly's have all these bucktail characteristics while hopping off the bottom. i like the pearl sparkle with a thin lateral silver/gold sparkle line painted down the side. i will make some and post a pic.



 
#6 ·
yea yea, white/black/ whatever.
it won;t do ya any good if ya don;t present them right.
painted with pearl sparkle body w/white polar bear and a thin sliced 4in red and white porkie.
the bucktail is imo way too heavy with the whole rind so i slice the rind laterally and make a new tail ala doc muller/ the polar bear substitute lends less bulk and more visisbility and movement. funny thing is in "the fisherman" there is a muller article where this technique with the pork rind is shown. he states the thinner rind makes the sucker wiggle more. i agree. my articulated fly's have all these bucktail characteristics while hopping off the bottom. i like the pearl sparkle with a thin lateral silver/gold sparkle line painted down the side. i will make some and post a pic.
zim do you have a photo of your ideal bucktail setup?
 
#7 ·
Depends on the bait and the conditions

When peanut bunker are the bait I like brown. Light brown on bright nights, darker brown on darker nights
spearing and sand eels, white - so most of the time we fish white as that tends to be the predominate bait at night in my area.
Herring, blue and white.
Pitch black, so dark can't see your hand in front of you, black or burple (no matter what the bait)
 
#11 ·
An old sharpy (Tony Spina who used to own Lex Lures before selling to Scotty) used to say "Any color is fine so long as it's white"

Personally I don't entirely agree with that but it does go to show that you can get away with white at all times.
 
#12 ·
I have heard that white is the much more preferred color not only in this forum but also in books I have read on the subject. Also, sometimes attaching a teaser strip of pork rind seems to be liked.

There is also the school of thought that when night fishing use dark lures if it's dark and lighter colors if it's lighter because you want the lure to be seen but even if it is seen but not presented properly you may not get a hit. So presentation has to imitate an injured bait fish. I also believe yellow could be very effective as it's a color that can usually be seen in any light
 
#15 ·
I know its a little off topic guys and i've been looking around a bit here... Im going to buy a rod today for bucktailing inlets in heavy current. I cant spend more than $175. Any good suggestions on the brand and action of the rod. I may occasionally throw up to 4. oz. Thanks in advance.
 
#17 ·
Just to add something for the heck of it.
This from a montauk guru
First light yellow bucktails, daylight white bucktails.
(Yellow - white pork rind, white - red pork rind.)
 
#22 ·
Another great item to use on a bucktail is a grub. I used to use Kalins(I think that was the brand) Mogambo Grub. You can cut it down if you like it smaller. These grubs are large like around 6" long, and I had read a great article a while back with info from a Striper guide and fishing with these.

This is the grub, also sold by Uncle Josh
http://www.unclejosh.com/kalinlures/modules/cart/navigate.php/nav_id/81

Here is the article, hope you enjoy it-It's for freshwater stripers but I think much info follows through for saltys
Bucking the Trend
Making buck-tail jigs a part of your freshwater striper arsenal
By: Don Wirth

It had rained hard the night before my striper trip-too hard, I worried as I drove to the river at 4 a.m. Stripers have this thing about muddy water; they avoid it like I avoided the greasy ribs in that funky restaurant in town the night before. If the river looked like a chocolate shake once I got there, my odds of tangling with a huge landlocked striper were worse than my chances of winning the lottery.
Daylight broke just as I hit the water and I could see muddy runoff spilling out of the ditches and creeks. I knew I had to fish ahead of the advancing mudline, so I pulled up to a shallow gravel bar, shut off my outboard and picked up one of my 71⁄2-foot saltwater rods. It had a white 1-ounce bucktail jig on the business end, tipped with a matching curlytail grub.
I made a long cast toward the shallow end of the point and began a slow swimming retrieve. Then I heard it: the distinctive dull, percussive thud of a monster striper busting gizzard shad on the surface; a sound a grizzled striper guide I know likened to a hand grenade going off in a bucket of tar. I instinctively turned and shot the bucktail toward the rolling wake that the big fish had left behind. This time I sped up my retrieve, alternately ripping the bait and letting it fall. On the third rip, the striper connected and nearly jerked the rod from my grasp when it took off for deeper water.
I've caught plenty of big stripers, but this one was bigger than any I'd ever tangled with. Sixty pounds? Easy. Seventy? Maybe. I slammed back the rod, repeatedly setting the hook, and each time the striper reacted with furious head-shakes and surges. Its tail broke the surface, sending gallons of water skyward. This was a big, bad dude.
After another few minutes of give and take, the striper rose to just below the surface, finning frantically and obviously tiring. Good Lord, what a fish! It was as big around as a pickle barrel, all silvery-purple in the morning sun. I kept pressure on the beast as I approached it with the trolling motor, but just as I got within two rod lengths of the fish, it rolled to one side and the jig fell out of its mouth.
The striper hung there for a moment, regaining its strength, then bolted for deep water. I just sat there for a moment, dazed, unable to process what had just happened. Finally I chugged back to the launch ramp and headed back home. That was all the action I could stand for one day.
Bucktail jigs like the one that brute hit have been responsible for some of the biggest stripers ever taken in freshwater, yet they're often overlooked in favor of other artificials. But day in and day out, bucktails are arguably the deadliest of all lures for big stripers. And if you don't believe me, I've lined up two legendary striper guides to convince you. I'll wager what you're about to read will have you chunking a bucktail on your next striper outing.

Simple, Yet Deadly
Bucktail jigs are among the oldest of all fishing lures-American Indians even fashioned flint jig heads to which they attached bone hooks and deer hair skirts. Today, anglers can buy bucktail jigs at just about any tackle outlet.
Popular brands include Bass Pro, Cumberland Pro, Spro and Wazp, and high-quality generic jigs are often sold in local bait shops by entrepreneurs who make them at home using a jig mold, heavy-duty hooks and deer or synthetic hair-something you can do, too, if you're so inclined.
Tennessee striper guides Ralph Dallas, (615) 824-5792, and Fred McClintock, (931) 243-2412, have caught many monster stripers on bucktails. "I like to fish them mainly in clear, open water, when the fish are suspended around baitfish schools or feeding on the surface," McClintock says. "But they'll also work in stained water better than most other striper lures."
"Bucktails have the potential to not only hook, but land a record-class striper," Dallas says.
He credits their single-hook design for making them harder for a big fish to throw than a hard plastic or wooden plug with treble hooks. Also, since the hook and line tie are basically one unit, a big striper can't pull a bucktail apart the way it can many hard plastic plugs. Plus, the extra-strong saltwater hooks used in high-quality jigs are nearly impossible for even a huge striper to straighten.
Perhaps more importantly, bucktails create a profile that big stripers find irresistible. "A bucktail doesn't look like much when it's hanging on a tackle shop rack, but when retrieved, it looks like a live baitfish," McClintock says. "And, because it has little built-in action of its own, you can control the look of the lure with your reel or rodtip. You can make it hop, dart or swim-whatever turns the stripers on."

Best Bucks
Both fisherman prefer bucktails made with real hair. "Deer hair is the best," Dallas says. "It's light, so it doesn't impede the action of your trailer, and it has a realistic 'breathing' action when wet. Jigs with synthetic hair are okay, but go with deer hair jigs if you can find 'em."
Dallas has had excellent success with bucktails made by Brian Wilson of Cum-berland Pro Lures, (606) 561-5478; Mc-Clintock keeps his box stashed with Bass Pro Shops saltwater jigs, (800) BASS-PRO.
"Generally a bucktail with a curved or banana head is better for swimming and ripping, while round- or toe-shaped heads are better for vertical jigging and bottom crawling," he says.
The proper head weight is critical.
"A good rule of thumb is to fish the lightest jig you can make a long cast with," Dallas explains. "Of course, this will vary with the weight of the line and the tackle you're fishing. My all-around favorite weight is 1⁄2 ounce, although I'll fish 'em up to 2 ounces when stripers are as deep as 30 feet."
McClintock goes to the opposite extreme. "I always fish a heavy bucktail-1 to 11⁄2 ounces," he says. "I'm usually chasing stripers in rivers, so I want a lure that'll get down around submerged wood in heavy current, even when rigged with a big, bulky trailer. A heavy jig is also easy to cast long distances in windy conditions, a common scenario in big, open slackwater reservoirs."
Most freshwater striper hunters go with white and chartreuse. I've also had great luck with trout-colored jigs. Saltwater surf casters prefer black jigs at night.

Trailer Topics
Most striper anglers, our experts included, fish bucktails with some sort of trailer. Options are endless, as trailers range from soft plastic curlytails to live shad, herring or eels. Both McClintock and Dallas lean on curlytails to produce their realistic writhing actions.
"A twister on a bucktail looks lifelike whether you're swimming, hopping, ripping or dropping the lure," Dallas says. "It triggers an aggressive feeding response in both clear and murky water."
Other popular bucktail trailers include soft plastic shad tails, all sizes of swimbaits, flat-tail eels, split-tail eels and grubs, and Slug-Go-style soft plastic jerkbaits.
"I like to vary the color and size of my trailer with the water temperature and clarity," Dallas says. "In winter, when the water temps are around 48 degrees, stripers in slackwater reservoirs will be targeting baitfish as small as crappie minnows, so you don't want to overpower them with a jig/trailer combination that's too big."
Dallas says he catches cold-water fish in the 20- to 30-pound class on white 1⁄4-ounce jigs tipped with a 3-inch white or chartreuse grub. In the spring, when river temps get into the 55- to 60-degree range, he fishes 1⁄2 to 1 ouncers with 5- or 6-inch grubs.
"The good thing about soft plastic trailers is you can trim 'em to the size of the baitfish," McClintock says. "Start with a big grub like a Kalins Mogambo and trim it back to the size you need."
Likewise, the hair on your bucktail can be coifed for a custom presentation. "If the hair is sticking out from the trailer in an unnatural way, I trim it just behind the hook," Dallas says. "This lets the trailer swim or flap without having excess hair impede its action."

Slackwater Tactics
Dallas has fished bucktails for decades in the deep, clear striper impoundments of the mid-South, including Norris, Priest and Tims Ford in Tenn-essee; Norfork in Ark-ansas and Cumberland in Kentucky. "They work especially well on long, sandy points intersected by a creek or river channel," he says.
"Here, stripers gang up in massive numbers to intercept passing baitfish schools."
After locating suspended stripers on his sonar, Dallas vertical-jigs a bucktail just above the school. During cold fronts, when stripers often orient tight to the bottom, 20 to 30 feet down, he'll jig or slow-crawl a bucktail along channel drop-offs, ledges and humps.
Trolling is another option in big reservoirs. "I'll troll three bucktails of varying weights and trailer sizes on long lines around 2 mph," Dallas says. "The heavier jigs will run deeper. This is a good way to cover a lot of water when stripers are suspending around scattered schools of shad."

Moving Water
Bucktails in current-now there's a recipe for a giant striper-and its one McClintock exploits.
"Stripers tend to be much shallower in current than in slack water, and are highly oriented to cover including submerged trees," he says. "Early and late in the day, they'll move onto shallow points, gravel bars and shoals to gorge on baitfish. All of these are perfect scenarios for target-casting with a bucktail jig."
He warns that you have to use heavy tackle in rivers, due to the amount of obstructions and the sheer size of the fish. To cope, he gears up with a medium-power 71⁄2-foot G. Loomis saltwater rod and a wide-spool reel like the Garcia Ambassadeur 7000 spooled with 130-pound Bass Pro Shops Magi-Braid line.
The setup lets you make accurate casts and is powerful enough to handle 50-plus stripers-beasts you need to be prepared to catch when you fine-tune your bucktail jigging tactics!
 
#23 ·
i can't find where to buy the white grubs with the red curly tail. i got one left that i know of and i don't think i've used a better trailer on a bucktail. i substituted with red but the bulk of the white body forms nicely on an ounce and a half or 2 oz'er.i read that article a while back and although i saved it some time ago for the wiper guys i just can't find anything any more.



 
#24 ·
I have some white w. pink tail. These are only 3" total and the tail is flat. I know of the grub you are talking of though as I have a bunch and still may. I will check in another spot for them. They may have been in a box that was stolen along with some other equip. I think I got those grubs from Mann factory outlet store (attached t factory) in Alabama-I must have got about 20 snadwich baggies full of grubs and such when I was there several years back. My wife and I had met Thomas Mann the day we were there, we ended up fishing for a few hours with him accross from his place on his private lake. I will keep my eyes open.

This may be what you are looking for, they have 2, 3, and 4" in White w/red tail. I still think I have a bag or two of these(well mabe not the hard nose though) These things are effing killers for bass. White firetail
http://www.cabelas.com/p-0038670121313a.shtml
 
#26 ·
Jim do you know what size the ones are at Johnnys Tackle are? I would not ming getting some myself. I can't seem to find the bag of white w/red tail. Anyway I think the ones I had were 3". I may be putting in an order w/ Cabelas for some Fireline but if Johnny's has different ones I would not mind a few if possible. The Mann hardnose ones are nice as they use a different hardness plastic on the nose to make them last longer.
 
#28 ·
For scents on bucktails and grubs I like a product called Bio Edge. They have around 20 different scents in a stick and potion(oil). For rubber bait just soak them in a few drops and use the stick on hard baits. For the bucktail you can use the stick or potion.

Jim if you are buy there and happen topick up some grubs I would not mind a few. I'm should be ordering a a set of 4" from Cabela's as I also want to order some Fireline. I also found a place that has these up to what they call 11", they are really 8" but if you pulled they curled tail straight they would be 11".(biggins) They call them Big Bone Grubs by Boneyard Bait Company. They also make some other sizes like the 8" WishBone Grub
 

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#29 ·
jerseystriper said:
Jim if you are buy there and happen topick up some grubs I would not mind a few
I picked up a package of 100 to split up for you and Zim.
Pm me a mailing address. hello.gif

If anyone wants more give me a heads up before tomorrow afternoon.
 

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#33 ·
Got them at Johnnies tackle in M. He's the ornery bait-shop owner.
I'd rather do business with Paulies for most everything else.
BBJ - PM me your mailing address. I'll send you a dozen or so. (Of Zims) lol
 
#34 ·
Thanks Jim, I appreciate it a lot.

I get what you say about you like to do business with that one tackle shop. its the same way with me. i prefer the one down the street from me rather than going to another shop.
 
#36 ·
I always use white unless i'm fishing no moon out east and it's pitch black dark. My only issue with bucktails is small hooks and not enough bucktail material on the jig. These days i make my own. I use SPRO jelly-jigs, strip off the synthetic stuff which leaves me with the bare jighead. I can also change the hooks to whatever size i want, and if rust appears i change the hook without sacraficing the whole lure. I can also put on a lot of bucktail which gives the lure more boyency in the water. I can fish these really SLOW without getting hung up. :whistle:
 

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