What head?

[Les Young]

What head for  the slick shiner & the ripper  3 & 3.5?  I want something to fish them from shallow & down to 40 feet too. Will just a ball style head work good for both? Thanks

[Canga~]

i use a normal ball head on all my swimbaits (dont have the shiner, or use the ripper any more though), never had any issues with them. depth control comes down to the weight of the jig.

[ctom]

The ballhead will work ok. I use the teardrop with the wire keeper with mine. The Swimbait head works nice in current.

[Coosa Redeye]

Why not the tried and true Poisontail? No weedguard and a regular black nickel hook.

[Lines]

I have been using the bullet nose jig. It has 2 barbs, so I clip off the bottom barb. 60 degree 1/0 hook. Works well.
I use the 1/4 ounce size, so I don't know if it will work at 40 feet. Bulletnose molds come in heavier sizes if needed.

[Agronomist_at_ia]

What head for  the slick shiner & the ripper  3 & 3.5?  I want something to fish them from shallow & down to 40 feet too. Will just a ball style head work good for both? Thanks

A ball head jig works fine.

When it comes down to what you are wanting, hooks size and different weighted heads will be the most important to what you are trying to do /accomplish.

I’ve got the freestyle, swim bait head, and the round head jig mold with the lead barb keeper. Also the herring head with lead keeper and spinner below the head.

There are a lot of different style molds and keepers that will all work.
Like the maniac mullet for instance.

If you are looking at buying a new mold, the things I would look for are the following.

1. Mold where you have a wide range of head weights so you can fish different depths/currents more effectively.

2. Mold with the preferred keeper or neck style you want. If your using it on all plastics….the wire keepers do a great job. If you are tying on stuff like buck tails…a nice lead cone neck works best. If you kinds want it to go both ways a led neck with a keeper does both.

3. Eye molds in the lead head are nice if you want to add 3D eyes, but powder painting them without eyes doesn’t leave has nice a finish job as molds without the eye spot.

4. Head shape is another thing to consider. When it comes to currents, rocky, weedy, or soft bottoms. Each design will have its pluses and minuses.

5. Detailed head designs are nice and can show up well when air brushing the jig heads to add a lot of fine details. If you dip or powder coat the heads, the finer details won’t show up as well and aren’t really going to show much…….so a simpler design for dipping and powder coating is typically better.

6. If you are just doing the swim bait style plastics, the weighted hook mold does a nice job and rigs it to be weedless which is a huge plus. You can also do a simple texas rig with a worm sinker and egw hook to make it weedless which does a great job.

7.With the explosion of zebra mussels in our last the last few years, weeds have grown like crazy, and fishing a weedless rigged plastic swim bait has become the go to technique for trolling. Cranks, spinners, and other stuff just gets terrible weed balls on the lures.

[ctom]

 I fished 4" Rippers on the weighted heads in 2-4 feet of water this morning and never needed to clear weeds from the rig. I tie the rig so the knot at the hook's eye is buried in the end of the plastic....they swim right thru the weeds. I've also modified the mold to create a hook slot along the back where the hook's point is covered but slips out easily on hits. I also swan a #13 Husky Jerk just over the weed tops pretty effectively too, just had to slow it down when I felt the lure tap the weed tops.

If you do the weighted hook on the 3" and 3.5" Rippers you will likely find the 2/0 and 3/0 respectively to be the best sizes. The 4" sure plays well with a 4/0. A 3/0 in the 4" is really too small.

[Les Young]

I was actually thinking about just using ball heads. Thanks guys.

[Agronomist_at_ia]

I fished 4" Rippers on the weighted heads in 2-4 feet of water this morning and never needed to clear weeds from the rig. I tie the rig so the knot at the hook's eye is buried in the end of the plastic....they swim right thru the weeds. I've also modified the mold to create a hook slot along the back where the hook's point is covered but slips out easily on hits. I also swan a #13 Husky Jerk just over the weed tops pretty effectively too, just had to slow it down when I felt the lure tap the weed tops.

If you do the weighted hook on the 3" and 3.5" Rippers you will likely find the 2/0 and 3/0 respectively to be the best sizes. The 4" sure plays well with a 4/0. A 3/0 in the 4" is really too small.

I think your idea of fishing weeds and what I've been experiencing up this way are two different things.

When I'm talking weedless.....I don't mean fishing weeds. Fishing weeds is easy. I'm having to deal with rediculous weed growth and managing how you fish it.......so you can even fish....is what we are dealing with.

fishing deeper water 7-13 foot for walleye. Lakes up in our part don't get much deeper. When fishing the dredge cuts you go from 13ft to five foot and jumps deep again. No lake map avalible due to it being done the last 5yrs. If you come up that hump to 5ft......nothing can be sticking out that can catch a weed or your screwed...........heck even in 13 ft areas will have weeds thick.........I've tried about everything........the best weedless  setup I found was a swim bait on a weed less rigged weighted hook....with the hook eye buried in the head of the plastic with the hook point stuck in the back of the plastic. Even then a guy has the plastic slip down on the hook.....so I've used super glue to prevent it. Shore lines and shallows basicly have the weeds grown to just under the top of the water so fishing above them isnt possible. You'll still get fouled hooks. I've also filed down the lead edges on the weighted hooks so weeds can't catch on it. Anything with an edge is a no go.

[Agronomist_at_ia]

I was actually thinking about just using ball heads. Thanks guys.

They work fine...I've done it often.