FISHING
THE TACKLE JUNKIE
By Sean Ostruszka
42
sean ostruszka is a lure
designer whose baits
have been sold by various
tackle companies. he’s
also a freak for tackle
details.
THE
TACKLE
JUNKIE
A JIG IS A JIG IS (NOT) A JIG
TOM MONSOOR HAS LEARNED MORE ABOUT JIGS THAN ALMOST ANYONE
there may be no lure simpler
than a jig.
take a hook, mold some lead around it
and … ta-da. you have the most effective
fish-catcher in the history of fishing.
of course, if it were really that simple,
there’d be no reason for this article.
like many things, the simple has
become insanely complex. head shapes,
hooks, skirts, weedguards – there’s no
shortage of specialization. then there are
the real intricacies; things like eyelet-to-
shank angle, how the eyelet is turned,
lead composition, weedguard angle, trailer
keeper, skirt attachment and on and on.
but do all these things really matter, or
are they just marketing fluff to sell fisher-
men? what really makes a good jig?
I’d love to say I had the answers to
these questions, but I don’t. with all the
personal preference inherent to jig selec-
tion, it’s probable that no one has all the
answers, but if anyone is going to come
closest, it’s flw tour pro tom Monsoor.
Monsoor studies jigs like it’s a science.
he’s obsessed with them, really. Monsoor
pours more than 2,000 jigs a year and has
been designing jigs for more than two
decades. through all that time, he has dis-
sected some key nuances that he says do
separate one jig from another, regardless
of personal preferences or fishing style.
let’s break them down.
the head
a good jig is all about balance –
between the head’s shape and its size,
and between the head’s weight and the
size of the hook.
If a jig is out of balance, it probably
won’t perform nearly as well as it could.
luckily, this isn’t something you need to
worry about much unless you’re designing
jigs at the extremes of hook and head size.
“honestly, just keep it simple with the
head shapes and sizes,” Monsoor says.
“you see all these new shapes and odd
sizes. stick with traditional shapes and
sizes. they’ve been around a long time for
a reason.”
the hook
the reason Monsoor started designing
and pouring his own jigs decades ago
was because he wanted the best-quality
hook he could get for his jigs. jig hooks
often take a pounding, so a quality hook
is a must, but many anglers mistake size
or strength for quality. Not Monsoor. to
him, a quality hook is one that will stay
sharp and can be sharpened easily if
needed.
FlWFIshInG.com I Fall 2019