Tubebaits - Going Totally Tubular!
Background. Tubebaits were
originally marketed on a national scale during the 1970s by Bobby
Garland. Garland's Gitzit tube quickly achieved fame as a light
tackle 6 to 8 lb. test lure fished on a small jig head. The
lightweight category was further reinforced by Guido Hibdon's
legendary tournament successes in "finesse fishing" and
"sight fishing" with tubebaits during the
1980s. Recently, due to Denny Brauer, tubebaits have also
received national recognition as baits to be flipped in heavy
cover on heavy gear.
Basic Anatomy. The Gitzit and many
other brands of tube baits are made of rubbery plastic which is
often firmer and more like rubber than other soft plastic baits
(worms, grubs, etc). Usually, a tube bait is dipped and formed
around a metal mandrel or rod. Then the tentacle-like tails are
machine-split (sometimes not so neatly) as a later step in the
process after the rubber cures or hardens. A very few brands of
tubes are injection-molded from the same soft plastic as most
other soft baits and the tentacle tails are injected during the
process, rather than split as a later step in the process. The
injected tentacles are much neater, although still not always
perfect - and they can have more fluid action in the water than
the machine-split rubbery tails. A good example of the
injection-molded tube bait comes from Luck "E" Strike
and it is called the "G4". You can order G4s from Barlow's Bait and Tackle.
What Size is Right? A 4 inch
tube bait is about right for typical bassing. This size tube is a
great lure for catching large numbers of average-sized
largemouths and tons of good smallmouths. Although there are
3" and smaller tubebaits, anything less than 4 inches is
going to be accosted by short bass far too often. Even at 4
inches, it will pick up lots of smaller bass. It is not likely
that a 4" tubebait would ever be anyone's top choice for a
big bass lure.
Color Guide. Tubes come in many
colors For example, Garry Garland's original Gitzzit comes in
over 90 colors, and the Luck "E" Strike G4 comes in 52
colors. I have tried most of them! You can use any color you
usually use for any kind of soft plastic baits, and you will find
that most colors work pretty good. I am currently quite fond of
and recommend you consider trying the following four colors:
| 1 |
Dark smoke back, light smoke belly/copper flake |
| 2 |
Rainbow trout (green pepper back with pearl belly) |
| 3 |
Fire tiger (green back/red flake with orange belly) |
| 4 |
White pearl |
How to Rig Tubes. Some people love
to use special HP hooks and insert weights - but I do not. Some
people say to use an open jig hook in open water – but I do
not. I mostly rig mine with a streamlined 1/16th ounce weedless
wire guard tube jig head. It sports a medium wire 3/0 hook. I
first started to use these heads over twelve years ago when they
were available in catalogs. Today I phone in special orders for
these from Stanley Jigs,
Inc. Ask to speak with the guys in the back who are still
using the old Jigzitz heads for smallmouth. They can get you
some. They have a thin wireguard, a streamlined nose, and a cool
lead collar that the tube just snaps right into. Even so,
consider using a drop of glue to keep it from slipping down. Most
anglers are of the mind that tubes can only be used on light
tackle like 6 and 8 lb. test. This is a big misconception. A
4" tube and 1/16 oz wireguard jig casts extremely well on
ultra-thin 12 pound test spinning. As a matter of fact, it casts
so well that you will have trouble setting the hook at the end of
the cast because of the long length of line out. I often pitch,
flip and skip a 4" tube on 14 and 17 pound test in moderate
cover, sometimes moving up to the 1/8th ounce wireguard tube jig
head to compensate for the heavier line. There is also a 1/4
ounce size of the wireguard tube jig head that I use to catch
deep fish (20-30 feet) or in areas of current flow.
What Triggers 'em. The triggering
effect that tube baits have is the unpredictable darting action
this tube/jig combo makes when it initially drops, when you flick
the rod tip smartly, and on subsequent drops. With the 12 lb.
test and 1/16th ounce jigs, most tubes will dart unpredictably
when rigged straight. With the heavier lines and the 1/8th ounce
jigs, the natural action may be dampened out, so you may want to
try one of two things to induce the erratic darting that is so
enticing to bass: 1) bring the hook point out of the tube a
little too far up the bend of the hook to create a slight
curvature, or 2) rig the tube body on the jig as you would
straight, but then hold the tube near the head , “twist” it
to the side and lock the twist in place with a drop of glue. As
with any jig, your best chance comes on the initial entry and
drop of the bait.
Texas Rig Tubes in Heavy Cover.
Another specially-designed tube jig head come from Bobby
Garland's Better Fishing Ways. This jig design is called a "T.R.
Lead Head". It uses a custom-bent 4/0 offset Texas rig hook.
It has a squat bullet nose molded in 1/16, 1/8 and 1/4 ounce
sizes. Just Texas rig your tubes onto these jigs and sling them
into the thickest weed and wood cover you can find.
What about the New Big Fat Tubes?
There is a recent trend to flipping Texas-rigged big fat 5 to 6
inch tubes into heavy cover. Several lure manufacturers,
including Gambler, Luck E Strike, and MST Manufacturing have
jumped onto this big tube trend. You will catch better-sized fish
by throwing big fatso tubes into places normally fished with jig
n' pigs, such as thick weeds or wood cover. You will catch more
and smaller bass by casting standard 4" tubes into and
around sparse cover and open water structure.
What's that Brauer boy been doing?I
guess we can say Denny Brauer has started a flipping tube craze
that is sweeping the nation. In early August 1998, Denny won the
Bass Masters Classic at High Rock Lake in North Carolina. Brauer
bagged his bass in 1-2 feet of water while flipping a long
stretch of laydowns. Denny was said to be using a Texas-rigged
3.5 inch generic brand of black tubebait with red flakes with a
5/16 ounce weight and a 2/0 Mustad MegaBite hook on 25 lb. test
clear Original Stren line and a 7 1/2 foot Daiwa
flipping/pitching rod. Denny was quoted as saying he mostly
fishes regular bass jigs on heavy tackle, and he's been wanting
to find another lure to throw to the same spots, in the same way,
with the same set-up as he uses for jigs. He said that an
oversized tube jig is a compact lure like a jig. However, a jig
falls straight to the bottom whereas a tube falls more
erratically. And when you pop it off the bottom, the tube will
also dart unpredictably from side to side as it settles back to
the bottom.
After winning the Classic, he helped design the Strike King
Flippin' Tube, which is a bit bigger and heavier than typical
tubes, and therefore works best with a 3/0 or 4/0 hook. Many
other tube manufacturers have jumped on the new tube-making band
wagon too, and we have not seen all the designs come out of the
smoke-filled back rooms yet. So far, at least Berkley, Riverside
and Strike King have new, thick-headed tubes designed especially
for flipping. The problem with thinner-headed tubes is that there
is not enough solid plastic for the eye and neck of the flipping
hook to sit firmly in or sit behind. Therefore, the hook will
become dislodged from thinner-headed plastic tubes as you haul
them through cover, and your bait will ball up on the hook or get
snagged.
With the thick-headed tubes, you have a choice of four ways to
rig it, as presented below. The best way depends on how heavy the
cover is that you are flipping into at any given moment. But you
always start out the same for any of the different ways to rig.
That is, put the tube onto the offset eye portion of the hook as
you would normally for T-rigging. Then take the point end of the
hook, and do one of the following:
- TEXPOSED: For thin cover, put the point into the bottom of
the tube and all the ways out the top of the tube. The barb of
the Mustad Mega-Bite curves downward a bit, so it will lie flat
outside of and on top of the tube, and this is called
"Tex-posed", which means it is an exposed point Texas
rig. Texposed really works a bit better on big fat-bodied ribbed
grubs or on wide-bodied lizards. Tubes are a bit too thin-bodied
for lots of Texposed rigging, but it does have its applications
for tubes, especially where the water is mostly open, but with a
few snags or weed patches.
- TEXSKIN (TOP) For moderate cover, follow the directions for
texposing the hook. Then, insert the hook point and barb just
under the skin of the tube plastic. You kind of have to pull the
plastic forward in front of where the hook comes out the top of
the tube, and stretch it forward a bit. While it is still
stretched, insert the point just under the skin, and then push
the stretched plastic back to cover the barb area. The only way
to describe it is that the hook point should appear just under
the tube skin exactly as if you got a splinter in your thunb or
your big toe, just under your skin.
- TEXSKIN (SIDE): For moderate to heavy cover. In this
variation, you do not insert the hook through the bottom of the
tube. Rather, let the hook dangle down, with the hook bend
underneath the tube body, and the hook point alongside the tube.
Now scrunch the tube forward a bit with your fingers, insert the
hook point into the side of the bait, and then slide the bait
back down so that the point and barb are under the skin of the
tube. You can bury this under the skin just a little deeper than
the Texskin top rigging. Sometimes I use the heavy wire 3/0
offset shank Tru-turn hooks for this.
- TEXAS RIG (TRADITIONAL) For the heaviest cover, this is your
good ol' put the hook in through the bottom of the bait, and have
the point sitting just under and ready to come out the top
surface of the tube. Sometimes, you can push the point out the
top, then pull it back underneath. this kind of opens up a
channel for the hook to slide out, but you really don't want to
open this channel too much. Never pull the entire barb out, then
try to cover it back up with the plastic. it just won't work. If
you pull the entire barb out, you will have made the open channel
too wide,and the hook point will poke out too easily and get
stuck when you pull the lure over snags.
ABOVE ALL, YOU NEED TO LEAVE SOME "SLACK" IN THE
BODY OF THE LURE WHEN YOU RIG. You cannot have the bait stretched
too tightly onto the hook. Tautness in the lure body is what
makes for poor hooksetting. You have to leave the slightest
amount of slack in the body between the offset eye and the
embedded point. The slackness makes for a good hookset. This is a
feel that only comes with doing it right. Leaving slack does not
mean that the lure should look like it has a bend or curve caused
by the way you rigged it - it should look perfectly straight -
but when you press down on it with your index finger right where
you want the fish to bite it, there should be some looseness,
some slack give in the lure body. You want the fish's mouth to
depress the bait's body down easily in the section ahead of where
the hook point is waiting. Also important is that the front
portion of the hook eye is not jammed immovably against the
weight. Once the hook point starts to grab hold in the fish's
mouth, you really want the entire tubebait to easily pull down
off the front offset portion of the hook, and out of the way
where it won't interfere with a good hook set. Again, this is
kind of hard to describe in writing, but very recognizable once
you get the hang of doing it. And finally, make sure the rod and
line you use are both heavy enough for flipping T-rigged tubes.
This is not a light or even medium line/rod technique. And eat
your Wheaties breakfast of champions!
Flippin' Jigs for Thin-Headed Tubes. I
do an awful lot of bassing with heavy gear in weeds, reeds,
rocks, wood - whatever is nastiest. Flipping tubes into this
stuff has worked for me at least 15 years now if not more. I
don't think bass-sized tubes (4" & up) were nationally
available much earlier than that. As mentioned above, a few
manufacturers have picked up on the immediate national popularity
of flipping tubes since Denny won the Classic. A few new ones
have been made with thick rubber head sections for Texas rigging.
However, the bulk of the tubes on the market are thin-walled
tubes. Rather than Texas rig, they work just fine flipped on
fiberguard bass jigs. Just remove the skirt off a bass jig and
superglue a tubebait on in its place. If the jig collar is too
wide to accommodate the tube, then just pinch the slightest bit
off the tip of the tube head to make a small canal in the tube's
nose that lets it slip right onto the lead collar. Careful, don't
pinch off too much here - just the smallest bit will do. Use the
correct weight heads and line test for the cover at hand - same
as you would use for flipping jigs, but about a 3/0 hook for
4" tubes, and sparse fiber weed guards. Try different head
shapes until you find one that let's the tube drift erratically
as it falls and when you snap the rod tip.
Tube Tricks are Traps. On a final
note, I caution you not to tinker with your tubes. You may hear
of all kind of novelty tricks to try. You may hear that Bobby
Garland plucks every other tentacle off his tails in a "she
love me, she loves me not" manner. Or you may hear that
Guido Hibdon shoves Alka Seltzers up his tubes to make them fizz
in front of fish. Then there's the one about filling them with
scent attractants, shoving worms inside tubes, another tube
inside tubes, and who knows what else they're shoving up there?
They're making solid-bodied tubes, attaching rattles to tubes,
inserting weights inside tubes - and for what? I have tried all
these things. They are traps that sap your fishing skills. They
don't catch you any more fish. They are distractions, just extra
equipment to buy and carry, and extra time to rig when you could
be casting. It only makes more chances to have something go wrong
that you have to stop and fix instead of fishing.
In actuality, the only thing you will accomplish with any of
these novelties, including insert weights, is to confuse and to
compromiise your basic set of fishing skills. It is far better to
concentrate on and to achieve excellence of execution with tubes
on wireguard and fiberguard jigs and Texas rigged. That's it! In
this way, the skills you use while jiggin' and riggin' tubes can
be carried over to other styles of jigs and rigs. Only use the
finest injection-molded tubes that have perfectly formed and
separated tentacle tails. Seek out brands of tubes that retain
their roundness over time, but you can also use tubes that get
flattened during storage. Just rig the flattened side
horizontally to provide more action as you drop and snap it.
Above all, it is the softness and separateness of the tentacles
tails, and the hollow, round body cavity that makes a good tube
great! Just leave the body hollow and empty, and leave the tails
long and fluid. Don't add any extras, just apply scent to the
outside. Master it this way, and I guarantee you will have a
productive fish-catching tool you can happily use for the rest of
your bassin' days! |
