Feather and Broom Care?

[Pilar]

Lately I have been paying more attention to this. Over the last year we've added to the arsenal and then some ... let me put it this way ... the guys at Englunds know my name and start hi fiving each other when I beeline for the TUNA! aisle.

A quick rinse in fresh water and air dry in the sun works fine. The dye will run so don't soak the whole pile in one bucket or the colors will run together. You can use something like lemon joy and water for blood soaked lures.

The recent new trick is to use one inch long chunks of 1/8" poly tubing to 'safe' the hooks. This allows storage in gallon ziplocks. We have always used the ziplocks but every lure would get salted whether used or not. The hooks hole the bags and they leak.

Make sure you pull the 'safeties' off the hooks before you fish. The lure will still get struck but you will miss the fish everytime.

Don't ask me how I know this.

[img]graemlins/stupid.gif[/img]

NorRivDave has a good point about leader damage. Run your leader through your fingers and replace the ones that are frayed with fresh 200#.

[ 07-29-2003, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: Pilar ]

[BUGLEMAN]

Try putting your jigs and baggies into one of those smaller bins with a snap on lid. The clear ones are best. So if you only pull out of the dry bin and keep your used baggies in the dry bin and put the used jigs into a wet bin then all your gear won't get wet. When done fishing wash with Lemon Joy dry and replace jigs back into dry baggies and the dry bin.

[Popeye]

I do like Pilar...Fresh water rinse, air dry. But I have started something new. It's called a VCI ziplock bag. VCI stands for Volatile Corrosion Inhibiting. The plastic actually emmits a microscopic vapor that retards corrosion. I've actually used this plastic in sheet form for several years, in packing equipment for overseas shipments. Just happened to think about it for my tackle recently. They come in different sizes, and I buy mine from Mcmaster Carr in LA. I bet if you did a search on the Net you could find them also.

[Threemuch]

I put mine in a roll up lure bag, just like the big boys. No rinse, no nothing. Some of my feathers are 10 years old, and got to have 50 or more fish to their name. Change the leaders every year.

KB

[Miss B Haven]

Orange dry box, quart baggies one per lure/leader), soaked in a little lemon joy and fresh water then rinsed and dried after each trip.
One of the resons I don't come home until the day after a trip. :depressed:
Now- lets talk about getting 100 quarts of salt brine, leftover ice and Tuna blood out of a fish hold when the macerator pump isn't working! :shocked:

[Popeye]

Roto-Rooter

[BUGLEMAN]

Kurt where do you get those roll up pouches? I don't think that Chark bait has them. I know fishermans doesn't either.

[Miss B Haven]

Hey Bugleman, you can order them from boatersworld (Offshore Anglers Merged with em).
How'd you guys do out there? Looked for ya but never saw the Tiger after the radio went TU. We're setting up to go out on the 10th, another boat out of Ilwaco may be going too. He's going to look up Tiger on the dock. What slip is She in?

The heavy McMaster Carr ziploc bags work real good.

[Beer Waggin]

Seeing Roy’s post about hand line storage got me thinking about another issue, feather and broom care.
I just got my tuna stuff back from the 20th. The lures I used were still in the baggies fresh from the salt. I tore them all down, washed them down with fresh water and am air drying them now. I was a bit disturbed when I saw the dye running from the feathers. The yellows are now half white and half yellow.
The hooks received a bit of scotch-brite and will receive a shot of oil here in a bit after touching up the hook points.
All of the rigs will get new leader, as some of them were chewed pretty good.

And I’m missing anything at this stage of the game, or am I being over cautious? I just hate to think about the replacing a bunch of $10.00 rigs every year.

Also, how are you guys storing these things? I've seen roll up bags that run $30 and hold like 10 rigs, but with 30+ lures it seems as though it could get costly.

[Badger]

Great question about storing TUNA! rigs. I've been looking for a good way to store them for transport to/from boat, have em handy on board, and most importantly be able to get them from storage (bag, ties, tackle box) onto line in less than 15 seconds.

Any good ideas (or pics of home made contraptions), please advise.

[fish assassin]

I just loosley wrap the line up and put the TUNA! jigs in gallon sized zip lock
plastic bags. I don't wash 'em. I sharpen the hooks once in a great while and
spray a little wd40 on the rigs just before I store them for the winter. I have
some jigs that are 5 or 6 years old and still fish just fine! I try not to get too
excited about doing anything special to them. :grin: :grin: :grin: :shocked:

edit: another thing, I store the ziplock bags with my tuna jigs in a small cooler
in the boat ... I think it is called a playmate or something similar.

-assAssin-

[ 07-29-2003, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: fish assassin ]