I'm looking for total honesty and helpful critism here. I tied a dozen of these last night and I have 60 of the tubes still to go. I already know the black beads aren't the best but they are all I can afford right now and I think the hook could have been bigger. I plan on ordering some tube jig rattles sometime soon. These tubes have been laying around my grams baitshop for a couple years now so they are pretty dried out. I put some vegie oil on them last night and placed it at an angle so the blade wouldn't get soaked. Now I'm draining off the extra oil to get it ready for packaging. Should I salt these now? The other 60 are in a ziplock bag and I'm squishing them around once in a while to get them relubed to. I'm thinking that after they soaked for a while I'll drain some oil and put a bunch of salt in the bag and shake and bake them little critters. Well shake them anyways. I do want to make more of these but I will be adding and subtracting different pieces. for one I have glow beads and blades on the way. If you see anyway I can improve these then please let me know. I'll be sure to take some pics of the Crawler Harnesses to when I get some more made up. I think the first lot came out ok but the 17# flouorcarbon was a bit to heavy. Walmarts only had 8# or 17#. I was hoping to get 12#. I'll probably have to special order it. Swizzle

Nice job!   

Not to crazy about the hook choice and bead color.     

With all the meaness out.  I think your on the right path and have a great idea.  I bet that will work.  I really like the color of the blade.  Overall I like the design.  Does the blade spin or hit and hang on the tube?

The color of the tube will be changing once I get rid of these ones. I personally like this same set up with the 2 and a half inch chartruese and pepper tube and a deep cup brass indiana blade with some 2mm or 3mm chartruese beads. I really hate the yellow color and whoever made these tubes did a poor job on them. The skirt is sometimes just 3 pieces and I have to seperate them and there's a strand on the top of the tube as well. I think they might be from a guy who was just learning to make them and sold a bunch to my gram in bulk. I'm just trying to get rid of these tubes and want to know what else you guys think would work with them. The hook is a bait holder size 4. I'm thinking about doing 10 more with this sized hook and then getting a 50 pack of size 2's to finish off the remaining 50. I was trying for a transparent body look. Sort of like when you can see the guts of a critter through its body. I thought it would make it more life like. I'm open to any suggestions. Swizzle

In my neck of the woods, those colors are not that bad. We have dingy water alot of the time and those colors are pretty much common and visible for just those conditions. Colorwise, I think your ok! The blade, maybe one size down to a 3-1/2 and upsize the hook to a 1/0 or 2/0 size. (for bass)


IMHO, Alot of people are doing alot of things with tubes now days, so, whats another option gonna hurt.  Will you sell a ton of them???....I don't know! Hey, snagless sally's weren't much to them either(construction) and look what they'd do.

p.s.- i didn't look at the second pic. yet.

Buzzbait

No offense taken at all although I do admit the first part had me going. LMAO. Hey GMAN I missed part of your post.

Does the blade spin or hit and hang on the tube?

I'm not sure how they look in the water yet but I made sure to place a bead between the tube and the clevis. So it should swing freely. I won't be mass producing these anytime soon but when I start building my stock up then I should have any problems taking orders. What size tubes are you talking about and is the white and grey ones a white tube with a gray skirt or white and gray along the whole length of the tube? I do agree whole heartly on the hook size. I think these first ones are gonna be missing some bass because the hook isn't sticking out past the skirt enough. What do you guys think of a tube jig rattle instead of the second black bead inside? Swizzle

I really appreciate all the feedback guys. Any help right now is awesome. Thanx, Jason