“My Tails Are On Fire”

The bass fishing bait maker who introduced FireTail tubes to the fishing world usually throws these fine little lures with a spinning outfit.

That man, as I mentioned in the first portion of this three-part column, is Jeff Staggs, the president of Outlaw Baits. The Outlaw Baits plant is located in Florence, Oregon. Jeff lives on the shore of a nearby bass lake. He does his own lure testing and lots of it.

“I fish our new FireTails much the same way I fish our other tubes,” Jeff says.

“Usually that’s with a spinning outfit and 6 to 8-pound line.“

These Outlaw Baits FireTail tubes are loaded with salt.  Bass grab 'em and hang on.

The Outlaw Baits FireTail tubes are currently made only in a 3 ½-inch size. “I most often rig my tubes with one of the small weights designed to fit inside the tube body,” Jeff says. “Sometimes in the spring, a time when the bass are up in the shallows, I’ll rig with a 3/0 hook and fish the tube without additional weight.”

If you’ve done much tube fishing you’re likely aware there are a number of different sinker styles designed especially for use with these dandy baits. The weight Jeff uses most is called Uncle Walt’s tube skirt glider head. This weight is flat in shape and is available in sizes 1/32 nd to 3/8 th-ounces.

Pictured are the Uncle Walt's sinkers Jeff Staggs prefers to use in much of his own tube fishing.  These weights are designed to fit up inside the tube.

The makers of this weight say if it is used as they recommend it causes a tube lure to glide down and forward as it drops. Your hook goes through a hole in one end of the weight and the sinker remains in position inside the tube at the head end.

I my earlier column I mentioned using a ½-ounce slip sinker with the FireTail tubes I fished so successfully at Mexico’s Lake El Salto. Those Mexican bass were 10 to 20-feet down among submerged trees. I didn’t want to waste time getting my bait down where they were, hence the heavier sinker. My El Salto set up wasn’t fancy, but by golly it got the job done!

Like Jeff, I use an entirely different set up when I’m using spinning gear and fishing clear water. My favorite tube sinker under such conditions is an Eagle Claw Quick Clip weight. These little weights come with a metal eye at the top. You simply stick the weight of your choice inside the tube and push it up to the head end. The next step is to run your hook down through skin of the tube and through the wire eye of the weight. Then you push the hook on through the bottom of the tube. Now just turn the hook and rig the point Texas Style in hind end of the tube.

I often do something else with the Quick Clip weight before I slide it up inside the tube. That “something else’ is to attach a few strands of bright Flashabou material to the ringed eye at the head end of the weight. I cut these strands so they are the same length as the tube’s skirt.

Why do this? Because those little strands of Flashabou reflect lots of light. Drop a tube that’s rigged that way into the water alongside your boat and hop it a couple of times. You’ll see what I’m talking about. Those Flashabou strands give off the same sort of flash a baitfish gives off as it flits along the lake bottom. Combined with the already bright tail colors of the FireTail tubes they sometimes make these nifty baits even more effective.

As I mentioned, Quick Clip weights are available in different sizes. If the water’s not deep I much prefer to use the lightest weight possible. These weights come as light as 1/32-ounce and that’s the one I use most often.

To get the most out of any quality bass bait you have to know how to fish it in the most effective fashion. I’ll provide details in that regard in my third and final column dealing with the new Outlaw Baits FireTail tubes.

go to part 3   -return to part 1-

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