"Tying your own" isn't just for fly anglers any more. With the popularity of hair jigs for cold water smallmouth, many spin fishermen are learning tricks from their long rod brethren. While learning how to tie jigs, I sampled many different materials including round rubber, silicone skirts, buck tail, and rabbit hair. The rabbit hair seemed to produce the best for me. It's subtle action whether sitting still on bottom, or swimming back to the kayak just looks alive. The pelt is buoyant, making it lift off the bottom, getting the attention of bronzeback foraging in the gravel or chunk rock. Here's a crawfish pattern that I came up with while learning how to tie my own jigs. It has produced 20 inch plus smallmouth on both river and reservoir.

The materials needed from left to right are:

1. Brown rabbit hide cut ¾ inches by 2 ¾ inches with the hair trimmed for claws and triangular back shell. (You will have to purchase uncut pelts instead of the strips of rabbit pelt, and cut them yourself.)
2. Large brown chenille for the collar.
3. 3/8 oz weedless arkie or football style jighead
4. Black round rubber cut into 5 inch segments.

After cutting the hide and trimming the hair, start tying by attaching a single 5 inch long strand of black round rubber.

Wrap the square end of the rabbit hide to the collar of the jig.

The brown chenille does more than finish off your collar wrap. It helps the finished jig stand up when resting on the bottom.

After finishing up your wrap, cut a hole in the hide to insert both the hook point and doubled over black round rubber antennae.

This pattern stands up in a defensive stance when it comes to rest on the bottom. There is no need to pump this jig. The subtle motion of the round rubber and rabbit hair tell the fish that this rabbit hair craw jig is alive!

Jeff "Yakfish" Little is owner of Blue Ridge Kayak Fishing LLC www.blueridgekayakfishing.com, which provides kayak fishing instruction for river smallmouth, tidal largemouth, and reservoir bass in Maryland and Virginia.