I am going to be pouring some jigs and have ordered some glow in the dark pigments to mix with rod building epoxy to paint some J-Plug blanks I have. My question is would glow in the dark jig heads work for steelhead? Just curious as I will be making some of my own jigs for fishing pinks this summer and wondered if it would be worthwhile to do some GITD and tie some steelhead jigs with.

My heads are pink, white or black...glo? maybe...maybe not. I've never seen glo to make a diff.

yes they will !!!.. i like to use them at night steelhead fishing when the water is very low and clear..

Might want to think about some UV paint, too.

I don't think (winter) steelhead give a damn about what color the jighead is. I still paint mine but it's more for fun as far as I'm concerned. I like the epoxey idea though. . .sounds durable,

fb

Fish,

The durability is phenominal compared to normal paint and seal. I have been epoxy "painting" jigs and other things and the durability factor along with endless combos of paint is great. I use Bullard Diamond II and Bullard pigments to come up with some awesome stuff. I use it to marble my custom fishing rods and lots of custom lure builders use the epoxy to seal the paint jobs. Heck my kids think it's cool, so what the heck.

I am surprised I don't hear too many PNW folks talking about Softex. It has a number of applications including coating jig heads. I give my powder coated jigs heads a coat or two of it, which takes all of about two seconds apiece, and they are are virtually chip proof. My one complaint is that when used with powder coat is that it (softex) tends to dull the shine a little, but a small price to pay for lasting paint.

Works well to protect painted beads also and the flat look is actually a bit of a bonus in that application.

Glow for night fishing works great for steelhead and trout. Have done it for years. Orange and white glow seem to work best. for daylight fishing, I have never noticed it making a difference.

For colored water, unpainted worked better than anything this year for winter run steelhead.

So Cloey, the Softex treated p/c jig heads are pretty much chip proof ?

As I'm sick of my p/c jig heads getting all banged up, I was going to go to the vinyl primer, then paint & clearcoat X2, but its like a long winded 5 step process w/ drying time in between. If I can heat, dip & put on a 2 quick coats of this stuff that's more my style.

??





c/22

I've never tried epoxy paint, but I'm a big fan of vinyl.
You'll likely lose the jig before it ever chips with vinyl paint and a clear coat.
CS paints makes both standard and super glo colors.
http://www.csipaint.com/products/

Dip & rip ??




c/22

Bingo!

Two coats of softex and you are good to go. Drag em through the boulders, bounce em off the bank.

I have been doing them batch style, 10-20+(+!) at a time, and allowing a little dry time (5 minutes) between coats.

Thats a load o' rvr-stickers.


c/22

75 down, 25 to go

Whats your technique for cleaning out the eye after powder coating ?

BTW, make those sticks work w/ you off the river too.......


c/22