 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the channel. I am here at Flair's Farm. And we've just had a successful day of duck hunting. One of my best days I've ever had. Second best day I've ever had. I got a limit today, so much fun. Something I wanted to do, because one of our camera guys we have on Google Squad, he's a huge fly fisherman. He was telling me before we even went out, he was like, man, if you get a wood duck, save me some of those feathers because he makes our flies, our sought after, certain flies that use wood duck feathers, like these plumage right here. So what I wanted to do was take some of these and use these to make some lures with and see if I can catch some fish with these. All the flooding up here has made all these ducks come just live, just live in the area. So this plumage right here, I don't know what the specific name of it is. It looks like a, it's like a zebra golden pattern. These ducks are just one of the most beautiful creatures on North America. Just like this. I mean, just that little pluck right there will help us get, I mean, I can make top water, you know, treble hooked feathers. Feathered trebles, that's the word I'm looking for. Feathered trebles out of these right here, you betcha. So I'm just gonna take some of these while we're cleaning these ducks here. And then when we get back to the dangle cave, we're gonna finagle up some hooks and some different stuff to see if we can make these work. Through the Miracle Flat, we have returned to the great state of Texas with our wood duck feathers. Now literally 10 minutes ago, I tied my first example, just playing around so I wasn't fumbling with the tools. I kind of have an idea now of making the knots, getting it started, tying a half hitch, very, very basic knowledge. So now let's take a look at the little fly tying station I got and let's attempt to make some livers out of some duck feathers. So this is the little fly tying station that I got. This was cheap. I picked this up at Cabela's for like 30 bucks and it has all these little tools in here. Most important things though are the bobbin, which has the thread. I bought this thread separately and got this little tool right here that allows you to thread that through there. Without this thing, I'm not really seeing out that line. That thread goes through. There's various other tools in here that I'm not really sure what they are. They sort of look like small torture devices, but moving on, we're gonna go with what we know here and the basic essentials. This is the plumage that we've got. I got tons of them. It's just off one duck. And then there's a couple of real pretty accent feathers right there. They're a bit longer and they have that black and white tip on there. Those are the ones I'm really interested in on making some bigger jig heads. I think that's gonna be really attractive in the water. These little things, I don't know what they are. Let's disregard those for now. So let's pick some of these out here. I am not sure how much we're gonna need. This is gonna be 100% experimentation, but the first lure that I wanna do is an eighth ounce jig head. It's meant for putting like a grub or some other type of swim bait or plastic on, but we're just gonna use the feathers. And this is kind of a common winter technique to use jig heads with, you know, bucktail. Literally they use buck hair to make this, but I thought it'd be cool to use what the feathers could affect the fall. I don't know what these feathers are really gonna do when I swim them. I think we should go with these two and maybe add just a little bit of filler. First thing I'm gonna attempt to do is I'm gonna cut these like cuticles off essentially. And right at the top of these feathers, there's like fluff. I feel like just these three is gonna be enough water resistance with that eight ounce head. Okay, so in order to get this started, kind of have to hold everything all at once. Wow, this is very difficult, especially with the camera right in my grill. But I'm gonna maneuver this little hanging thread towards the back here. This, and I'll start right there. Gonna work my way up. This first series of wraps is just getting this thing locked on here. I should probably be using like a heavier thread. I have no idea. I'm using the correct kind. This stuff seems like it's kind of weak. Stop it right there and make a couple of half itch. Not so with the half itch. Just make a loop like this, round all those feathers, and we will snip that off. There we are. Look at that beautifulness. Straight off of the water, these ducks. It's right here in the fish cave. I mean, that is just cool looking. Lure number one, the wood duck eighth ounce jig. For lure number two, we're gonna go with a different kind of jig head that I've never used. This one is a crappie magnet. I think what it's going to do is be more of a darter style head like the old school darter heads. This is an eighth ounce. It's got a really cheap hook and a 90 degree bend on the jig head, but the end of it's just interesting to me. Again, I'm just gonna tie it up to where that little keeper is, that little nub, and we'll see what it does. Okay, we'll just go ahead and lock that in the vice. And for this, we're gonna use some of the smaller plumage. Brief feathers just sort of feels right to me. I think that's gonna be the deal. Take my nippers and just cut those little cuties off. And I'm just gonna tie it as close up there as I can. Hardest parts, just kind of getting it going. I'm gonna let that hang right there before I make any major moves here. I'm just gonna adjust these feathers to where I really want them. That was kind of a mistake I made on the last one. I'm gonna start my wraps. I'm gonna go back down close to the hook point where I started. Then I'm gonna tie a half hitch there and then I'm gonna go all the way up. Again, no idea if this is the correct way, but I think it's gonna work. Half hitch secure there. Now I'm gonna go all the way up to the shank. Gave that one five half hitches at the top to literally tie it off. And it came out pretty. Little tiny plumage at the bottom there, straight down, and then these off to the side. So I'm hoping when this is jigging through the water, it's gonna have a nice little dip and then settle back down. But I think that's gonna work right there. Next up, we're gonna get a little fancy. I'm gonna take a 16th ounce crappie jig head, which this is my favorite weight for crappie jig heads. I'm gonna take some of this made in Italy. Wow. I think it's called chenille. Ooh, chartreuse. This is essentially gonna be a crappie jig. So we're gonna end up with four different kinds of jigs, a feather treble, and I also wanna do a bladed jig with feathers. First thing I'm gonna do is put one of these wood duck feathers on there, and I'm gonna actually cut off a little bit, wrap a little chartreuse right up to the head there. So let's begin. It sounds really professional when I say let's begin. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm having fun. This is pretty cool. Just wanted to go straight down. Need to hold that for the first few wraps until it gets on kilter. Gonna make a little adjustment here. I'm gonna put a giant piece of steel right there. So the whole base doesn't move on me. Half-pitches, do one more. Give it a little clip. My goodness, y'all. I feel like I know what I'm doing. I'll be honest with you, right now I've got these creative juices flowing. I feel like I'm doing something with my life here, making flies. This is just like crack for old men. I know why people do this now. I mean, you can get super artful with it. And then when you go out and catch your own fish on it, which we haven't even done yet, it's gonna feel super good. A lot of you that actually do this are going, that looks like a bag of pine cones, but I'm telling you, I feel good about it. Just lay that there. That's where I want the end to be, so. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a half-decent-looking crappie jig right there, if I've ever seen one. Look at the flare on the back. Wabam, chartreuse color. Good little dirty water hopper. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of proud of that. For this next one, we're gonna need a good name, y'all. I need you to just blow up the comments on it, because it's gonna be very colorful, flamboyant, and hopefully the crappie you're just gonna be on it like white on rice. We're gonna take some of this chartreuse Chanel. I still don't know how to say that, whatever. I'm gonna get some hot pink. That's right, hot pink. My favorite jig head color, if I had to pick one, for crappie is pink. There's something about it, especially in dirty water, stained water, which I fish a lot of. This just seems to stand out. I don't know, they like it. We're gonna take the jig head, we're gonna dip it in this pink powder that's gonna adhere to it. Then we're gonna take the chartreuse, put that on as a base, plus the duck feather on the back. This is gonna be a taste of treat. We are reaching way back into old school LFG videos right now. Talking garage vids right now. Give a quick shake to your powder. We're gonna heat up our jig head for about eight to 10 seconds. Wow, that just melted off. Well, after almost burning my leg off, I learned a little something there. I could melt off the hook keeper just using the flame. So I just put the flame right here and it just fell right off. I'm just gonna clean it up with a file. And then this way we have a little bit more room on the shank, actually a lot more room. Okay, that should be good enough now. Now we're ready to tie our feather on. The original ones look like this. So now we got more room to work with. I want the vein of that feather to be right on the bottom here. And then I want it to just extend out straight down. I don't want it to be off to the side, left or right or on top. I want it to be on the bottom. Because the way I'm just gonna work this is just up and down like that. All the way up to the head there where we started, give it the old snippy. Got our start. I'm gonna snip, half hitch it. That's very nice right there. Head there and then go way back down. Snip our excess. We're little wraps here. And let's do half hitches. One more, snip off our line there. Snip off that little excess. Oh, what a beauty. Again, we need a name for that one. That is something. Woo! I just feel good about that. I tied that pretty well, I think. Look at that, it's fanned perfectly on the bottom. And on each one, I'm getting better. I think doing the little extra wraps just kind of loose, going around that helps. Helps keep the body mean. That thing is tight. There's a special kind of glue that you use to seal that up. It's like a knot sealer. I'm just gonna use super glue because that's what I have on hand. Not gonna lie, arts and crafts in the dangle cave. Pretty fun. Now lastly, we're just gonna go with a simple blade bait. I'm gonna take some of the biggest, the longest feathers that I have of the bunch and I'm gonna attach those to the end. A little bit of Chanel probably around the head and that'll be it. I think we'll have a full set of lures to go continue with. Pretty as the others, but finish it off with a little glue around the knot. Just look at these delicious creations. Ended up with two straight up crappie jigs. Added a little extra component to them just to give them a little pizzazz and make them true crappie jigs, but I think that downward tail feathers is just gonna be perfect. Then I've got two just small general style 90 degree jigs. You could call these like bigger crappie jigs or bass jigs. One's a darter head, one's just a swim head. We've got a bladed jig, nothing added to it except just a bunch of those feathers. Just all over, got some in the body, some on the tail. And then we've got just our feather treble and there's nothing left to do but to head out there to the water now. So y'all stay tuned for the next episode. We're gonna take the silver bullet out and we're gonna go after multiple different species. We're gonna go after crappie, white bass, large mouth and whatever else is willing to bite on these types of baits. I even added a feather to my hat. Look at that. A little wood duck feather right there. These little feathers are amazingly useful if any of y'all are duck hunters out there. It's duck season right now. Save your feathers, especially if you get a wood duck, some other ducks that have really good patterns. There's multiple different plumages on there that you can use for different types of lures. I've got a whole cup full right here. I plan on making some really cool crappie jigs with. So y'all stay tuned for the next part of this little series where we're gonna take these things out of the water and get them in the mouth. Go ahead and just pound that like button for creativity and while you're at it, go ahead and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss the next episode and all the outdoor adventures ahead. I'll see y'all on the next one.