Year Round Tactics For Tubes

Sometimes the size of a lure makes a difference in terms of respect. Crankbaits 
get it; tube lures sometimes don't — at least until recently. Even now, tube jigs 
don't get the press coverage or credit they deserve from anglers. Some folks 
consider tubes too simple, too inexpensive and too small. They're also too good 
sometimes, often accounting for major bass tournament wins and trophy-sized 
catches. In the past, tubes have been pigeonholed into the spring finesse-fishing category, or the western/clear water fishing methods. These generalizations limit some of the best techniques to use with this lure. As a finesse lure, the tube is ideal for spring sight and bed fishing, summer deepwater fishing and structure flipping, 
fall shallow water casting and winter deep jigging. Tube lures, which started in the mid-1960s with the Bobby Garland Gitzit (or Fat Gitzit), look like the tough finger of a glove, frayed at the end into a skirt and fished with a lead (or lead-alternative) jighead. Today, most major soft-plastic lure and jig manufacturers offer tubes in a wide variety of sizes, in solid, fleck, translucent, opaque, two-tone and many other colors. While many professional anglers admit that these lures are among the finest possible finesse and sight-fishing baits available, they generally stick with a few tactics for fishing them, mainly light-line casts to cracks in canyon walls to take Western big-water bass. Today, tubes are used mostly by anglers finesse fishing in clear water and sight fishing for spring bass. But there are other ways to fish tubes, and many modifications for different situations. In fact, you can fish them just about any way except, perhaps, for trolling (and even that would probably work in some situations). Interest in new fishing methods has increased as a result of new and innovative riggings developed by hook and sinker manufacturers. Mustad has the Fin-Acky 
system of pegged and weighted hooks; Owner has a new slip-in type Ultrahead jig 
in three weights for hiding the weight in the body; Gamakatsu, Eagle Claw, 
Tru-Turn/Daiichi, VMC, Fenwick, Berkley and others all have offset wide-gap worm hooks that are ideal for no-weight tube fishing. Some companies make hooks with fixed or free-swinging pegs at the eye of the hook to peg the head of the tube while burying the point into the hollow body, Texas style. In addition, you can use any small bullet-head jig by sliding the jighead into the tube, poking the hook eye through the side and using it as an exposed-hook rigging. Sinker companies have rattling weights to fish inside or ahead of the tube, and many are now introducing rattle systems of bullet heads, beads of metal or glass and disks or washers for adding noise to worms and tubes.
• One way to fish a "topwater" tube involves placing pieces of foam packing 
peanuts into the body of the lure. Using a light wire hook and no weight, you can 
cast the rig with light line and spinning tackle so the tube floats. Vary the amount of foam to make the tube slowly sink for fishing shallow waters, or when the fish are feeding on or near the top. Foam with some weight to make a tube suspend rather than one that floats or sinks is ideal for fishing shallow rivers for smallmouth. A suspending tube is also ideal for stream fishing. Cast across the stream and allow the lure to drift and swim with the current. Strikes often come as the tube swings across current before being retrieved upstream.
• You also can employ foam-inserts for fishing deep with a Carolina rig. The weight ahead of the tube allows you to cast the rig a good distance, while the foam makes the tube float well above the bottom and grass, so cruising fish can spot it.
• Adding weight to the tube — using a worm weight in front or rigging the lure 
various ways with a jighead hook — also allows the angler to change the lure's 
action. For example, a heavy, pegged weight ahead of a tube, or a weight in the
tube's head, creates an up-down, yo-yo action as you twitch the lure. You can 
achieve this using any grub-style jighead. Thread the point of the hook through 
the head of the tube so that the bait slides up over the barbed collar and sits like a grub against the back of the jighead. Poking the jighead into the tube and 
forcing the hook-eye through the side of the plastic sheaths the metal, so you 
can use unpainted jigheads. If working with a brush or "Y" style weedguard, make two holes — one for the guard and one for the hook-eye, and work the hook into the tube weedguard first. All of these rig variations give that up/down jigging 
movement to the tube when twitched by the angler.
• For a tube that sinks and retrieves with less undulating action, try rigging the lure using one of the new hooks that come with molded-on "weights on the shank or near the hook bend — more of a do-nothing system. 
• Other additions to hollow tube lures include rattles held in place with a piece of raw cotton (or tied or fastened to the hook). Add a wad of raw cotton alone to hold liquid fish attractants better and longer than a simple spray on the outside of the lure. Also, various pastes or solid fish attractants can be shaped into a slug that will slide into the tube, so the lure gives off attractant as it is retrieved. Berkley Power Nibbles and eggs designed primarily for trout and crappie also work on other fish, and you can mold them to fit inside any tube lure. Some anglers use crumbled Alka-Seltzer tablets or other effervescent products to create a bubble trail to further attract fish. Plug all such inserts with cotton or peg them with toothpicks and cast the bait carefully to prevent their loss before they hit water. Fishing tubes to reach deeper bass is a matter of adding more weight inside, or rigging the tube with a larger jighead or worm weight. Another way to entice deepwater bass is to rig a tube as a "sleeve" over a spoon. While this isn't much different than sliding the tube over a jighead, the result is a darting and falling motion when the lure combination is vertically jigged. Use a stiff rod and light line to enhance the lure's action.
• Adding weight to a tube lure and fishing it using a spinning or spincast outfit 
allows an angler to skip the bait under boat docks, duck blinds, boat houses, docks, piers, and low bridges. After skipping a tube bait under a boat dock, allow the tube to slowly drift — with an occasional twitch of the rod.
• You also can use tubes effectively in pitching and flipping situations, dropping 
them through structure to fish deep waters, or pitching them through holes in 
thick surface grass to get to the fish underneath. Fish them in pockets between 
clumps of pads, twitch them slowly along the edge of a weedline, or work them 
deeper on a breakline when fish are schooling up in prespawn or post-spawn 
situations.

Tubes aren't good for covering expanses of water, like crankbaits, or as flashy 
attractor lures, such as spinner-baits. Tubes should be used for far more than 
their original design as Western canyon baits or springtime finesse offerings. 
Tubes are truly all-season lures, even if not for all situations.