EZ Squirmy
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Love em or hate em, Squirmy Worms work on the Guad., but tying them can be a pain. I’ve tried figure 8 thread base, dubbing the tread, etc. , still a pain. I reluctantly sat down to tie some last week when I experienced a flash of light and a loud pop, ( which turned out to be my head leaving my rectum); I don’t tie bass worms on the hook !
I took a size 16 barbless scud hook, put the EYE in the vice and threaded the Squirmy material over the hook point. It only took a couple of tries to figure out the proper amount of penetration to get good coverage for a smooth lay. After that, it took about 10 seconds per worm.
If you want to as an option, reverse the hook with the bend in the jaws of the vice, and put a couple of wraps and whip finish near the eye but I find this unnecessary. I even replaced a lost worm on the hook while on the water; faster than I could retie a replacement.
Give it a try,
Baker
Here is another option on the squirmy. Tie a small piece of tubing (found at hobby store) to the hook. When cutting the tube, leave a small tag on the tube to give yourself an attachment point. Stretch and thread the squirmy through the tube with a threader. Amazingly the squirmy will stay in place because it has a larger diameter than the tube. I found that the plastic was cutting the squirmy material, so I take a butane lighter to slightly melt the end to round it off. I use a size 14 scud hook. If the squirmy does come out (does not happen often) you can carry extra squirmy material and a threader for an on stream repair. The tubing comes in clear, red, green and blue in one package. I haven’t used the blue but it would blend ok with purple squirmies.
One thing I have noticed is a lot of times when you hook up, the trout makes a really fast and aggressive run. My guess is that it is competing with other fish. It grabs the worm and then runs. Last week I had one that circled me twice before breaking off. I have been using 5x tippet but think I will go heavier to keep from breaking off.
Jimbo and I had a similar discussion last week.
Years ago, when Jeff Schmitt caught a 36″ striper on a San Juan worm (4-wt), it really wasn’t the worm the striper flared on, but on the baitfish the worm pattern attracted.
The tubing is a wonderful idea.
I’ve “tied” a few using the tubing idea, but I built a small thread base on the hook, covered it with super glue, put the tubing with squirmy on it, and then lashed the tubing onto the hook with tying thread. Looks like it might work. Thanks for the idea.
Alex
I didn’t think about stripers chasing my trout. That is a possibility since I was fishing Barking Dog Pool and the bottom of the run around S-Turn when this happened. We know that there are stripers in there. It is pretty exciting to hook one of these trout when they take off like a bullet. It always seems like it’s when I am using squirmies.
I can’t take credit for the tube idea (saw it on YouTube). I did come up with the idea of leaving a small tag on the tube to tie it down. It is important to make your cuts blunt. If cut at an angle it will slice the squirmy in half. That is why I take a butane lighter to the ends of the tube in order to round off the sharp edges. I then push a bodkin through the tube to make sure the opening is sufficient to feed the worm through the tube. I forgot to mention you have to stretch the worm to feed it through. The trick is to not put too much pressure on the threader or it will slice the worm.
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