If you crappie fish with soft plastics, you can use Super Glue to keep your plastic jig bodies from sliding down the hook. Simply dab a tiny drop around the base of your jig head and slide your plastic lure into place. Allow the glue to set for 30 seconds and you’re good to go. A glued crappie jig is a much more durable bait that can withstand many bites from a crappie without being forced out of position. Investing a bit of cash in a tube of super adhesive can save you lot’s of money on crappie baits and a lot of time fiddling with those baits. If you’re willing to invest the small amount of up front time to glue your baits, a tube of “Super Glue” will pay for itself many times over.
Which Super Glue To Use For Gluing Baits
There are many different brands of quick drying adhesive that you can use to assemble your crappie jigs. Some of their names and their nicknames include Super Glue, Superglue, Krazy Glue, Gorilla Super Glue, etc. Regardless of which one you purchase, I believe they are all Cyanoacrylate adhesive, or at least that is what you should be looking for. For a less messy approach to gluing your jigs you should stick with the more modern gel versions of Super Glue.
Reasons To Use Super Glue On Crappie Jigs
We already touched on the main reasons to glue your plastic jig bodies, but I figured I’d expound on that a bit. My plastic baits tend to ride down the hook sometimes even though I don’t get a bite. Perhaps that’s often because I set the hook too hard on crappie. It will also happen when your jig begins to get worn after catching a few fish on it. The combination of a firm hook set and a slightly worn jig will certainly result in having to re-adjust baits regularly. This is the main reason I oftentimes glue my plastic bodies to the jig. Over the course of the day, I believe Super Glue saves you valuable fishing time.
Can Crappie Smell Super Glue
Do the fish smell Superglue? I don’t know. Perhaps they do. If so, they apparently don’t care if your jig has a gluey smell or not. Using Super Glue never seems to deter the bite at all for me. If you’re concerned about the smell that much, you could add an attractant to your glued bait. If that isn’t good enough for you, check out some of the other alternatives discussed below.
Alternatives To Gluing Your Crappie Jigs
Maybe you’d like to avoid the potential smell of Super Glue on your baits. Or, perhaps you have childhood memories of gluing their fingertips together and that turns you off from using Super Glue. If you find yourself in either of those 2 groups, there are a couple other alternatives you could try.
Use Jigs With Keepers
There are some interesting crappie jig styles on the market that have little “keepers” built into the jig. As you can see in the image below, this Jenko Fishing Big T jig has a little metal hook designed to firmly grasp the jig body. This won’t work as well to hold your baits in place as gluing does, but it might just be good enough. There are many brands that sell jigs similar in style to the jig below.
Use A Fishing Specific Glue
There are also some other fishing specific glues on the market. Check out Carlson Fishing Glue if you’re interested in going that route. These are supposedly scentless glues.
How To Super Glue Your Jig
You can certainly apply the glue to your jigs while you are on the water, but I recommend you glue some baits up the night before. That way it’s one less thing to deal with when you’re in the boat. Simply add a small drop of glue to the lead keeper and quickly slide your soft plastic into place. Hold the bait in place for a few moments to ensure the bond is secure. In 30 seconds your bait is good to go. A jig glued in this manner will last through MANY caught crappie.
Wrapping Thread Around Your Jig Hook
For hooks that don’t have a lead collar, you can wrap the top of the shank of the hook with elastic thread such as Magic Thread, pictured above. This is useful for crappie jigs that perhaps you removed the lead collar for balancing purposes. The Magic Thread does not require any knots and it gives the Super Glue something better to grab hold of. See the image below where I have wrapped the hook shank with Magic Thread and then applied the glue.
Conclusion
The general consensus of the crappie fishing community, me included, seems to be that Super Glue is a great tool that helps a lot more than it hurts. I have seen no evidence that it deters fish from biting, and it sure saves a lot of time and irritation from having to readjust your jigs constantly. If you haven’t tried it, I think you might be surprised how it can help you stretch the use of a single bait out. Now, if you’re one of those guys that changes jig styles and colors every 5 minutes, maybe it’s not for you! 😉
Happy Fishing!
Augustus Clay
If you found this article useful, you might like some of the other crappie fishing articles on my site linked below.
3 Best Baits For Crappie
Best Net For Crappie
Best Crappie Jig Colors And How To Choose
