Made great use of your Hogy Lures for this Tuna Season

While Hogy Lures are extremely effective right out of the package, they can only imitate so much without a little artistic help.  Here are some examples I had learned from a good friend of On the Water Magazine.  I just took some ideas and expanded them to mimic the halfbeaks and Macs.  The cool part about it is that as you use the markers to design your baitfish, the colors naturally bleed to give a fluid color design.

With the Bone color, you can pretty much produce any bait you choose with various permanent markers!
 Steps:
1.  lay out cardboard or multiple sheets of paper.
2. starting on the back of the bait, lay down your base (usually a green or a blue).  I then used a paper towel and wiped off the excess marker eliminating streaks or excess bleeding.
3. Flip the lure on its side and continue the base color, again wiping off the excess marker.
4. Flip to the opposite side and do the same.
5. Let it sit for 5 minutes or so (as you work on your next one)
6. Go back over the the back of the lure with your darker color (I find black does the best to give a good contrast unless you are doing a mackerel pattern)
7. Wipe dry, then proceed to do your final designs.
8. With a red marker, make the gill plates and again wipe dry.
9. Simple, affordable and best of all, you have a tuna lure with a single hook for easy removal.

This is the time of the year for the tuna to be feeding on larger baits such as Halfbeaks and Mackerel.  Don't go for these guys unless you have plenty of lures to imitate the baitfish and there are few out there that have produced more fish than the soft plastics!

Catch'em up!

Capt. Brian Patterson

Patterson Guide Service