Tying Our Own Jigs: the Marabou Jig

Marabou is a great material to use on jigs as it moves so seductively in the water with the slightest current or movement of the rod. It's no wonder that so many flies are tied with marabou.

Whether we jig it, use a steady retrieve or drift it under a float, a marabou jig will deliver.

[Ecofish]

Very thorough demo on the maribou palmering process.

[artmias]

That, sir, is a marabou masterpiece! Great video! Greatly appreciated. Cheers.

[brian]

Wow. I didn’t realize I was doing it wrong! I always just tied the base of the feather segment to the hook, or even stripped off the barbs and tied them on.
Your way makes a much fuller profile. Thanks!

[alexrawleigh]

One of the best tutorials on palmering Marabou on a hook shank. Very precise, neat and fantastic technique. What most people dont realize is Marabou compress when wet so a jig that looks full when just tying in rather then palmering might give you a very thin profile. Intie all my cold water smallmouth jigs by palmering the Marabou. Prevents the material from compressing as much. Also, I put a small piece of plastic work on the hook shank which does two things. It provides extra weight allowing and angler for longer casts and it also helps the jig fall slower. Nice job on this one.

[SaileAway]

Thanks for the tutorial. Helped a lot cuz I'm new to tying. I just tied the same thing but with a rabbit zonker strip for the tail instead of marabou. This sounds crazy but if you put a 3 power box fan on your tying table you can really blast those marabou fibers back towards the tail while palmering...really helps with avoiding trapped fibers. Just make sure you have no stray tying materials laying out!!

[jeromedwojak]

Great looking jig, thanks for sharing this simple technique with us, very helpful!

[kogabear]

I was given a couple of these by a fisherman when I was fishing for cutthroat when what I was using didn’t work. They might be a little heavy to use a fly pole but it actually helped me with my roll cast because of the heavy weight, made it way forgiving and I was able to transfer it to fishing using a normal fly. Who would have thought.

[tammymaxfield]

Could you tell me what kind of vice you are using? 😊