Hmmm, where to begin? I haven't used bucktail-haired jigs in many, many years, let alone the constantly price-increasing Spro variety. What do they get for a 4oz these days, like 8 bux? Ridiculous! I make my own out of rubber "squidie" tails and I'm pretty sure no one has ever accused me or my jigs of not producing results out on the grounds, LOL!
Basics:
Here's how I get to where I gotta go:
So, its like 25 degrees out, I’ve already checked inside the boat, under the shrink-wrap - more than once today - gotta make sure the bilge-mounted 60W light bulbs are all lit and doing their jobs keeping thr temp up down in there. Turned the dehumidifier off, what with the water in the bucket...
nyangler.com
One improvement to the above method is that I now use one of those little mini wire ties on the jig's hook as the trailer hook keeper, instead of the cut off squidie heads. Seems to much better resist the shaking off of the trailer hook on a good fish's head thumps - which can occasionally be an issue.
Experimentation, on-going trial-and-error refinements, that's how we learn this kind of stuff. At least that's how I learn. Costs some fish to go this way, but that's one of the reasons that I post in such detail - so you don't have to do the method discovery. I think that's supposed to be the point of this board, no?
Anyway, I tend to keep a good variety of my jigs ready to go.
Those pix are from a season or three ago. Safe to say many of them are now resting comfortably hooked to the bottom out on the offshore JI grounds. Hey more structure is more good, right?
So this Winter I've once again been accumulating components in order to make up a couple of dozen 3 and 4oz jigs, which are the most common sizes we use on the deeper grounds.
As you can see, I tend to gravitate toward glow-in-the-dark and brighter colors. As far as using the rubber squidies or the silicone fine tails, I like both, but for different purposes. The squidies go on the lead heads, and the silicone skirts I save to put ahead of the top hook on my B/S rigs, used in conjunction with a couple of glow beads, a 5/0 Mustad 3400BN hook and a 5 or 6" GULP! jigging grub. I've found thru experimentation that mounting the silicone skirt on the dropper in reverse gives a very nice pulsing action above the grub. Some pix of this rigging:
As I've written before, I get my squidies, the silicone skirts, and the 10mm glow beads from AliExpress. The jig heads, pre-made with 5/0 hooks and glow painted, have been coming from Clint at HTLureco. His prices are getting a bit on the rich side and so I've hit on T&A Jigs on Ebay as my new source for the heads. His jig head mold is set up for an 8/0 hook - way too big for fluke, IMO. But it can accomodate 6/0's and so that's what I'm going with this season. His user name on Ebay is goodwin808, but his real name is Tim. Seems to be a solid guy with good communication and I'm gonna give him my order today.
Putting fluke jigs together on a rainy weekend day sure beats most other deary honey-doo tasks. I head for the garage, close the door, put on a Knick or Mets game (or always try to catch Joe Bonigno on WFAN Saturday mornings), and spend a couple of mind-clearing hours doing my thing. Works for me.
So if you want to try doing it "my way," look around on AliExpress for the two types of tails and beads, head to Ebay for the painted jig heads - and you can build your own very effective fluke jigs and rigs for around half what you'd lay out for those Spro pieces.
the last couple of years I also got some plastics off Ebay (Lep's guidance again) and put some of them backwards (ends facing the mouth away from hook) for that extra pulse on the same dressed leadhead. The hook point remains somewhat exposed and that is where I put on a 3" Gulp! Mind you, I fish alone, off a yak, and in the backbay,for just weaks and fluke. And I use a DIY Lep Rig (have no idea where that came from, probably from that all but defunct other website 
