Quote Originally Posted by J Barbosa View Post
Finchaser,

Its duly noted that you do not like teasers but can I ask why? Is it the bluefish?

I am not a big fan of these ava sand eels that became popular during the epic fall of 2011. Its hard to judge how well an idea works when the fish are just swallowing anything that gets in their way.

I rather have my plain tube with bent hook ava and a teaser in the front. Its a confidence thing for me the only thing I dislike is the hooks that come on the ava's. Has anyone found a bent hook with similar action that is stronger?



Been fishing them for 40 to 50 years like that. I also use chartreuse and white with no tube as tubes cause reduced distance and fill with sand only use them on boats. Except for AVA all good block tins don't use tubes as it causes them to spin instead of swim. Back in the day before plastics all we had and fished were wood plugs and tin squids.

To me 2011 wasn't no where near the new term epic which came into existence with the snag and drop crew calls fishing. Epic to me is when there are blitz's that last all day( dawn to dusk) like the video's on Betty and Nicks that we fished and the historic thanksgiving blitz that lasted 3 days with 15 to 30 pound fish.

When I fished jetties I lost too many quality fish due to the teaser hanging up. In inlets and canals and rivers it's next to impossible to stop double headers of good fish in a ripping current. They are also notorious for catching shad and other trash fish. Plus I also fish allot of bucktails and jig heads with rubber bouncing bottom where they are useless.

On rare occasions when a teaser is all they will hit I use one but never a tube. Also the better AVA's come with mustad hooks(31022D) that don't bend, not the imitation Chinese sh_t hooks, Another reason I don't fish tubes I use forged stainless which eliminates your problem.

One other thing AVA jigs originated in the 70's by a company in long island and were shipped with a single BARE 3407 O'shannasy hook. They were first fished on the Miss take II out of the Highlands by Captain Whitey Morenz Sr.. Tubes were not added till about a year later to impart action to them for the guy's who brought spinning reels on boats because they couldn't cast conventional reels and squid or Yo yo a jig.

They didn't hit the beach for years and have been popular since, has nothing to do with 2011 it's just plain old school. I still have approximately 30 original AVA's stamped AVA. Tube teasers and red gills are fished from the beach in storms behind a trolling weight.