This small, home-based Louisiana company specializes in hand-tied jigs
An Arnaudville angler who enjoys catching crappie, also known as sac-a-lait, has taken fishing to another level by making his own artificial lures.
Logan Richard got the urge to take matters into his own hands late last winter when he started tying his own hair jigs and using them to fish in and around Henderson Lake, where he began fishing as a very young boy with his father, Ryan Richard, also of Arnaudville. Richard doesn’t regret it and enjoys taking the time to make each one.
“Well, actually, it started out as a little hobby, something to take the edge off after work,” said the 37-year-old plant manager for NOV Tuboscope in Broussard.
Richard Jigs, a fledgling endeavor, was born.
“I actually never really thought it would go anywhere,” Richard said. “It’s just a little thing to ease my mind at the end of the day. (But) people started liking it. It’s word of mouth, a few guys here and there.”
Field testing
The pipeline, so to speak, got off to a good start when he was talking about hair jigs with Ty LeBlanc of Loreauville. LeBlanc, an all-around outdoorsman and avid angler who targets panfish mostly in the Atchafalaya Basin, brought up the subject one day.
“I said, ‘I make jigs for a little hobby.’ I showed them to Ty. He said, ‘Man, they look beautiful.’ I said ‘go ahead and try them out,’” Richard said, recalling the turning point. “Once I brought him a few, he took them and fell in love with them. He’s basically my field tester.”
LeBlanc, a lead machinist at NOV Tuboscope, proved their effectiveness time and time again, including trips into Cow Island, a hard-to-get-to, shallow lake in the nation’s last great overflow swamp west of the Atchafalaya River.
After so many months of sharing them and selling some, Richard Jigs have found their way into tackle boxes in and around Acadiana.
There’s a reason people are catching on to the hype and catchin’ sac-a-lait and/or bream. The Richard Jigs perform naturally in the water.
“We (Richard and LeBlanc) did a couple experiments to see how they move in the water and they look pretty good,” Richard said. “That was March last year. We field tested a lot of them.”
So far, all the leadheads for the jigs are 1/32-ounce. However, he said, “I’m going to get more into 1/16.”
Tying the jigs
Richard paints the leadheads himself. And he ties the hair jig using marabou feathers and an increasingly popular fly tying material called ice dubbing, which adds shine and flash to a hair jig. He does this all at his home in Arnaudville.
“Right now, the experiment is using ice dubbing,” he said. “There’s a few things I’m working on to make it more of a natural baitfish, you know. The ice dubbing makes up the body of the jig. As it gets toward the head of the jig it gets thicker and thicker, that last layer.”
It takes seven to eight minutes to tie each jig, he said.
The most popular colors are “blood shad” and “neon shad.” One of Richard’s two daughters is partial to a black/green combination.
He inserts two Richard Jigs in plastic pouches purchased at a Dollar General store. The package is then stapled with a card bearing the brand’s insignia designed by his wife, Diedra.
The price per package?
“You’ll laugh at the prices I charge for this — $3.50 for a two-pack. One guy looked at me like I was crazy,” Richard said with a chuckle.
Seriously, he said, “The enjoyment I get is from people using it and catching. It’s a nice, relaxing hobby for me. I hand-tie these. It’s fun.”
For more information on Richard Jigs, you can email richardjigs12@gmail.com, call (337) 692-0057 or find them on Facebook.
