Picking Pork Rind for Bucktails

By Russ Bassdozer

There are really only a few basic options. I have heard of stripers taking every pork rind size and shape ever hung on the back of a bucktail, including orange polka dotted pork frogs. More realistically, though, you don't really have too many choices here.

Uncle Josh makes only a few basic models of Sea Rinds in only a few basic colors. Click here and you can see the models and colors.

Size. Like many other types of striper lures, a good size for pork strips is between 4 to 8 inches.

Shape. As far as Uncle Josh models, the "Striper Strip" has the highly-desirable pennant shape just like a baitfish. I like that! I have never been a proponent of the split tail shapes, but they catch too. If I want other sizes of pennant-shaped strips, I make them myself out of a piece of Uncle Josh Offshore Big Boys, which now come 3 per jar.

Big Boys. These are large pork rinds for marlin and tuna, but that you can cut them up to get as many as 7 fish-shaped pennants from each piece of Big Boy. So, that's 21 pennants per jar, which saves you a little money. Here's how to cut and shape them:

1) Cut the Big Boy in half. leave the bottom half slightly shorter than the top half.

2) Slice the bottom half in order to get three slightly shorter (4 - 4 1/2) inch pennants.

3) Trim the round part of the top half in order to somewhat square it off. Now slice this "square" top half right down the middle, thereby making two rectangles of pork, each about 5-6" long.

4) Now cut each rectangle sort of diagonally, thereby making two pennants from each rectangle, or a total of four pennants.

There's a little more than that to cutting them properly, but that's the best I can do without actually showing you in person. The size of strips mentioned above will work well with most any bucktail up to one ounce (or even one and one half ounces).

You can cut even bigger pennants for even bigger bucktails out of the Big Boys too. It's still more economical than buying the pre-cut shapes, plus you can make exactly the size/shape you need for your next trip. I really like that flexibility!

I just stick to white all the time. As far as the available store-bought colors, the most skilled bucktailers I have ever seen use only white porkrind, white hair, white thread, and unpainted heads. This is not just a local thing, either. However, stripers will hit whatever other colors Uncle Josh currently makes (yellow, red, fluorecsent green), and you will hear lots of guys who have made good catches with these colors. Plus, it's fun to try other colors.

If you want to get serious, pick up a few packages of Ritz dress dye in order to dye your white porkrind. One suggestion is "Denim", which makes your pork turn a pale, drab blue, very much like an eelskin. I like that - a lot! Try it for the mullet run, and try other deeper, more vibrant blue dyes also. Dye some thin strips with a pastel pink or light violet. Add to bucktails to imitate peanut bunker and herring. Keep dyed strips in their own jars. Don't mix 'em in the jars, but you can take two very thin pennants (one blue, one pink) and put both on your hook (blue one on top).

One other option I like is a Strike King Bo-Hawg Leech. This is a chunk-headed, fish-shaped pennant of pork. I often use this on lightweight bucktails on shallow backwater flats. I tie a very short, very sparse, tightly flared bucktail - only enough to imitate a bait's gills breathing. The chunky part of the leech resembles an egg-filled belly, and the thinner pennant part of the pork's tail completes the illusion.