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Homemade Tube Rattles (Guest Article)
by Jeff "Yakfish" Little

I started using Bass Pro Shops tube rattles for fishing in muddy water. Now, I put them in all of my tubes. Once you start making your own, you don't worry about how much they cost. Making your own tube rattles is fairly easy to do. I learned how to make them at a seminar at a fishing show in Timonium, Maryland.

The smallies in both photos were caught on green pumpkin tubes containing the author's homemade rattles.

You will need drinking straws, buckshot (it can be bought at gun shops - it's for people who load their own shotgun shells), a lighter, a pair of scissors, and a pair of needle nose, or lineman's pliers. Pinch the end of the drinking straw with 1/8 inch of plastic extending from the pinch point. Heat the plastic until it melts and fuses. Colored straws are better because you can visibly detect an incomplete weld better than with the clear drinking straws. Be sure to avoid breathing the fumes from the melting plastic. While I'm at it, don't lick your hands during or after working with the lead shot. Sometimes the weld is incomplete. You can try to blow through the straw to see if there is air getting through. If air is getting through, water can get in, and deaden the sound. Drop two shots into the straw. Cut the straw so the welded section of straw with the two shots in the bottom measures about 3/4 inches long. The next step is important to make sure that the shots have room to rattle. Using your pliers, pinch the open end of the straw section at an angle perpendicular to the first weld. Using the lighter, weld the rattle shut, making sure to keep the shots away from the second weld site. I have heated the weld line and had the shot stick to the hot plastic, making a silent rattle.

Different lengths of straw section and different size shot make different sounds. I am currently using # 6 shot. The guide who explained to me how to make the rattles uses # 9 shot. I think his name is Marvin Zaccaria, but I could be wrong on the spelling. I have put two different sounding rattles in the same tube, and had success. If the weight of your tube is a concern, you should keep a glass of water on your work area to see how fast the rattles sink, or if they float. I usually adjust the lengths of straw to try to get a slow descent to the bottom of the glass of water. This means that there will be little effect on how fast the tube falls to the bottom of the river.