You might want to check out Slongs Fishing Lures www.slongsfishinglures.com
Sean makes 4 different styles of jigs and will do just about anything you want or can think of... He has a color chart on his website and can custom make a skirt for you... For a brown and orange he makes a color called voodoo that throws in a little green pumpkin and then has a possum color that is even better.. Both colors very successful for me this year...

As far as the excel line goes... I work at BP and we have had a lot of this and including myself and what I think is the problem is we went to a different company to make our line so it isn't the same stuff it used to be... I like the xps flouro and haven't had problems with it but i bought a large spool of the mono and have had problems with it...

Cole