"The Real Thing"

These are some real , real killer lures:) !

At first I must say , that I did not have the idea about making the mold for these approx. 60mm(25,4mm = 1") long jigging spoons , but a friend of mine , he also published it in a German angling magazine years ago.

On occasion of a date at his dentist he had the ingenious idea about using this special putty , that dentists use to make negative prints of someones jaws(needed to make braces or false teeth , etc.) to make a superbe lure .

The putty is supposed to cure in someones mouth quick , therefore no heat or any other means are neccessary to achieve the hardening .

So he got himself some of this stuff , and in a small box he made a negative print of a freshly caught , small minnow , by working it half way into the putty .

After curing he applied some fluid(sorry , don't remember , what it was)onto the mold-half and minnow to prevent binding and furnished the second half of the mold with some fresh putty .

There were no registration pins in the two mold-halves , he just made the surface of the first half uneven with his fingertips , so they would only fit together in one way , just like a jigsaw puzzle .

The sprue hole and the slots for the wireharness he cut out later with a sharp knife .

Since my wife loves vertical jigging under the boat , I asked him to borrow the mold for some time and I cast a couple of dozens of those blanks , to my surprise the mold resisted the heat quite well .

I used a special lead alloy , that is quite rigid , won't bend and won't tarnish , sadly the blanks require some clean-up work before painting .

Pictured are some different finishes , that I put onto these lures , beside some normally painted ones are some in a metal flake finish and also in a glow-in-the-dark color , always shown together with a blank lure .

These lures have already caught all species of local predatory fish except the big European catfish(silure) , don't have them that much here up north .

Got pike and zander(walleye) of over 32" , perch of over 16" , and even asp and eel on them , on one lucky day all the 5 species together in one session .