more 6" swimbaits

Nice bunch of swimbaits you made there , Mark , I like them , well done job !

In terms of their colors I like this rather more greyish one best .

Always like to view such swimbait pictures nowadays , since I saw the first homemade ones in the internet some months ago , I am fooling around in my mind to try making my own , but I never figured it out completly !

Well , time come and probably some more valuable input here on TU .

Thanks , Mark !

diemai,

The greyer lure is a Crappie, which is one of the sunfish that are in our local lakes, and on which our bass prey.

The photo doesn't really show it, but it has a greenish cast. I use pearl silver as a base, then put on drywall webbed tape for scaling, and spray on vertical lines and a green back with moss green, and spots with opaque black.

I thinn them both with Windex, to make them easier to spray.

Then I strip the scale tape, and over spray the sides and back with a green iridescent paint I got from Wildlife colors. It doesn't hide the scales, because it's a very thin paint to begin with, but it gives the lure a green cast and shimmer in the water.

As far as making the actual lures work, I've found the key for me is to keep the ballast low, by drilling all the hole in the bottom, instead of side to side in the lures, and make sure the joints are lose. When assembled I want at least 3/16" inch between sections, to allow for paint and epoxy, and still have a loose joint when I'm done. I also "lube" the joints by putting some fish attractant paste on the faces of the joints, so they don't stick if they hit the water at a funny angle.

I use 1/8oz egg sinkers as hook hanger weights. I push a sst cotter pin through the hole, bend the tabs out and cut them off even with the outside diameter of the egg sinker. For the sinkers I get from Cabela's, that's 5/16" diameter. I drill the holes that size, using a Forstner bit, and also use the same bit for additional ballast holes, into which I put either additional 1/8oz sinkers, or #5 round split shot, depending on how much I want the lure to sink or float.

I found that, by inserting the hook hangers and then sealing the bait, then assembling it and hanging the treble hooks I'm using, with their split rings attached, by one hook on the hangers, and then floating the lure in a bucket of water in the garage, I can just pinch on additional split shots to the hooks until I get the floatation I want.

I figure that the finished paint and epoxy will add another 3grams+-, just over one #5 split shot, so, if I get the lure weighted the way I want it, I add one less split shot to the final lure to allow for the finish.

If you look at my lures, you'll see the front hanger is near the back of the first section, and the rear hanger is near the front of the last section. If I'm making a four piece, the rear hanger is in the third section, and I leave the tail section unweighted.

I add weight, if needed, first in front of the front hanger, and then in the middle section on the three piece lures.

The four piece lures are more buoyant, so I add weight in the third section, behind the hook hanger, if I need it.

In the test bucket, I shoot for a level, horizontal position in the water, whether floating or sinking. A lure that floats with the back barely at the surface before finishing will fall slowly when finished.

My ideal slow sinker will barely float without the hooks, so that when it falls, it rests on the hooks and doesn't fall over. That one is really trick to achieve, since each piece of wood is different, but it's great when I can get one to do that.

Floaters need to have about 1/2" of the back out of the water before finishing, and sinkers should fall slowly to the bottom of the bucket before finishing, or faster, if you want a faster falling lure.

I generally don't make really fast falling lures, because I don't want to fish a homemade lure deeper than about 10', so I can retrieve it if it gets snagged. For deeper lures, I use some of the store bought plastic swimbaits that are on the market. Easier to retrieve if they get hung up, and less heart breaking if they get lost.

In the past, I played around with twisted sst wire for my hinge joints, but I found the extra steps required to make and install them too time consuming, so now I just use sst screw eyes, and sst wire for the hinge pins. You can use mating screw eyes, and epoxy one set into the holes, instead of the sst wire hinge pin, but I like the fact that, by leaving a 90degree tag on the hinge pin, bent down onto the lure body on top, I can always pull the pin and disassemble the lure for "maintenance".

After doing a few, it becomes a lot easier. I've learned to do as much cutting and drilling as possible while the block is still square, and to mark center lines as soon as I've cut out the outline, so I can keep it symetrical by eye, and again after I've sanded it to shape, so any more work I need to do is centered, too.

Sorry to be so long winded, but there is a learning curve, and any time I can cut off that curve for you I'm happy to do.

If you want, I'll email you a sketch of how I place the weights and hangers, and the overall shape and size.

Mark ,

Thank you so much about having taken the effort to type this long tutorial for me and others , it's very generous to share your knowledge with us !

Especially your hints about how and where placing the weighting are very welcome to me , and I gladly appreciate your offer on emailing a sketch to me(only if you've already got one , no need to extra make one for me) , I'll sent my email adress in a PM .

Thanks so much , Dieter