semi weedless soup spoon Buzzers

Made these baits on a short term , encouraged by a PM from TU member "seamsea" . My gratidude goes to him for his input:worship: !

The metal bodies are shaped by grinding and some filing out of old SST soup spoons , that I got from a fleamarket for very little money , the blades , hooks and skirts I still had laying around in my component stock .

Since I like topwater baits to be of a dark color , I have heated the spoons to red glow with a soldering torch to achieve this distinctive color .

They did not turn out any darker , since such spoons are made of a high quality steel alloy , rather better than ordinary SST sheets , that turn out to a darker blue tone treated this way .

I did not bother about painting them , because riveting the hook onto them would surely have ruined any paint coats !

The rivets to fix the single hooks I had to make out of 4mm dia. round brass rod , since I don't stock such tiny rivets , that would pass through the hook eyes .

I fixed a piece of that brass into the chuck of my lathe motor and worked the required diameter and length down by filing against the rotating workpiece , after cut it off with a saw blade .

This works pretty well , I also make spinnerbodies that way(of thicker brass rod) .

For a rigid bond I laid an ordinary disc washer(the type to mount to wooden lures with the screweyes) underneath the inner rivet head , that I had to swage flat to close the bond .

This operation was a bit finacky , since I had to hold hook , spoon and all the skirts strands with my guide-hand , whilst knocking a smaller hammer onto the rivets head , so that I won't smash the skirt strands .

Made similar lures before(also here in the gallery) , but with treble hooks rigged and therefore not suitable for fishing in weeds and pads .

Haven't caught on those yet(except a small perch), but with this new ones I probably have better chances for a pike , 'cause they can go places , where the previously made ones can't !

Thanks again , seamsea ! diemai