RiverMan

Geeez, those are nice, great job Shawn. jed

Thanks guys, my first attempt at foil...I have much to learn but it's alot of fun. jed

I just stopped by the lumber mill here and they of course don't have ash or maple....I live in the most backward place on earth! They did donate to my lure-making cause a piece of alder and some poplar to try tho....so happy about that. Thx for the advice. jed

I will be interested in seeeing the bobber-making hoosier as I have made several hundred of them myself. You deserved the compliments on the tutorial and yes with the exception of myself there are some great folks here. Jed

Hmmm, thx Hoosier and Lunge. Guess I will bend the line tie on one and see what happens....will try a couple different woods in the coming week. Jed

A sardine I made for chinook. Lure is 6 inches long and designed to be fished while anchored in heavy current. He has a great wobble to him. Hope you like him...pic is not that great. jed

That would be the first thing I would suspect too Lunge except for all of the other lures ran perfectly with either the small or large bill in place. The lure I had already weighted wouldn't even begin to run......the physics in cranks is just amazing, it's quite a challenge and alot of fun. A test tank would sure simply things. Jed

The baits will be about 4 inches long. The reason I am asking is the other day I was experimenting with some foam for minnow bodies and found that the foam body in the EXACT same shape as the cedar had a totally different action. I really didn't expect to see the degree of difference that I did...nice tight wiggle with the foam, wobble with the cedar. Just wondered before wasting too much time if I would even notice a difference between say cedar, pine, maple, etc., or if the differences would be so subtle it wouldn't be worth the hassle. Thx Lunge. Jed

A coworker of mine has asked me to make him some jerkbaits and I am wondering what type of wood I should use. I cannot get balsa in the BFE town I'm living in but can get most other common woods. I have noted that the cedar jerk baits I build have more of a wobble than a wiggle, much different than what I am used to seeing in shallow running lure. Would I see much difference by using pine? Thx!

Yea that was my guess too Skeeter so built two others today doing exactly what you just wrote. I will test them in a couple of days. The lures are designed to mimic sardine/herring that we use for spring chinook in April and May. The bait with the 60 degree slot has great wobble and stability which is exactly what I want for anchoring in big water. I pulled the bait through the water about as fast as I could and couldn't get it to roll. Thank you for taking the time to respond. Jed

Here is a couple of tutorial links that will give you a good "foundation". Warning, this hobby is very addictive!! http://home.mchsi.com/~djaroscak/buildinglure.html http://luresonline.com.au/ I tried to paste Chip's link too but the links I had saved aren't working. Have fun! jed

They look fantastic!

I think it is great Hoosier! I read through the entire tutorial and even picked up a couple of ideas......never heard about the 3-d eyes with the glue gun. I tried 3 times but never could get all of the pictures to load. I am guessing that my dial-up connection "timed out". It may be possible to correct this by breaking the tutorial into sections. Great job tho, very informative! jed

Today I took these four plugs down to the reeever. The plugs are made from cedar and are 6 inches long and just under 1/2 inches thick, big guys. Starting from the top and going down the lip slots are cut at 60, 50, 40 and 30 degrees respectively. Each of them has an upper and lower tow point drilled into them. I tested each with a large bill and small bill (shown at bottom of pic) and at both tow points, a total of 16 tests, 4 per bait. The 60, 40 and 30 all ran very straight in the water with the small bill, diving to about 5 feet but had almost no wiggle at all. These same baits all had good action with the large bill in place diving to 5' or more, the 60 version was more of a wobble than wiggle which is what I am looking for part of the time. Now, here's my question. The second bait from the top, cut at 50 degrees is the only bait that would not run BUT it is also the only bait in which I had already inserted the weight. All the others I had the weight rubber-banded in place as you see on the top lure. The lure that won't run sits in the water at the same level and aspect as the others and has a very similar amount of weight.......so what's the deal? I am guessing that the center of gravity was changed too much with the large weights I installed. The weights are long enough to where they extend to at least the mid-line or further (toward the dorsal) in the bait. Any suggestions on how best to handle this? Thanks!! Jed

Great idea Stratos and welcome! jed

I am essentially doing the same thing Herman only at a smaller scale than yourself. I have only been building cranks for maybe 3 months from wood, have made many others in the past year with molds and various foam-like products. I started out throwing the "misfit wooden plugs" into a small box in one part of a spare bedroom, that has since filled up and now there are plugs literally everywhere about my shop and house for that matter. Yesterday I watched our labrador walk past me with a wooden crank body in his mouth, lol. I could not have ever built a wooden crank if it were not for those folks at this board, that's a fact. It used to literally blow my mind that someone could shape something like a lure from wood, now it seems quite easy. I think your approach is the best we have at this point. Ultimately it would be great to have software that would allow us to predict and model the action of the bait prior to construction...wouldn't this be cool? This would of course take away some from the "nostalgia" we bait-makers have with our simple tools and approaches so maybe it's best the way it is. Also, those who put in the effort will be rewarded, software would make it easy, probably too easy. I am a bit surprised that most here seem to prefer the SS wire over the screw eyes. I have tried both and much prefer the screw eyes, they look cleaner to me and are so much more predictable and consistent. I may change my mind but right now that is what I have been using. The biggest problem I have now (besides the fact that I am a spaz) is finding a place to test baits. I have been using the bathtub which leaves much to be desired as most all of our ponds here are frozen and the rivers are high. Been thinking about a long tank of some kind that I could fit in the back yard, maybe swim a few laps after checking the baits, or perhaps a simulated current of some-kind in a fish tank. This would save me much time in determining proper plug design. So little time.... Jed

Some more good-looking baits Herman. Thanks to others here showing me "the error of my ways" I can now put together a tapered rounded body in a short amount of time as well....probably 15 minutes or so per bait. I taper the bait bodies at the head and tail with the wheel sander and then use a file for all of the rounding. I have tried to do more of the work with the sander but usually end up taking too much off here or there......which at times also includes part of a finger. I find the body work to be by far the easiest and the most fun. It's the weighting and tow-point part I least enjoy as I have yet to come up with a consistent method of determing these factors. Jed

Some more good-looking baits Herman. Thanks to others here showing me "the error of my ways" I can now put together a tapered rounded body in a short amount of time as well....probably 15 minutes or so per bait. I taper the bait bodies at the head and tail with the wheel sander and then use a file for all of the rounding. I have tried to do more of the work with the sander but usually end up taking too much off here or there......which at times also includes part of a finger. I find the body work to be by far the easiest and the most fun. It's the weighting and tow-point part I least enjoy as I have yet to come up with a consistent method of determing these factors. Jed

Great job Andrew! Does it swim well?

Hi Herman, Some interesting concepts and some great looking lures! That crayfish pattern you have is amazing! I have yet to try some of the ideas you are discussing but certainly agree with your promotion of "experimentation". I have tried without success to put math to baits and have found too much variance for certainty. Each time I test them it seems there is another surprise, part of the fun I guess. Looking forward to your participation in this board. Jed

I normally only use one coat of Devcon on my baits but at times will see thin areas that could probably use a second covering. Just curious as to what others are doing. Thx. jed

Hi Doug, I would suggest that you write some of the experts here, specifically Skeeter, Carolina Chip, BlackJack, Hughesy, or Nathan. All of these folks have their own web-sites and would likely be happy to guide you through the process. Unless the biat is very valuable I would probably clean it up as best you can and put a new coat of devcon over the top. If you aren't worried about the paint, clean off everything, including the paint, and the refinish. Be warned however that the outside coat will at times affect the action of the lure. Better yet, leave the lure as it is and reproduce some identical to it from cedar, it's a blast! Have fun. jed

Most of the tacklebuilding suppliers have the eyes including the tackle shop at this site. Janns Netcraft, Stamina, luremaking.com, etc. I bought some the other day at Sportsman's Warehouse in the fly tying section so you might check a fly shop if you have one near you. You can also buy glass beads, cut them in half with a band saw...watch your fingers, and then color in the pupil. Paint or hole punching out paper also works, your choice. Have fun. jed

I was dealing with this exact problem last night. I had two identical baits that needed eyes. One I drilled with a standard drill and yes it did rip the grain a bit but not so bad it's noticeable with the eyes in place. The other I just glued the eyes on and they stick out a bit. I put Devcon over the top of both baits including the eyes and to be honest one looks as good as the other. I think it would be best to have the eyes recessed a bit but they do look fine either way. Jed

Baits look great Wade, congrats. Curious as to whether you used the exandable foam or the featherlite. About a year or so ago I built several molds of the same bait (tadpolly, it's my favorite) and made may 20 or so molded baits of featherlite and foam. I liked how easy it was to make an exact bait time after time. I made a small jig on a piece of wood and twisted a wire harness for the baits. If you are not doing this I would suggest you do as this is one of the great advantages in my opinion of molding the baits...through wire is hard to beat for strength. I did have some problems with weighting the bait tho as the design I chose required the weight to be placed in a very thin part of the lure. In the end only about half of the baits would run which I attribute now to the difficult design I chose to mold. The expandable foam I found much more difficult to use than the featherlite.....featherlite is tough and a great product. Eventually I had some featherlite stick to my best RTV mold which destroyed it....will build another at some point. Jed