Skeeter

Send me a PM with your email address. Skeeter

Do yourself a big favor. Trash the bait and start over. I can't even begin to count how many times I have done it. Skeeter

LOL.... Ben you kill me. I understand about having to find out for yourself. I know it is hard to believe, but I am pretty hard headed to. Seems most of the guys in this post are the same way. Have at it my friends. Enjoy. Skeeter

Wow.... opened a can of worms on this one huh guys. You can save your tests. I have already done this for years. I have a client that wants deep crankbaits that slowly rise when stopped. He uses them for deep summer cranking. I made a few and was able to test them in a 12ft deep pool. That is the deepest pool that I had access to (so weighting was a guessing game beyond 12ft). Taking the bait deeper can definitely have a greater affect on them. The pool was 82 deg. I could watch the bait rise. It was slow. So then I took the bait to the lake and threw it on a flat that was 18 ft deep. Once the bait hit the bottom I would stop it and count how long it took the bait to rise. I had the same bait that I make with the normal amount of weight (lighter) in it and tested that one. It rose considerably faster. The owner of the heavier baits called me during the last week of Nov. and complained that the bait was slowly sinking right at the surface. He thought water got to the wood. Water temp at the dock on the lake was 62 deg. I threw the bait in the water and it slowly started sinking. I took the bait to the house and played with it in a 20 gal. fish tank. The bait wouldn't float until the water temp was 74 deg. But even that could not be accurate because the bait was not in 18ft. of water when it started to float up. But, remember, this bait was weighted closely for a reason. It was not weighted the same way as the ones I normally make for folks. I will tell you now that water temp and water pressure does affect the bouyancy of a crankbait. A bait is more bouyant in warmer water. Skeeter

Sorry Bob, I didn't get it wrong. The colder the water is the less bouancy a bait will have. Also the deeper a bait goes the more pressure is put on the bait. In a cold water (45 deg. or less) a bait (including jerkbaits) may float at the surface or even 3 ft down. But at 8-10 ft it will sink. Most of my baits are made of solid wood. This is alot different than Balsa. Balsa is all forgiving when weighted. But the bottom line is that in cold water ANY bait will rise slower than it would in warmer water. Promise. Skeeter

littleriver, There is no way to consitantly guage the rise. Mainly because alot of it has to do with water temperature and water pressure. Cold water is denser than hot. Therefore, a bait that slowly rises in hot water may slowly sink it cold, especially if the bait is a deep running one. Your idea of gauging the rise is shallow water is as good as you can get without being able to view the lure. But the deeper the bait goes the more pressure that is put on the lure. The rise will be slower. Skeeter

Do you apply it the same as Devcon? Will one coat do? And you say that it is more durable? Sounds like a winner to me. Skeeter

Found another old post. Thought some of you might enjoy it. Skeeter

Some of the simple things in life are the best brother. Skeeter

Inrll, Brother, you have gotten your monies worth out of the bait. The bait is made out of injected plastic and therefore so is the lip. Plastic lips crack all of the time. I am suprised that it lasted this long. Of course most of the damage is going to be on the lip and nose. You can see where the water has gotten in under the clearcoat and caused spots on the bait to go milky. This is all normal. So now you have three options left..... Seal the cracks, Strip and repaint the lure, or just keep on fishing it. It is plastic so water intrusion under the clearcoat won't hurt it. Skeeter

Heck Bob... if you made it I would probably love it. Shallow running baits are a different beast to me. I mainly make deep diving crankbaits. I just like that type of fishing. Most of my shallow running crankbaits rise a lot faster than my deeper running plugs. Basically for the reasons Bob stated. I usually fish shallow baits like a spinnerbait. I will throw it at anything and everything. It is a fun way to fish. Skeeter

LMAO!!!! I agree with Mark. Skeeter

Tracy, You are doing just fine. I still make mistakes just like I did 14 yrs. ago. You are correct... each lure can have its own personality. I too still use hand tools that belonged to my grandfather from the 1920s. You will never get rich making crankbaits by hand. It just takes too much time. I had a guy tell me that I needed to automate to step up production. He said that I wouldn't make any money the way that I do things. For me it is not the money but what my peers think. If I can impress them then I have done something. In 2008 at the FLW Championship on Lake Murray, Patrick Sebile took an intrest in my baits. He wanted to buy two of them but I gave them to him instead. That is when I knew that I had it right.That is the rush for me. Skeeter

Mark, It is not that they don't do what they are suppose to do. It is the fact the customer does not get a bait that will perform at its' maximum potential. Fish will bite an unbalanced crankbait with a crooked lip and/or a crooked body. However, an example that I have used for years best applies here. You wouldn't try to shoot an archery tournament with crooked arrows...... so why would you try to hit a stump in 16 ft. of water multiple times with a crooked crankbait? The original concept of deep crankbaiting that was started by folk like Elias, Clunn, and Fritts was to hit a target (stump, rockpile, and/or ledge) over and over again from multiple angles until your lure gets bit. The number one reason that most of us from many years ago came to this site to make lures was because we were tired of paying good money for crap. We gathered here to teach and learn from each other. In the "Industry" you have + or - tollerances that are allowed in manufacturing. This is what kills the end product. This is why there are those "Special Baits" that we cherrish so much..... one was made right!! It is true for plastic injection crankbaits as well. Most think that because they are shot by a machine that they are all accurate. WRONG! I have seen plastic crankbaits where the molds that they were made in were off. One side of the mold different than the other. Plus, most of the lips are shot and included with the lure. This means a plastic lip. This means lips that will break easily. But who cares? You are only paying $6 or $7 bucks for them right? Their inexpensive compared to a well made $20 custom plug. But after about 4 or 5 trips of banging that cheap plug on the rocks it will break somewhere and or the clearcoat will wear off and the paint job will be just about gone. So you need to buy a fist full of them to get you through the year. I don't see the advantage in that. But, the industry feels that it just can't make lures for the masses without cutting corners somewhere. We all have listened to the "Pros". They do it for a living, they will tell us the right lure to use and any modifications that we need.... right? BULL! Most pros don't have a clue what makes a good crankbait. I really loved the last bunch of garbage that silent crankbaits work best. I read where Kelly Jordan says that he drills a hole and shoots super glue into the bait to silence the rolling balls used for rattles. Hope the balls stop in the right place or the bait is going to be unballanced. Gee.... I wonder if that will affect the performance of the lure? I love how Megabass has channels running everywhere throughout some of their crankbaits. Little tungsten balls that can roll all over the place in special channels. That has to make the bait run accurately...right? And those paint jobs! Man.... that is one thing that the Japanese did for crankbaits. Those beautiful paint jobs. How many of you own a Lucky Craft, Jackall, or Megabass crankbait? Boy, the finish really holds up on them huh? And my favorite of all is the guy that is looking to buy crankbait bodies in bulk so they can paint them up and sell them as custom crankbaits. Regardless where you buy them.... the majority come from China. They sure know how to make a crankbait right? They definitely know what an American fisherman needs to be throwing on the ledges of Ky. Lake. Lets get it straight... these are custom painted lures not custom crankbaits. There is nothing wrong with doing that as long as it is represented correctly. Now we have crankbait rods that are almost 8 ft. long so that you can really bomb those crankbaits out there to get the "Big Uns". Ha! Remember Rick Clunn and Arlie Napier during the FLW championship on Pickwick Lake in 2000. It was one of the most beautiful crankbait battles that I have ever seen. Napier threw a Hot Lips Express and Clunn threw a Poes 300. Both of them used 7 ft. rods. Clunn won $200,000 on that one. My point on all of this is don't believe all that you hear. Perfection is what many of us on this site are trying to obtain. And from what I can see ..... we are all working hard at it. Skeeter P.S. You're welcome Benton. It was all my pleasure. This craft needs alot more people like you. Find someone to share it with. That is what it is all about.

Yes Mark, a lot of that stuff still holds true today. Most crankbaits are made light so that they will float in both hot and cold water temperatures. A bait that slowly floats up in 85 deg. water will definitely sink in 50 deg water. It is just the nature of the beast. I love wooden baits. I love to carve and shape my own. I use hardwoods more than I use balsa by far. I have bought and torn apart so many custom lures. Lord knows how much money and time that I spent on those plugs. The ones that are made today are still pretty bad. Bagley turned out some nice bodies but many of the lips were installed crooked. They are done that way today too. Poes always have been and always will be a mess. Crooked bodies, poorly installed lips, and off center belly weights are just a few of the problems with those poor things. The DT 10 and 6 are pretty nice plugs. Off of the shelf they are (in my opinion) the best out there. The DT 16 is just horrible. David must have been drinking shine through a straw when he ok'd that one. A lot of custom made plugs aren't right either. I can't tell you how many WEC plugs I have had to fix for people. The old Lebo and Lohr's lures were made well. Lebo was sold to Lohr. Jerry made some really nice plugs (especially for the $13:50 price tag). But even he went to foam and just messed up a good thing in my opinion. Now they aren't made any more period. Calvin Johnson is another one that made a name for himself back in the day. I learned how to load a bait from him. But when he cut lips out of the Bagley lures it looked like he used a chainsaw. And I have turned out my share of baits with lips that weren't straight too. But I am pretty good at it now. It is a hard thing to do when you do everything by hand. Skeeter And Bob... I have no idea why you think I am an ornery cuss. I am just mildly opinionated.

A little nestalgia. Thought some might enjoy reading it. Skeeter

I have been seeing this bait on a lot of different sites. Everyone is freaking out on the finish. Personally, I wonder how it will run. Wonder how many Paul Elias will buy? Skeeter

WOW...... for over 10 yrs. now one of the biggest topics on this site has been clearcoats. Everyone is looking for the QUICK, EASY, and MOST DURABLE way. Boy, when Solarez hit the forum everyone on this site went nuts. LMAO, guess that did not turn out either huh? Wonder how much money was spent on that stuff from guys on this site? Very few have any idea how many different clears Benton, Lincoya, and myself have seen come through this site. Anything Benton or Lincoya tells you is rock solid. They have been doing it a long time. Not many have paid their dues like those two have. They and a few others on this site are true professionals. I usually get 3 yrs. out of a bait. But I have to fix some of them too. Smack a rock, drag them on hard bottoms, throw them up on the shoreline and drag them in, hang them up, beat them with plug knockers and have a lot of fish just plain chew on them. I say that is pretty darn good. So what if I have to repair them? There is NO COMMERCIAL CRANKBAIT and very few custom crankbaits that will out last one of my plugs. I have been making them the same way for 14 yrs. There is no magic clear for any bait. I have been on here since 2003 and was on another site with some of these guys 2 or 3 yrs. before that. If you took the combined hours of time spent by these guys on clears it would just blow your mind. So read what the "Old Guard" put on this site. They had it right (and still do). Take your time and do the best work that you can. That is the best way to make a plug. Take it one bait at a time and do your best on each and every bait that you do. That is how well made baits that last are done. If you want to see one of the most wicked bait and clearcoat jobs ever done check this out. http://www.tackletour.com/reviewhandtcrankpg2.html It is done by our very own Hughesy and a guy by the name of Jeff Thompson. These two country boys did pretty darn good. Skeeter

I only use auto clears on small plastic baits such as a pop-r because epoxy does not like sharp edges. If you can find it... try Alpha Cryl. It was made by BASF. I was eventually banned by the EPA because it contained lead. But you may be able to find it. All you have to do is just dip. The stuff is excellent. If you use an auto clear make sure that it is a high solids clear. Cheap auto clears (Nason, etc) will peel. The good stuff will run you about $100 for a quart of clear, activator, and hardner. Skeeter

Thank you! PM sent. Skeeter

Are you sure that you have true polycarbonate? What you are describing sounds like acrylic to me. It can become brittle, especially in cold water. Many places try to sell acrylic and call it Lexan. Lexan is just the trade name given to polycarbonate by General Electric. They invented it. There are also different grades of polycarbonate. Most if it has fillers in it. The purest grade is used for bullet proof glass. 12 yrs. ago that was $70.00 a square foot. I have been making crankbaits for 14 yrs. and use 1/16th inch stock. I have never had a polycarbonate lip break. That is why I ask. Skeeter

Devcon does not make Lexan (Polycarbonate) brittle. You have something else going on there causing your problem. Skeeter

I have a Team Daiwa S crankbait rod. The other day while using it the cork handle slid down the blank away from the real seat about 3/4 of an inch. The hot glue that they use just gave way. The other day I epoxied the handle to the blank and back up onto the reel seat. Now it looks as though the real seat had turned to the left about 1/4 of an inch also. I didn't catch it. So now my guides all lean to the right about 1/4 of an inch. This just drives me nuts. The rod is in real clean and excellent condition and I enjoy using it. So I need to get the current guides cut off, re-aligned, and re-wraped. I don't know.... maybe I would considered a spiral wrap to the right on this rod too. I am not really concerned about the thread color matching what Daiwa had on there. It would be nice... but not a necessity. So here are my questions: 1. What would it cost me to have the work done? 2. Would it take more guides or different spacing to do the spiral wrap? Thanks, Skeeter

If anyone would know, it would be Hughesy. Skeeter

Nothing. Skeeter