Senkosam

I purchased Digital Image by Microsoft from Amazon for under 20 bucks. Photo Deluxe by Adobe is great for doing so many things such as deleting/ adding a foreground, deleting objects, collages, panorama stitching etc. I also use the program that came with my digital Camera. I thought Photoshop to complex to use and put it aside.

Excellent colors! It gives me a few ideas.

Freshwater lure scent or rather taste IMO might be important for bite retention, but I believe even that has more to do with fish aggressiveness, competitiveness (ie. in a school) and the softness of plastics. Catfish have the most sensitivity to water disolved odors which is why stink baits or a pierced can of Friskies cat food works so well drawing them to an area. But bass and other predatory species don't hunt down their prey by scent like a land predator, but react to prey or lure movement, most times from ambush or a stationary position. How we work a lure type and where we work it, I think, is the key to reflex strikes, not scent/taste. I realize many anglers have many experiences confirming scent as something that made a difference on a particular day and I believe in using scent when I ice fish, but for most lure types, it's a waste of money unless it inspires confidence. Each to his own.

Sugar is actually clear poly flakes that when overlapping, create a skim milk white. I compare the color to the belly color of a largemouth.

For a natural white I use only sugar flakes. This laminate used no white and if you can imagine what skim milk looks like held up to the light....... If I want it lighter, two drop of white are added per cup.

Thanks and yes there's blue and purple glitter in MF's brown/grape plastic. Smallmouth, largemouth and pickerel bite skirted jigs with trailers as well as jigs with blades ---spinnerbaits. Jigs can be worked on bottom or swam past stumps or rocks like a spinnerbait. Pork use to be the only trailer around, but soft plastic has taken over because lurecrafters can tailor make them. The flapper tails do just that - flap when moved, wave when stationary. Bass are dumber than clams and react the same way when you push their buttons. As far as bass knowing that a jig is any particular prey species, anglers speculate and believe what they will. My thought is that if the lure resembles a fish or a buggy creature, fish are apt to strike it for many reasons that only they experience. The trailer adds a meaty target to a skirted jig on bottom once the skirt flairs out and down. So true. Some anglers are talented jiggers, others get casting practice and don't know much about the many ways to use and work a jig. Like any good and proven lure, jigs/trailers are classic bass lures that work most of the year in many types of water. A must have bait in anyone's boat! As to lure colors, this may be of interest and interesting: http://myfishjournal.com/vbforum/showthread.php?p=565#post565

I call it my Skippy & Smuckers color.

Not much difference IMO. Craws are craws, minnow are minnows, both are eaten by smallies and greenies. Some say downsize bait size for smallies, but I haven't found that to be necessary. Color choices would seem to depend on personal preferences for certain lures and on water turbidity. My favorite colors are usually good for lakes or rivers and fish usually bite most of them regardless. A few colors don't seem to work as well in current. For example, watermelon and bubblegum haven't produced as well for me in current as consistently as black, smoke/flake, pumpkin, green pumpkin, chartreuse, pearl, white or motor oil. As they say, Keep It Simple Simon.

Two part molds are more difficult but doable. Pour one side. Close the mold and pour the other color straight down after the first pour cools enough to not pool downward. One part mold: pour one half and then the other half of the body. The second pour should be as close to being poured to the first pour so that the halves adhere and not split along the seam with use. The second pour plastic should be above 300 degrees in order to fuse to the first half.

That's the same way I get a nice bright pearl with no yellowing! I also add .008 sliver or .008 gold flake for a flash effect from time to time.

Sorry, I didn't read your reply. I'm mostly expressing a personal opinion about the use of salt in plastic and agreeing with Del that it has it's place and time. The only theory I don't agree with is that bass can identify an attractant and holds on because it recognizes it (ie. protein of craw or baitfish, blood, etc.).

Good points! It amazes be that Yamamoto puts so much salt into everything, even grubs. Maybe he realizes that salt and a lot of softener make a bait flimsy, forcing people to restock more often. The original Beaver should contain much less salt for better action and is good for only a few fish because it’s loaded. The profile of the bait is what I like, not the sink rate of the unweighted plastic. Salt is only good for certain baits IMO and where enough softener must be added to retard the limiting action of salt. Soft plastics are about action – inherent and imparted – and with less action (flex, floatation, finesse), isn't worth didley! As far as fish holding onto a salted bait longer, consider this theory – they hold on longer because of the softness and the grainy, crunchy texture. Another good point. Salt is about sink rate. How many soft plastic designs do we need a faster sink rate while sacrificing softness and translucent color? Not too many IMO. Senko groupies insist that the Senko is a versatile bait, but like Del said, where does a heavily salted Carolina Senko or lizard end up? ...on the bottom, in the muck or weeds, crashing into every rock as it trails the rig. The other reason to use salt is to not use an external weight that gives a bait a nose-down dive angle. But why only salt? I started using bb's recently and 4-5 add some nice center or tail weight to any design I pour needing non-uniform weight. No need for additional softener either!

Nice first try! You might consider a pearl or sugar belly which is similar to bass coloration: This was taken with my old Olympus camera which did not take good close-ups. What is not visible is the gold flake or green flake. The belly color was from mixing .015 sugar flakes into clear plastic and is semitranslucent.

You'll never guess how old that ruler is! Nice pickup. Damnpeoples - great site!! I love photography and will call their customer service before ordering more lenses for the Canon. Before I got the polarized lense, I used my sunglasses over the lens to get deeper colors and cool reflections: I don't use a macro lense for the A540 and the resolution is in mm's under a florescent light! Well worth the $160 I paid for it and there's no reason to upgrade to an SRL digital. Even the videos come out great!

It depends on the lens and it's resolution for close ups. My previous Olympus was limited and to make due, I mounted a magnifying glass in front of the object, used a bright light and a tripod. The pictures came out decent, but not of the same quality as my current camera. Macro and wide-angle lens and lens adapters are sold on Amazon.com for various cameras for less than $20. I just bought a polarized lens and haze lens for outdoor work. The shipping was outrageous, but the color quality is much nicer. If you use a photo program (ie. Microsoft Digital Image for $19 on Amazon), you can sharpen and control contrast, brightness, color saturation, tint and quite a few other options to enhance a picture to your taste. It won't do much for a picture that's too dark or blurred, but it's a tool that I always use to make the final picture what I want it to be.

What did you need to know? Posting pics? Taking shots for the internet? Storing on a site like Photobucket? Downsizing photos? Altering photos? I have a Canon digital which I use with a small tripod, set the automatic setting to macro and use the timer. Nice clear shots everytime, even with no flash indoors. I use the photo program that came with the camera, crop out the unneeded background, crop to 4 or 5" and upload to photobucket, copy the img link on photobucket and post in e-mail or on a forum. Outdoor lighting is best and you don't need a tripod except for super close shots.

Depends on how much you need to pour in one color. You can't beat the speed of the microwave for a cup as long as you have enough cavities to pour one right after the other. For two cups or more, the deep fryer or larger Stay Warm pot would be better for many cavities without having to reheat the plastic like in the microwave. Reheating doesn't take much time for smaller amounts, but colors might suffer with constant reheating at higher temps. I never liked stove top much and will probably dump my dual burner in the garbage. Too much uneven heating and the necessity to constantly reheat after multiple pours.

nice color. Are you using saltwater plastic or regular soft? Have you seen the action in the water?

Good idea or use an oil base garlic scent from Bass Pro or Cabelas. Garlic powder or salt stink bad when heated and the scent is replaced by something I wouldn't want to smell up my work space with! P-U

30 POP, 9 Al and 5 silicone I finding that I can make 2 part molds that produce some nice large baits almost exactly (ie 5" Beaver, Yum frog, boot tail grubs, etc.)

Yea, I knew that's what you meant and have used both, but I like the liquid better for it's ease of use and because it's cheaper to use in the long run IMO. A little goes a long way! Note: don't expect LC's amber pearl powder to be yellowish; it's a copper pearl.

I agree with Als, M-F liquid pearl is easy to use and i've found it easier to regulate than pearl powder. It doesn't take much and along with a few drops of white, you get a nice bright-white pearl plastic. Like most plastic reheats, after the 3rd reheat, expect a little tinting.

A fishing buddy I got into pouring , decided to make a few of his own before ordering some LC molds. He carved some from oak. He had some wood working tools and a dremel and made some nice lures, with and without curly tails. He bought a gallon of plastic from me and almost every day comes by my office to show me some new creations. Problem is, the water is still frozen where we fish and he's aching to see the action in a water volume other than a five gallon bucket. A few more days to ice out and we both can test over 40 new lures we've made in winter.

I've poured this kind of tail before and it's not always the larger body. Suggestions: 1. use very soft plastic and/or 2. make sure the plastic connection from body to tail is thin (ie a Slider grub tail which looks like a T) and/ or is longer.

We have Big Lot discount stores. Very cheap for hangers of all sizes. Home Depot and Lowes are too expensive.