jerkbait

I have been using brass tubes for a while and they work great. I remeber someone using .22 cal casings as well. Mounted laterally, they will tick like crazey as the bait swims. I have been closing the ends off with a hard plastic disc epoxied in and the shot bouncing around in the tube and hitting the ends are the loudest I have come up with. Jerk

Wait a minute, muskies eat blue over foil????? Now I got to make me one too! Dang. I am gonna do a green mac next. Jaime: That is cratex pearl teal on the nose, pearl blue accross the back. All over silver foil with black stripes. Jerk

It only wiggles when you steady crank it or reel all the slack and give it a long pull. Then it will swim hard for a couple feet then just hang. I cannot get it to go side to side but it really wasnt meant to. I was thinking of doing a straight bodied glider with a jointed tail section. I tried it recently with a large spinner blade on the tail but it dampened the action to the point that it just slid straight.Thanks for the praise guys. Jerk!

Salwater version of the crank I make pimarily for muskies. It is 3.75" about 1 1/2oz and runs to 3 feet. I have been doing them in black over foil for a while and just wanted to try something different. This one goes to a fellow builder here in Ky. Jerk

After seeing some excellant examples on here I took one of my stock glider blanks and "V" cut it. Was pretty fortunate to only destroy a couple before I got them to swim like I wanted. Didnt do the tail fin but may try it on the next generation. Stats: 6",3oz,pine shad pattern,neutral buoyant. Jerk!

Found a book of cardboard stencils in the school supply section of the local Office Max. I cut the letters I needed and taped them together in a string. BG Lures is easy to do(my logo). You can order some metal letter stencils for sign making but I cant seem to find the link anymore. Penn State has a deal that will transfer ink from a morror image printed on paper to a flat surface but it is easy to let slip and make a mess after the bait is nearly done.You can get rubber stamps made with graphics or letters also. Ink stamps well on white bellies but it is hard to conform to rounded or irregular surfaces. Paint can be stamped as well but is kinda slick and easily smeared. Jerk!

Here are some different body styles. Some are saw cut and hand sanded while 3 are lathe turned. The big orange one is 9" and 3oz. It also has a through wire that some prefer. The fish are following these baits well right now and I will post a catch as soon as I get a good picture. Jerk!

Just finished 4 this am. Took my template and traced it on rectangular pieces and turned them down, The radius was perfect and shaped up nice. Almost no hand sanding involved. Wont work for drop-bellied baits as well, but the symetrical designs are a snap. Even drilled one for a through wire even though I have no prob with screw eyes. The seal coat is curing now so it will be a day or so before I can show them. Will try to get a picture posted. Jerk

Riverman, I will post results once I get to Columbus (Rockler) and get one of the drums. Until then I roughed a few glider bodies on the lath which gave very nice radii' when the rectangle was cented well on the spindles. Minimal sanding too! And since I have the lathe I thought I would try a more rounded profile similar to the manta bait. The flat sided gliders (divani) are still my favorites for flash but rounded baits (manta, old half-shaft) glide farther and belly wiggle better. Our local muskies are still hard after gliders so I can still try out the designs for about a month yet. Jerk!

The middle of the cylinder deflects along with the abrasive giving a rounded sanding surface. I am looking to find one that is affordable. I do gliders (like Riverman's only not as pretty) and do the radius sanding on a drum in a drill press. Over the last few seasons of building this topic comes up often and I like many of you have tried different things including the file and scarey router. I saw this guy use one building skate boards on Discovery Channel. One pass on the drum and it was perfect! Granted the board was only abou 1/2" thick. Will post results if I find one that I can put in a drill press. Jerk

Just found these for rounding. They use then to get that nice radius on the edge of skateboards. The pressuse in the rubber drum allow the abrasive to deflect giving more of a curve than a straight sand. http://www.woodworker.com/cgi-bin/search.exe?search=pneumatic%20sanding%20drum&ov=3529 Jerk

I use another technique for attaching the swivel/blade to a bait. I slightly overbend the loop with pound-nose plies till the tag end extends beyond the blade arm a bit. Slide the swivel on the loop and spring, don't bend the arm down and over a little letting the natural elasticity of the wire hold it shut tight against the arm. The loop tag starts on one side and ends up on on the other. I very rarely loose a blade unless a fish really shakes his head as I am lifting him up. Jerk

Iceman, The bait looks great. I think you will find that the waterbased paints dry less quickly but can sometimes plug a nozzle just as bad. I started with an old Badger I bought on Ebay and painted a ton of stuff with it. I have since purchased an Iwata eclipse on the advice of another builder and love it. Double action brushes give you the ability to feather and fade colors for some of the great natual looking finishes. Get a good dryer and regulator on your air supply and have at it. I have had good success spraying createx paints but others do just as well with cheapo wally world stuff. Jaime is right though that some of the greatest looking stuff is rattle canned. Take your time and have fun Jerk

Skeeter is right on the money. The crankbaits I have been doing lately are about 3 1/4" long without the bill and since they are rounded in the belly, they need about 3.5-3.9 gr of lead. I load them between the lip and front hook as I am looking for a nose down wide wiggle. When I am starting a new design I usually over weight it by drilling a hole up into the bait and sticking a mojo weight in the hole, trimming it little by bit till it sits right. Pull the plu, weigh it and you get a good starting point. Good Lick and lets see some picts. jerk! _________________ Everything all the time!

Skeeter is right on the money. The crankbaits I have been doing lately are about 3 1/4" long without the bill and since they are rounded in the belly, they need about 3.5-3.9 gr of lead. I load them between the lip and front hook as I am looking for a nose down wide wiggle. When I am starting a new design I usually over weight it by drilling a hole up into the bait and sticking a mojo weight in the hole, trimming it little by bit till it sits right. Pull the plu, weigh it and you get a good starting point. Good Lick and lets see some picts. jerk!

Baitmaker, It was on the TV show last weekend. I have been trying to get together with the writer for the magazine for some time and we just cant get hooked up. Tim Farmer, the host of the show grew up near Grayson and he came up as soon as I sent him the musky picts. It was a lot of fun to film. He is a great guy who turns the rrel handles with his teeth! (injured arm) Jerk!

Here is the musky crank featured on Ky Afield this week. It is about #3.5" and 1 1/2 oz. dives to 2 feet but is most effective in creeks and rivers slow cranked over cover. Foil and devcon 2 ton finish. The slope of the head and position of lip and eye are straight from my experiments based on the input of countless threads on this forum. It is just unstable enough to hunt some on a moderate retrieve and it deflects well when crashed into wood. I fish it on 20 Floro-P line with braided steel leader. The fish pictured is one of 6 legals that have eaten it this month alone!http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/3892/bukosm8zb.jpg' alt='bukosm8zb.jpg'>

Thanks guys The information on this board has saved me years of trial and error. The bait we have been fishing is only the third version I tried. Very special indeed to get good fish on one of our own creations. The host was really impressed with the action and ability to walk over wood. All basic cranbait design characteristics learned right here. Skeeter, the one I keep in my box (my special one)hunts and deflects off wood so eratically that it is on the verge of blowing out all the time. I can get about one in 4 to do as well. The straight running ones have been scoring as well but there is just something about that one! Jerk!

BG Lures, my private label, non-commercial brand of baits will be featured on Ky Afield with Tim Farmer on Sat August 13 @ 8:00 pm. The show re-airs in moist Ky markets Sunday @ 4:00 as well. Tim is from my area of the woods (eastern Ky) and grew up on the creeks and rivers I fish regularly. We raised 4 and he caught a nice 33"er (the host always hogs the back of the boat!) on a crank that I have enterd in another board's plug contest. The picture if from the week before the taping but I will have an actual pict from the show as soon as I get a digital copy. I am very excited and want to thank all those who contribute to this site and thereby to the evolution of bait crafting.[/img] Jerk!

OK, I had to just add one more thing to the discussion. Since the force used to sink the bait is not reeeaaly equal exactly to the buoyant force that floats it, the only exact way to figure the exact weight for neutral buoyancy is to figure the specific gravity of the bait and then adjust the weight or mass to be equal to the equivalent volume of water. That is to weigh a volume of water and then use the bait to displace the exact volume of water that will just immerse the bait. Then with the weight of the bait known, you can figure the adjustment needed to get the bait at the exact same density as the surrounding water. But as so many before me have stated; water density varies with temperature and elevation. Sooo be as exact as you can with your measurements, include all hardware and expect a little added weight for epoxy. Keep in mind that I have only tested this technique on odd shaped musky gliders with no lip and added the weight after final clearcoat leaving the ugly lead plugs visible. It does however work for developmental designs. I do find it just a starting point and usually go a little heavy and drill it till it suspends. Woods from piece to piece and so do not have consistent densities You still have to fine tune it to get it perfect. Jerk!

Very nice dtail work the aqua accents look great. It is art imitating life. Good Work!

I have done it with a scroll saw. Just cut into the plastic of the lip first and avoid opening up the slot. Be sure to hold the bait square to the blade as well. Usually one cut will do it as the heat from the cut will allow the bill to be pulled. Score the entier edge with a razor knife to keep the epoxy from pulling the paint off the nose of the bait.

Isnt he the one who sprang from the bathtub and ran through the streets naked screaming Eureka! I found it!......? Maybe not, I went to school in the 70's. Jerk!

Very nice indeed! Like the Rainbow trout.

I have been working on this pattern for creek fishing. It is gold candy foil (from this board) with layered paint. The belly is orange to red fade with gold chameleon scales the back is green to blue pearl fade. The sides are clear chart. with orange red and blue details. Runs about 2.5'. Just got in from fishing it and caught 3 crappie and a bass on it tonight after work. Hope you like it.[/img]