dvowell

Here we go, a different image of my first paint job other than the one posted in the gallery. Hope you all enjoy!

Woodsac, That spray on bedliner stuff is great! I haven't actually repaired a boat with it, but a year ago while I was recarpeting the bunks on my boat trailer, I started looking at the fender steps on it and instead of recarpeting them, I masked them off and sprayed on some of that bed liner stuff and it's awesome! It looks great and it's the best non-slip surface I've ever had. This may sound crazy, but I'm seriously considering coating my entire trailer in that stuff!

Everyone here has given great advice and I know I read a lot of things before I started pouring. I've just got about got all of my items together to start down the path of building my own cranks now as well. As far as advice on color goes, I'm just going to say look at what you primarily throw...but keep to the simple colors to start off with (such as watermelon, pumpkinseed, etc). Heck, You might even keep it REALLY simple and just use straight color to start with. I've caught a TON of fish of just plain watermelon with no glitter! You'll find straight colors with no additives of any sort are easier to pour. Once you get pretty decent at that (especially if you are going to start out pouring lizard or creature type baits like I did), move on to glitter and other additives. Don't forget to check back in and post once in a while. I don't post as often as I should, but I do try to once in a while. It's always good to hear from others. It's kind of a self-help therapy place, if you stop and think about it! :grin: Seriously, I feel like I'm beginning to make a few friends here and there and it's terrific!

I've been playing with shooting photos of different colors lately and have come to the conclusion that the studio is the place for hardbaits, but for shooting soft plastics, you can't beat natural light! Now, here's the catch. The exact color of your bait might appear different depending on the time of the day you shoot it! Early morning light tends to be a little 'cooler' (more blueish) than late afternoon (afternoon light is warmer, a little more red). Using something light colored, preferably white for a background seems to work well, but watch your exposure because this white can fool your light meter in your cameras. Whatever you do, do not shoot at midday...the light is way too harsh. If you have transparent pours, you might consider sacrificing one copy and rig it up so you can hang it from a line in front of your background (I like white foam board, but poster board should work well) a little bit away from it (about 6" or so). This will let the translucence show up in the photograph as the white background will reflect light back through the bait and allow your colors to show up. Take this and run with it! Experiment with your photos like you do your pours. -Danny P.S. I'm always available for help, so your having problems getting pics of certain baits, let me know and we'll see if we can work through it.

Thanks so much for all of your help guys...This side of things is all new to me, but the more I play with it, the more I find out how much I actually enjoy it. I'm on vacation this week and hope to get some serious lake time in, but there are also some storms predicted early this week...more time in the shop playing!

Thanks for the reply, Skeeter. I'm going to do just that! -D

Greetings all, After toiling around with soft plastics for a while now, I'm venturing out and trying my hand at hard baits. I have a question though (yes, I used the search, but didn't find an answer!). I bought a set of paints from Jann's and they are supposedly lacquers. Well, I have lots of lacquer thinner already, but when I tried to thin the Jann's paint with it, it just gooped up, for lack of a better term. The Jann's thinner worked perfectly. This leads me to believe it is not really a lacquer? If anyone out there is using something other than the Jann's lacquer thinner, could you let me know what it is? Thanks! -D

Junebug has always been a big winner with me, but lately (and this may seem really weird to some) emerald green with nothing added (almost nothing) has been working REALLY well for me. I usually use about 12-14 drops of emerald green and maybe a drop or two of black. That's the only extra I toss in, save for scent.

I'm with GaBass...I only use softener when pouring stix. Calhoun's is very soft to begin with and, on some of my baits, I actually add a touch of hardener (this is primarily with brush hog type bait). -D

LaPala, I'm always up for a new photo challenge. Maybe we can turn your baits into the stars they've always wanted to be! :-D If anyone here ever has any questions relating to photos of anything, not just lures, just shoot me a PM and I'll help you out! -D

LaPala, As I've stated before, I'm a photojournalist who shoots for a daily paper and the Associated Press and I freelance a lot on the side. What you have described here is essentailly the same as commecially available product "softboxes" (not to be confused with the softbox you attach to strobes and/or other lighter gear). It is also a whole lot cheaper as the commercial ones can run into the hundreds of dollars. Exposure and focus are everything and the comment about the eyes is dead on the money, it's just how the human mind processes an image. FWIW, I shoot a lot of lure pics with a macro lens, but that's just me. I do have a few of those monster lenses and DSLR's you mentioned, so I can be hired out to do some lure photography for ya! Thanks for sharing this, I'm sure it will help a LOT of people here and remember, as I've said before, it's the photographer, not the camera that makes the photo. With that being said, make sure you use a quality digital camera. Buy one from the camera people (Nikon, Canon) and avoid those made by electronics or computer firms. The quality is far superior as you are getting optical grade glass instead of *gasp* plastic lenses.

Hey GaBass, I just bought some from Lurecraft...it's not listed on their website, but it's in their 2005 catalog I got a while back. It's item 1x279 (b,c,e, or f) depending on quantity ordered. It's $5.75 for 2 oz, $7.90 for 4 oz. You can also buy it in 1/2 pound and pound containers as well, but that's what you were trying to avoid. I had been wanting some for a long time as well, but didn't every buy any from MF because I didn't want/need that much...then comes LC to the rescue!

Skeeter, I'm a photojournalist at the newspaper in Hopkinsville, Ky. and there's a lady that's 95 (I believe) who we're going to be doing a feature story on soon. She's an avid angler even to this day and she caught a 5lb 4oz smallie below Barkley bridge on U.S. 68-80 last month! Not many smallmouth in Barkley, but they are beginning to show up. You are right, KY is a much safer lake to navigate, especially for a first timer. Do you ever make it back to the area?

I fish Kentucky and Barkley lakes all the time (they're my home lakes). Most of the grass and aquatic vegetation has been killed off in both of these lakes due to spraying by the Army Corps of Engineers. This has caused the bass to relate to wood cover in the shallows and deeper water structure. If you are going in June, I believe that is what you said, you should probably consider fishing some of the deeper stuff; however, depending on what our weather does, there could be some stragglers still spawning. Primary and secondary points in the creeks would be a good bet...deep cranks and carolina rigs. Being that is just a very few miles down the road (back to the east), you might consider fishing Barkley lake as well, if you have time. It's not as large as Kentucky and bass are more readily found on it, IMHO. Both lakes yield good numbers of large fish.

I'm a working photojournalist and cameras are my lifeblood so to speak. I'd like to second the advice to stick with cameras from major camera maufacturers instead of those from computer firms. I'm very partial to the Nikon line as I feel they are optically superior and tend to built a little more robust, but for what you are wanting to do, I'd say it would be very difficult to beat the Canon powershot lineup. Something like a Canon A75 would be ideal, I would think. Now, if you want to REALLY shoot some nice macro shots of your stuff, you can spend they money and get a digital SLR body and a macro lens and go to town...but you're talking $$$ here.

Wow, this is my first post since registering! A few years ago, while working my way through college, I was the PR officer and a CAD tech for a local construction firm. I had the opportunity to fiddle with many different programs and most all of them came up short of the king of all CAD programs, AutoCad. I know it's major bucks, but you might be able to find an older version used for not a ton of money...on Ebay, AutoCad R12 is going for just over $100-$150, depending on what packages it comes with. Depending on how much you want to spend, there's R11, R12, R13, R14 and 2000, 2002... I would think R12 would be about as old as you'd want to go. If you are only going to be doing 2D drawings, you can get by with AutoCad LT, which is MUCH cheaper. I wouldn't play around too much with some of other software out there as most places you might submit a file to are most likley standardized on AutoCad. Hope this helps just a bit. -Danny