rofish

Dieter, Let me explain. I think that in 95% of the crankbaits I make, I use wood with a thickness of 14 mm. The metal tube I use for rattles, has about 6 mm for the inner diameter, and is 8-9 mm long. The steel ball I use is small, just 4 mm in diameter. I found out that if I use a bigger ball, the sound of the rattle is not louder. And I cannot use 2 balls for such a small thickness of wood, because the balls would not have enough room to travel, to gain momentum and smash the metal discs glued at both ends of the tube. Most fishermen try to hear the sound of their crankbaits with a rattle by shaking their crankbaits sideways (moving the whole lure left and right, following parallel positions). The result is that they hear a loud sound, and they are very satisfied. I did this too, in the beginning, after installing a rattle in the middle of the lure. But a crankbait does not act this way in water. Make the following test. Take one of your crankbaits with a rattle, keep it from above, in the middle of the crankbait, using 2 of your left hand fingers, and with your right hand move the nose of the lure left and right, as if the lure would wobble, so this would be an action much more closer to the real action a crankbait has in water. Will you hear the sound anymore? I doubt it. You can change the location of the fingers of your left hand, to see in which case you can hear the rattle the best. I can already tell you that if you keep your crankbait by the tail hook hanger, your rattle will work best. But again, this situation does not happen in water. The "X"-ing point of the lure (where the balancing point is) is situated somewhere in the middle of the lure, so that part of the lure hardly has any action at all in water. So what I try to do, is to place the rattle as close to the nose or tail as possible, so that the steel ball is smashed into the ends of the metal tube every time the lure ends move from left to right or back again. And I think there are many factors to be considered here. The length the ball has to travel, the speed by which the crankbait ends change direction (tight or large wobble), etc. Practically you have to fit the construction of the rattle with the action and size of your lure, and this is a hard thing to achieve. The only feasable method I can think of is trial and error. So do not rely on the roll of your lures to make a rattle work. And the roll alone will not smash the ball. What if you screw up things an make a crankbait without a roll ? Cheers

Diemai, All my crankbaits are rounded at the belly area and shoulders. More to the belly area than shoulders. These are quite tall, I think they are the tallest I have made yet, compared to their thickness. As to the rattle at the middle area of the lure, this is just the thing I want to avoid. I have made such lures, but the steel ball does not seem to have any action at all, because the rattle is situated at the place where the lure does not move sideways, or just barely moves. (this is the "X"-ing point of the lure. So the steel ball inside the tube does not have the chance to move left and right, to make the sound. This is exactly the reason why I try to figure out ways to place the rattle where the lure would have the most action, and this means head and tail. I have made another crankbait with the rattle outside the body. Almost ready. After testing, I will upload a picture.

Is that vmc that I can read on the lure? If so, you were uninspired when choosing the letters, because you make much better lures than they can make hooks Golden? Yes, by all means. You should try selling it on ebay. I think the selling price would be more than the lure's weight, in gold.

Really impressive work. I envy you, because I have never tried to make a spoon. I have made only in line spinners, which brought me many fish in the past, but a spoon is more difficult to make, I think. I am sure these lures will catch pikes for you.

Diemai, you are perfectly right. That fish is a rudd, not a roach. Usually it can be caught on maggots, worms, wheat, etc. It is not a pray fish, but bigger ones do become, in some cases. Both the rudd and the roach belong to the carp family (cyprinidae) I wanted to find out the common name for roach, in German, from the following link, but I gave up. There are so many of them, that I guess you do not know them all yourself. The rudd: http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=2951 The roach: http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=272

The lip is red because it is still an experimental one. So Pete doesn't yet know if it makes any difference in fishing. But I'm sure he will post his findings after a while. If my eyes do not cheat me, it seems that the eylets are not made out of wire, isn't it so? They seem to be made out of metal (brass?) sheet.

Better and better. At first, I thought it was a fish image on the lure, not a painted job.

Do not believe what you were told. Pikes are to be found in many other european countries Exceptional paint job.

I cannot believe my eyes. So realistic. Surely you had the real thing in front of you when you created it. Tell us more about it. I think this is made of some cast material. How did you make the fins ? What material and how are they painted? Does the paint withstand water?