mark poulson

Can you post a picture? I am not familiar with the Breen color.

I went out for half a day today, just to see if my hand was up to fishing. So far, so good. How it feels tomorrow is the real test. Two keeper bass in 52 degree, heavily stained water. One of them was on a chart/white spinner bait, with glow paint on the colorado and indiana blades, the bait head, and in the glow trailer. So the fish saw it in the dirty water, and wasn't spooked. I also got half a dozen stripers on a chart/orange, bluegill Yozuri rattle trap painted with the Glonation green/white paint. I got bit by burning it back to the boat. A slower retrieve wouldn't get bit.

The Slammer was developed and perfected over time. They played with everything until they got a bait that worked. For me, the problem with hinged joints is how loose/tight to make them. Once you've established that, duplicating it is easy. I would suggest you make some kind of an adjustable prototype, so you can play around with joint gaps to find what works best for you bait. If you are going to copy the Slammer exactly, including the angle of the joint cuts and the spacing of the joint itself, you could make jigs for cutting the joints, or pour them in two pieces, and make spacers to hold the joint space while the epoxy sets. You really don't need to drill a hole much larger than the threads of the screw eye, because, if you use a glue epoxy like D2T, that will help you keep the screw eyes straight and in line, and the epoxy will make a strong bond to a tight hole. I'd suggest you take the time to get a prototype to work perfectly first, so you know what you need to get the bait to work.

If realistic is so important, how come tubes are such great smallie baits for the gin clear waters of the Great Lakes?

Dave, you may be right about our standard of living and the rest of the world's standard of living becoming equal, at some point. That won't be a bad thing. If you look at how much profit is skimmed off of the top, and all along the way, there is plenty of money for everyone to have a decent standard of living. Most of the blame lies with our Govt., which is the best government big money can buy. They required strict pollution controls to clean up industry, to appease the environmentalists and to look responsible to the voters, and then they allowed the dirty industries to go overseas instead of helping them clean up and modernize here at home. And they gave them tax breaks for doing it, because big industry gives big campaign contributions. So we, the taxpayers, paid for them to leave! The same thing happened to Great Britain. We can thank Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher for our transition to a "service economy", which, in reality, has meant rich people and servants. Our standard of living began it's rapid decline in 1980, the same year Reagan took office and began to dismantle our domestic economy by exporting it, piece by piece, and cutting taxes on the wealthy people who owned those industries. But much of Europe didn't go that way. They found a way to clean up their industries and keep them at home, because they knew the only way they could keep their standard of living was to keep good paying jobs at home. In Great Britain there is a large movement to leave the EU, which is their form of globalization, and return to home rule, and, with it, home control of their economy. So it can be done, and needs to be done here in the U.S., too.

You're right, Smalljaw, there is no free market. China and other countries in the East, and Russia, control their economies and dictate what will happen. And the Western Powers meet at the G8 Summit to establish the growth rates they want for their members in order to control their economy. That doesn't sound like a free market to me. If our economy is going to be controlled, I want it controlled by us, the American People, and by our own democratically elected government, not by a few rich people who have no loyalty to anyone except themselves.

I agree. You hit the nail on the head.

That is the gift of the globalization of trade, or, more accurately, the outsourcing of industry and jobs. I used to live half a mile from a Sears branch, and one day, as I was walking in there to shop, I realized that everything I was wearing, from my boots on up, was from Sears. That was in the early 70's, when most if not all of the stuff they sold was still made here in the U.S.. No more, obviously. It's kind of a vicious cycle. We want cheaper stuff because we no longer have jobs that pay well enough to afford better stuff. And industry provides cheaper stuff by manufacturing in countries with cheap labor and no pollution controls. Fortunately, as workers all over the world are paid more, they want a better standard of living, so, either their wages will go up, or industry will flee to another country with cheap labor. Just because workers in other countries don't have our education or standard of living doesn't mean they don't love their families and want a better life for them, just like us. Eventually they'll run out of poor countries to exploit. And the pollution from unregulated manufacturing will cause a backlash in those countries (think China and their filthy air) and force the governments to do something, or have their populations die. Funny how lots of other developed countries (Europe) seem to have avoided the worst of this, and protected domestic manufacturing. So, short story long, that's why your Craftsman pliers say China on them.

If you're asking about AC1315, I wouldn't use it on any bait/lure which has a plastisol trailer attached, because the AC1315 will melt at the point of attachment. I either powder coat my jig heads, or coat them with nail polish. The clear polish holds up really well, because it is designed to protect the colored polishes it covers. The colors are too soft alone.

Dan, Do a search for glide baits here, and there is some good info. Here's one I found: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/30455-weighting-gliders-and-jerks/?hl=%2Bglide+%2Bbait#entry244187

E tex, for my swimbaits, needed two coats. If you have questions, they have a great technical staff that will answer them. The phone number is on the box.

For Etex, 12 hours. It's "set" after 8, but used to let it run overnight anyway. I watched it for the first half hour, so I could see if any problems developed, and then I'd go into the house and check again in the morning, when I'd recoat.

Nice video. How does it swim?

If you have the room, you can drill countersunk holes through the back of the bait, coat the inside with super glue (if it's wood), and then glue alum. can discs over the holes to trap air high in your lure and restore some of the buoyancy. I do that when I want to adjust buoyancy on my PVC lures, but I don't have to use the super glue to seal the inside of the holes.

When did they go to wood free?

Sounds like you were, too!

I free hand my lip templates on Postits, using old lips on cranks at models. I cut them out with scissors, then fold them in half and trip so they are symmetrical. This also gives me the fold to act as a centerline.

Buy and use a respirator anyway, and use ventilation. Not all nasty fumes have an odor, and your eyes can absorb fumes, too.

Try taping some stiff cardboard or thin wood strips to your vise jaws so they won't scar. I put a couple of layers of duct tape on mine, and it works, but eventually it gets cut up, so I add more over the top of the old tape.

I found that, with my ferris wheel type turner and rotisserie motor (1 rpm) I needed to load it evenly so it would rotate smoothly. If I was turning just one lure, I'd put another lure of the same weight on the opposite side of the wheel for balance. Otherwise, the play in the socket where the shaft entered the motor would allow the shaft to move suddenly. You might try adding tape to the end of your shaft so there is no play where it enters the motor, too. But I found balancing the load was key.

I'll keep you posted, but I won't be fishing for at least another week, until the stitches come out.

Clear nail polish from the dollar store works, and doesn't chip off. Just be sure to have ventilation and/or a respirator.

My last resort fix-all is to drill tiny vent holes in problem areas. I use compressed air to clear them out before I reshoot.

I made my plastic stirrers out of metal coat hangers, bent double, with a 1/2" flat at the bottom. Cheap, rigid, and move through the plastic really well. And they aren't heavy enough to crack Pyrex.