mark poulson

I think of TU as more of a family. We help each other, share what we can when we can, and put up with each other's craziness! Plus, there's a lotta love here!

Dave, I would have paid for your round trip ticket to help me, if I had known you were a packing genius, too!

I feel your pain! Those double tubes with the single plunger can sit in inventory for years, before they're sold, so there's lots of time for the hardener to yellow, thicken, or do any number of weird things. Especially if you buy it from the Dollar Store, which specializes in buying up old stock and reselling it. I think they don't know what they're talking about when they say "you can't mess it up", because I've had some epic failures with those things, too.

Nathan, I'm dying to find out! Seriously, I'm getting short timers disease. I check the calendar every day. It is torture having all my lure making stuff packed away in boxes for the move. I swear I've reopened some boxes three times already! I didn't realize how much I work on stuff, until I packed it away and can't anymore. It's taken me three weeks to pack up my garage shop! And I laughed when my youngest son pleaded with me to start earlier! Doh!!!

I have no idea what their "special formula" was, and I don't have any of the originals left to investigate.

Thanks guys. It was an easy build. Aside from deciding what shape to make it, the hardest, and most fun, part was figuring out that 1/3 of the ballast had to be above the centerline to get the bait to wobble from side to side on the fall, just like the Duo baits do. Because it's taller, it wobbles more slowly, but it does wobble. Kinda like me walking! Hahaha

Hahaha. I guess so, since so many have been hooked over the years.

I find the amount of energy it takes to overcome the moment of inertia for a body at rest increases mathematically with age.

I'm sure that will catch fish, but the spybait is supposed to be really subtle, to represent a baitfish just swimming along slowly, with no idea it's in danger. The props on the Dou Realis spybaits turn at any speed, even a crawl. I think the underspin would have to be fished faster to get the blade to turn. My own spybaits have props from Barlows that turn freely, but not as freely as the Duo props, which are super small and light.

I plan on using Createx Gloss as a barrier coat the next time I paint something and dip it in AC1315. But that won't be for a couple of months, since my garage shop is packed up in moving boxes.

I tried it the other way, but the tines of the trebles kept biting me.

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". I guess Dante made baits, too.

I haven't tried Dick Nite's MCU, but I've found that the solvent in the concrete sealer I use, AC1315, will wrinkle Wicked White. I think it has something to do with the solvent in the Wicked White. The quicker I dip it, the less chance it has to wrinkle. I had a bait come off my dipping wire and float for a little before I could fish it out, and it wound up with more wrinkles than me!

A sluggo will "suspend" once you put a big hook into it.

Thanks Nate. I was fishing on my friend Walt's new 21' Ranger, and he had a new, top of the line GoPro attached to his console windshield, so he got the whole thing on tape, and sent it, and the photo, to me. I actually looked like I knew what I was doing! Every so often, I just have to watch it again, and again, and again. Hahaha

Am I the only one who holds the treble by one of the hook bends, so the eye is toward me?

Unless you're going to be making a lot of feathered trebles, I'd get the cheapest vice to begin with, so you can see what you truly want/need in a vice, as opposed to buying the "best" on general principles, and finding out you really don't need a Rolls Royce to drive yourself to the liquor store.

The middle worm is a Merlo Worm. You can google Steve Merlo Worms and find his worms. There is also a video showing him actually pouring, and explaining the whole process. His worms are amazing, so it's worth watching. He will also talk to you on the phone like he knows you, so you can try that, too.

Bill, I caught a 4lb bass in four feet of water on the bluegill, inside a tire reef at Lake Perris. I'll try and attach a photo. It may be a little overexposed, because of my grin! It isn't really that fast a sink, and the moment you begin cranking you can control how deep it goes on the retrieve. Plus, it shimmies slowly from side to side on the fall, so that is an attractant, too. I had it on 12lb fluoro, on a med. heavy cranking rod, and I was able to keep it up pretty easily on a med. retrieve. I think the props create a lot of water resistance, so once you start the retrieve, unless you are really slow rolling them, spybaits in general swim horizontal and don't sink. But I'm sure you could make one with an even slower fall, so you could retrieve it over shallow stuff at a slower speed.

Dave, Years ago, when cellphones first became common, I was talking to a pool contractor on a job, and I told him his rack was sagging, meaning his truck's rack. Well, he was on his cellphone at the time with his wife, and the next thing I hear is him say, "Yes, Mary, Mark just said your rack is sagging." We had a good laugh about that for years, every time our paths crossed! And when I finally met his wife, she remembered, and ribbed me pretty good about, too.

I can't imagine a rod setup that I could throw a 16 oz bait on for very long. 8 oz kicks my butt nowadays, so I pick my spots for throwing 8" ROF 12 Huds. I've dropped down to 6" swimbaits and smaller now, and my shoulder is much happier. I agree that the rod makes a huge difference. I lob my swimbaits, with an almost side arm motion, and want a rod with a med. action that will load and then release with minimum effort. Too fast a rod and I have to whip it to get it to load, and that is work! I find the same holds true for smaller bass baits. I pick a rod that will cast my bait easily first, then I match the line and hook size so I can set the hook with that rod. Playing the fish is almost the least important, unless I'm fishing around heavy grass and need to haul them out, or turn them before they can bury back into the grass. I'm moving up to the CA Delta next month, so I'll be putting my light tackle away, and breaking out the heavy fluoro and braid for flipping and frogging. I'll miss all the finesse stuff we have to do down here in SoCal....for about a minute! Hahaha

Loft, I always struggle with one piece glide baits, because they do seem to want to go straight, and I'm looking for a side to side glide, like with my Punker surface gliders. I've tried putting the ballast just behind the center of gravity of the baits, and it works, but it is finicky. Too close, and no side to side. Too far back, and it tail drags, which looks bad. I have had to play around with each bait so much to get it right that I've quit trying to make them.

John, Thanks for the pics. If you are just doing a few spinnerbait and underspin heads, why not just use the clear nail polish, without the AC1315? I do that, with Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails clear, and it works great. It is very hard, and it goes on faster than epoxy. I use it for spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, and even jigs, after I've powder coated them. I find that adding glitter to clear nail polish and then painting the coated jig head with it adds glitter that stays until I lose the jig.

I only know moment of inertia from residential construction, and shear forces. For that, the moment of inertia is how much force is needed to move a weight up above the ground, like a roof or second floor, at the same time as the ground moves. In other words, how stiff the walls need to be to move the high weight with the ground without bending, to overcome the moment of inertia. In lure building, I guess moment of inertia comes into play for me in top water baits, and glide baits. They need to overcome the moment of inertia both when the walking action is first initiated, and again at each change of direction. For top waters, the further back past the mid point, head to tail, the center of gravity is located, the harder the baits are to walk, but the better they cast. My small poppers and smaller walking baits hang down almost vertical, because they are so light it's easy to get them up and walking. But my bigger walking baits, like Lunker Punker knock offs, sit just slightly tail down at rest. They are so big that having them hang down like a popper would make them a bear to get up to walk all day, and would make a slow glide almost impossible. I'm sure it is involved the cranks and jointed swim baits, too, but I don't really think of it with them.