mark poulson

Apologies to all. I slacked off today and didn't make my ballast tests. It will have to wait until Wednesday.

I'll do one test with vaseline, and another with water. Those damn square bills wiggle so much I doubt the ballast can kill their movement, but I hope we'll see tomorrow.

I think the taper helps keep the weight more to the rear, so the lure doesn't tumble on the cast. I know the Kastmaster casts like a missle!

My rule of thumb in ballasting top water lures is the longer the bait, them closer to horizontal/level I want it to sit a rest. This is mainly because it is much harder to get a big bait up and walking if it hangs down at rest. If you've ever tried to get an 8" glider to walk/glide, you'll know how much water resistance a big bait has to begin with. The farther down it hangs, the more effort it takes to get it up and gliding. My poppers, which are 2-3" long, can hang almost vertical, at about 75-80 degrees, because they are so small it's easy to get them up and moving. Plus hanging down like that gets a good "bloop" sound on the pop, and the tail feathers provide a good tail-like movement on the pause. My friend up here on the Delta told me that he thought the bluegill were attracted to the tail feathers, and the bass were attracted to the bluegill. He was a very successful pro and guide, so who am I to argue. My walking spook-type baits sit almost level, with just front 1/3 of the lure up out of the water at rest. My bigger one piece gliders sit with 1/2 of the front up out of the water. All of my top water walking baits have their ballast as far to the rear as is practical, with enough material around the ballast to keep the bait strong. All these things are approximate, because each design has its own requirements, and each design has its own ideal ballasting, so there's going to be some trial and error before you get it right for your design. A tip...don't do your final paint job until you get the bait to work the way you want it to. That way you can make changes that won't break you heart. Good luck, and let us know how you do.

So, as I am home, Covidizing and not venturing out in public, I've reread this thread, and had a thought you guys might be able to help me with. I use PVC trimboard to build my cranks, so they are totally waterproof. In thinking about how to get an erratic movement in my sliding ballast, I am now wondering if I put something like vaseline into the crossways bore for the moving ballast, would it offer enough resistance to get the ballast to move at a different "frequency" than the rate of X ing of the lure? I am definitely going to try it in a test piece to see if it does make the ballast move differntly. Of course, it might just become a lubricant, or freeze the ballast completely, but I won't know until I do a test...tomorrow. I'm fighting allergies, so no more shop work today.

Be well and stay safe. Isolation works here in NorCal, along with masks, gloves, and hand washing. I have a spray bottle of denatured alcohol I use to disinfect anything that someone else has handled, like packages and mail. I was thinking of you today. I made a wake bait, and it blew out on the retrieve, so I did a Dave, and shortened the lip until it became stable. Thanks again.

I can't help you with your dipping problem, but those are some really beautiful baits!

I've been using Createx, Folk Art, and Apple Barrel paints for 15 years+-. Transparents, iridescents, and opaques mostly. I recently bought a bottle each of Createx Bloodline Vile Green and Illustration Moss Green for the first time. Wow, what a difference! No thinning, and the colors really pop. And the bottles come with easy to use single drip tops. I'm actually looking forward to doing my next paint job.

I haven't, yet. I'll have to give it a try. Thanks.

I made a turner using a BBQ rotisserie motor and shaft. It came in a replacement kit from a local hardware store. I cut two 12" discs from 3/4" plywood, used the meat holders to hold the discs, and suspended my jointed swimbaits between the discs. I put them on evenly so they would counter balance each other, and I never had a problem. This picture shows my turner:

Sounds like the accountant's moto, "Figures don't lie, but liars can figure." Hahaha

I just tried to cut the lip slot far enough from the nose that it had some material/strength, and then make the lip's tip line up with the nose of the bait. It wasn't scientific. I have made wake baits before, and found that it isn't that critical. On a fast retrieve, most wake baits go sub-surface, so I just went for close. The reason it doesn't wake isn't the lip angle so much as the fact that it sits too low in the water at rest. I made the bait so thin that there isn't enough buoyant material to overcome the amount of ballast I needed to keep it upright on the pause. The next one I make I'll keep it fatter, to try and overcome that, like I do with my rat wake baits.

It might have worked with balsa, but I don't think it would hold up. Even when I've strengthened balsa with super glue, I wouldn't trust it for a jointed bait. I guess I'm just chicken. It would break my heart to have a big bass destroy something I'd made and then swim off! Hahaha I'm going to make another, but leave it thicker so it's more buoyant. That works on the rat wakebaits I make with Azek. I just got carried away with trying to make this bait "sexy", and it came back to bite me.

Congrats. on a great lure! When I made epoxy coated wooden baits I used Etex. It is a decoupage epoxy, designed to move with the large wooden surfaces it is used to cover, like bar tops. It stays somewhat soft and flexible by design D2T is glue epoxy, designed to be very rigid and hard. It is designed to act as a glue between two surfaces, not to coat them. That makes it brittle over large surfaces, and prone to chipping off in big pieces on big lures. If that were my lure, I'd touch up the damaged section with bondo, and then paint to match. I'd scuff up the D2T with fine sandpaper, wipe it down with denatured alcohol, and then I'd put two coats of Etex over the D2T. It won't be perfect, but it should hold up for a while.

Guilty as charged. If they'll eat it, there's no more explosive strike than a big bass trying to kill a topwater lure. My heart just about jumps out of my chest every time, because it's so random. I hope this lure will get blasted, too, since it's only an inch below the surface on the retrieve, and it really active and loud.

I just put a couple of pictures of my latest bait attempt. It failed as a wake bait, but I really like it as a barely sub-surface bait with a lot of action and noise.

Here are a picture of an arkie jig, and one of three chatterbaits (I hope).

You might have better responses if you post this on the Wire Forum.

Beautiful job all the way around.