mark poulson

Dust mask!!!!!!

Aren't you afraid the bait will see so well it can avoid the predators?

I use sst screw eyes and bicycle spoke pins for my hinges. Aside from giving me the ability to adjust my joint spacing after they're installed to fine tune my baits, I find these to have the least resistance/friction on the retrieve, and my jointed swimbaits swim at very low speeds. The floaters even move when dead sticked in the wind. I like the little squeak that the hinges make on the retrieve. It's another attractant, to me. I played around with cable hinging, but found it was too stiff. Maybe the braid idea will work better. I just never figured out how to anchor that kind of fabric hinge without the glue creeping into the joint area of the fabric and making it stiff.

Dcrosby3, Now is not the time to risk your newfound wealth on a business you know nothing about. Especially lure making. Aside from the already established commercial companies and the successful boutique builders, there are a ton of overseas companies making knockoffs that catch fish, and are incredibly cheap. I know two people out here in SoCal who started their own rod companies. They are both very accomplished tournament anglers, and have worked in the rod industry with several prominent rod manufacturers in product development. They both told me, independently, that it cost them a lot to start their own rod lines. Both are successful, but it came at a price. Both have a warehouse full of early rods that are trash, and they paid for them out of pocket. In one case, $50,000 worth of worthless crap from a supplier who didn't have quality control, and delivered a load of useless rods. Both have gone through several generations of rods to come up with the successful rods they sell today, but it cost them both to get where they are. "School is expensive". One of my old bosses used to say that every time I screwed up, and had to work for free to fix it. If I were your father, or just your friend, I'd tell you to put the money in a credit union, or somewhere else safe, and save it for when you really need it. It's a lot easier to spend than it is to earn.

Aside from just trying to do it to see if I can, I make lures either to match those that I like, or to try to do something different for the fish to see. My shallow runners are supposed to give bass a different look than a spinnerbait in the same areas.

I actually built several shallow running baits, 3' max. depth, that are flat sided, wiggle like crazy, and have no rattles. They are 3/8oz floaters with square bills set at a 45 degree angle, so they dive on the retrieve, but not deep. I wanted a bait that I could burn and still have it stay at a constant depth. I built them to run fast over the tops of grass, and over points. They get bit, even in mud lines and off colored water.

Sonny, I don't know how you guys who fish for blues throw your homemade baits at them. Those fish look like they have sawzalls for mouths!

Personally, I agree with BobP. I don't think we can get the T shirt paint hot enough to truly heat set it, and change it's molecular structure, without ruining either the bait or the paint job, because we don't, as Ben pointed out, paint T shirts. We paint hard, porous surfaces. If you put a plastic bait in a 325 degree oven for 20 minutes, I'm pretty sure it will burst from the expansion of the air inside it. I have not tried that particular experment. Even with the PVC I use, if I heat it longer than a few seconds with the hair dryer on high, I get bubbling, either from trapped air, or from trapped solvent in the actual PVC material. I use a hair dryer, first on low, and then on high, to drive out as much moisture as I can before I top coat, to avoid trapping moisture under the top coat. Trapped moisture insures top coat failure. I dip with a water borne urethane top coat, and heat set it, too, and the whole paint scheme is water proof when I'm done. I've had hook rash and rock "bites", but the paint scheme holds up.

I've kept the temp. to 340. Any cooler, and I can't inject more than one cavity. Do you think that's too hot?

Well, I tried the larger flake, .035, also from Dels, and bought at the same time as the .015 red. It also looks orange in my watermelon. Next, I'll add a couple of drops of blue to see if that helps. Any other ideas would be very much appreciated.

s54, Thanks. I seem to remember there was another thread, or, at least, another post in that thread, that suggested laminating pine on top of oak. I was concerned at the time about different rates of expansion for the two different woods. But that's all I remember. Bob, You're exactly right! And ever since they began cracking down on chimpanzee abuse, it's getting harder and harder to keep them chained to the lure-making workbench! Since I don't have an engineering degree, and am not fluent in fluid dynamics or lure design, I use the engineering of the major lure manufs. to help me by using successful lures as a starting point. They have done all the testing that I can't, or won't. I don't copy, but I imitate. There's nothing shameful about imitation, the sincerest form of flattery.

Dieter, That lure looks like a rattle trap! Good find. Mark

I remember, a while back, someone here was playing around with laminating a lighter wood on top of a heavier wood to achieve the same bottom heavy effect. I don't remember who, or when, or how it turned out. Ain't getting old swell??!!!! Hahaha

I make little matching wooden trays for my POP molds, and use cutoff nails in the wooden sides for alignment.

Hmmmm.... I have some .35 red flake that I will try instead, to see if the flake itself is the problem.

I would use a rattle trap as a template, and try to match the shape and hardware positions. Then I'd belly weight it between the nose and the front hook hanger, and see how it runs. Having the line tie in the middle+- of the back is what makes it swim the way it does. Look at a silver buddy for an idea of the weighting. They are a metal version of a rattle trap, or vice versa.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try, and let you know what happens. i never considered that the color in the plastic could be tinting the red, making it look orange. Makes sense. I assumed that the red flake was actually changing to orange somehow. Doh!!!!!!

Help! I'm trying to make some watermelon/red flake worms. I've been using the .15 red flake, but it winds up looking orange when I pour. I'm using Bear's med. plastic, Del's flake, and a combination of Del's and LC coloring. I use light watermelon, green pumpkin, and black coloring until I get the shade I want. I'm also adding salt. My worms look more orange after the pour, and the flake definately looks orange. When I hold one next to a Yamamoto watermelon/red flake worm it's like night and day how different they are. Any suggestions on how to achieve the same Yamamoto coloring would really be appreciated.

Interesting to hear how your process worked out. Thanks for posting. Without a photo, it's difficult to know exactly what you did, but maybe you made the tail section lighter, so it sat more nose down on the pause. Whatever you did, it worked. I agree that we usually learn more from our mistakes in lure making, and in life in general.

Wow! Thanks for 'splainin' it to me, Lucy! Hahaha Seriously, I see the best thing for me to do is to take my trailers off the hooks at the end of the day. I do this with pork, and with gulp, so I should just stop being lazy, and do it with plastics, too. It's only the bronze jig hooks, and some of the older, cheaper jigs I have, that are a problem. And my old, blue worm hooks, which I don't use anymore. Thanks for taking the time to explain it so that even a carpenter can understand.

And wear a dust mask! That sanding dust is nasty!!!!!

Can you dip over the can if you use Bloxogen immediately afterwards, or does the moisture in the returning drips contaminate the entire can anyway?