mark poulson

That's a neat setup! Good work.

Same here in SoCal.

Ben, Go to the AZEK website, and use their dealer locater to find someone in your area that handles it. It's worth the trouble.

To me, it's kind of like flukes on performance enhancing drugs. Do they work? Yes. Do they "violate" the spirit of competition on a level playing field? Yes, on a short term basis, just like any new lure or technique, but the fish will eventually learn. How many of us have launched at a tourney with the confidence of having a new, "secret" bait in our boat? If the anglers on that trail were involved in the decision, that probably says it all. Everyone there wants a chance to compete on his or her own merits. Operating within a one rod, one line, one bait framework is what they want. The cream will still rise to the top.

I don't use epoxy for a top coat anymore, so I don't use the turner. It's up in the rafters in my garage. But here's how I rigged it when I did use it. I used paper clips, hooked into the eye bolts on the wheels and through the line tie and the rear hook hanger on the swimbaits. If I used a larger hitchhiker coil in the tail to attach a soft plastic tail, I clamped a hemostat onto the spring, and then use a paper clip to attach that to the eye bolt. Because the swimbaits were heavy, I put some tape, either blue tape or duct tape, onto the coil wire to give the hemostat something to grab onto, so it wouldn't slip. In hindsight, it would have been easier and more fool proof to drill and attach a screw eye temporarily through the center of the hitchhiker for lure coating, and then remove it and seal the hole with D2T when the lure coating was done. Or just wait until after coating to attach the hitchhiker coil, which was seated in D2T. I found that swimbaits were too heavy to suspend with rubber bands. But they work fine for smaller baits. I found I couldn't come up with any top coat system that would protect wood baits from water intrusion, sooner or later. So, when JRHopkins ( ) turned me on to AZEK PVC decking, which is hard, strong, buoyant, and totally waterproof, to use as a building material instead of wood, I began moving away from epoxy. I found I could use all the same building methods and hardware with PVC that I had used with wood, with no downside. The totally waterproof nature of PVC let me switch to water borne urethane instead of epoxy, since I not longer needed a coat of armor to protect the wood. For me, it works fine, and cuts a full day off my building time. I still use wood sometimes, but only for small cranks, and now that I've found AZEK trimboard, which is as buoyant as balsa, I think my wood bait days are over completely. But I'm just a hobby builder, building for myself and a few friends, so I only have myself to satisfy.

I always have an idea of what I want to paint, and sometimes I'll have a color photo from the computer to use as a guide. When I was trying to duplicate the crappie on our local SoCal lakes, I saw there was a golden cast over the shoulders on the photo, and that gave me the idea to fog over the light green with metalic gold. It came out great. Sometimes I get a wild hair, and just paint something until it looks right. But I always have an idea of what I want before I start.

Here's what I built: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/gallery/image/3590-my-paint-shop/ It's two 18" plywood discs with a rotisserie spit passing through them, and the lures suspended between them. It looks like a little Ferris Wheel, and I got the motor and spit from a BBQ replacement kit at a local hardware store. 1 rpm motor works fine, since the farther out on the disc I suspend the lure, the faster it turns. If I space the lures, I can coat them with epoxy easily in place, and they move slowly enough I can check them for coverage as they turn, and stop them if needed to add or subtract epoxy as needed.

Clever!

I now tie my skirts with wire, and double over the tag twist wire to make an additional keeper on the belly of my jigs.

Is there a site or source to shop for aftermarket spools that are lighter than the stock spools? The spools on my old Chronarch MG50's are so light, it makes throwing small stuff a breeze, and I'd like to see if I can improve the light bait performance of some of my other reels. Maybe it's not possible, but I'd like to try.

I think you guys hit it on the head. Bad batch of hooks. I didn't pour those jigs, so I don't know what kind of hook was used. Those jigs were so old I don't even remember where I got them, or what brand they were. I think they might have been some an old partner poured for me, and, if that's so, they're at least 10 years old. I just needed some 1/4oz footballs, so I pulled them out of storage, powder coated them, and added some skirts without giving a second thought to whether or not the hooks were good. Up to now, I've been spoiled, having some left over Lure Logic 1/4oz footballs left from when Bass World West went out of business, and the owner sold off his stock, and I got a great deal for a lot of them. Those jigs had great hooks, and a double collar, so they held everything, from skirts to trailers to fish. They're still sold by Proline, but they're really pricey. But I finally used those up, and pulled these 1/4oz footballs off the shelf. Big mistake. Today's hooks are so much better, like everything else we fish with. Thanks for all the thought that went into solving this mystery for me. I'm getting some jigs from Hagens with Mustad 32756 hooks for the next batch of 1/4oz jigs I coat and fish.

Crazyju, It would depend on how deep you want the bait to dive. Figure that out, find a store-bought bait that dives to that depth, and try to copy that lip angle, size, and shape. That's how I do it, and it works.

I heat my jigs for powder coating with a propane torch. Yesterday, I had several hooks open up, including one that cost us our limit fish. Is the propane torch taking the temper out of the hooks? I hold the jigs by the line tie with a pair of needle nose pliers when I heat them, to keep the powder out of the eye, and only pass the head through the flame. The bend of the hook is never in the flame. Then I hang them in a toaster oven at 350 for twenty minutes. Am I doing something wrong, or were the hooks just lousy to begin with?

I just bought one of the newer football jig molds from Do-It, and it was rough inside. But it pours fine, and powder coats fine, too. There is a "new" commercial jig on the market that features a rough surface on purpose, claiming it creates more action when the jig is dragged over rock. So, as long as it pours okay, I wouldn't fool with it.

Type "Sculpey" into the site search feature, and you should get some answers.

If you build a "ferris wheel" type turner with large plywood discs, the speed of the lures at the outer portion of the disc is plenty fast for even a 1 rpm motor. And the bbq motors are plenty strong enough to turn them. After all, they're design to turn big pieces of meat, like roasts and even whole turkeys.

I was thinking making a soft plastic top hook 4" bluegill. Oh, wait, that one has already been perfected...by you!

There really is no excuse for not communicating with a customer when there's a delay, and offering a full refund.

Silly me. I thought he had added a macho squeek to the lure.

I am blind, too. Where do I sign the petition?

If you're right, and the name copying was unintentional, they should have changed the name once notified.

X3 Take a look at the profile of a punker. The front third of the lure belly is almost like an angled ramp, to get the lure up and moving on the pull, while the back two thirds is more rounded, and almost straight from the belly hanger to the tail, so the heavier tail section can move past the head on the pause. The straighter belly on the rear helps the bait to glide, since a lot of the lure is in the water at the same time. I think your shape would make your lure tend to dig in and pivot, instead of gliding.

That is one elegant jig! I know you hate it when things aren't right, and your jig will eliminate joint problems, for sure. And a video with a sense of humor music theme to boot! As for the "free sex for lure builders" video, I've been married three times, and have five kids. There is no such thing as free sex!