mark poulson

Twenty baits! Man, you are ambitious! I only mix up enough to do four or five jointed lures at a time. Here's something I thought of when BobP mentioned that heat sets off epoxy. I know from personal experience that the epoxy cures more slowly in colder weather. In the winter, I use a hair dryer to make my Etex flow more easily. You might try putting ice cubes and a little water in a larger dish, and setting the epoxy mixing cup into the ice water, to slow down the rate at which it goes off, while you're coating that many lures, to give you more working time. If it's too stiff, you can hit it with a hair dryer once it's on the lure, to soften it up and make it more spreadable. The ice bath should keep the mixing cup stuff from going off while you're using the HD and brushing out the lures. Try it once with a small batch to see if it works first. I've never done it myself.

A-Mac, I just looked at your bluegill again in the gallery, and those eyes look wicked! Are they movable doll eyes, or fixed pupil?

Those are really nice looking. Good job! I'm going to go way out on a limb, and guess these are not the first lures you've ever painted. If they are, you're the man, a natural! Even if they're not, they're beautiful. Trust me, if they swim, they'll catch fish. And I really like the way you relieved the joint around the hinge eyes. It looks really clean. Please let us know how they swim.

I don't think I've knowingly used polyester glitter, but that may be what's in the Krylon spray glitter that I use. I've just never had a problem, at least not so far! Knock on wood.

DVS, I've found that I need weight in all my wooden swimbaits, since even the floaters are so buoyant, being made of poplar, that they lean on their sides ( they're taller than they are wide) even when the hooks are attached unless I weight them. So I kill two birds with one stone. I use 1/8oz egg sinkers and sst cotter pins as hook hangers. I push the pins through the holes in the sinkers, bend the tabs out at 90 degrees, and cut them off even with the outer circumference of the weight, so they fit in the 5/16" hold I've drilled for them. I epoxy in the hook hanger/weight combo, filling the hole 1/2 way with epoxy, and then slowly pushing in the weighted hanger, so the epoxy is forced up through the center hole, as well as up around the weight. Once the epoxy is set, and I've epoxied in the line tie and hinges, I seal the lure and put it in a bucket of water to see how it floats. At that point, I have the hooks and split rings attached. Depending on how the lure hangs, and how I want it to float/suspend/sink, I pinch #5 split shots (again 5/16" diameter) onto the hooks as needed, being careful to alternate sides so the lure doesn't lean from too many weights on one side. Once I've added enough weight to get the lure to act the way I want, I drill holes for the weights, push them into the lure, and put a few drops of the thicker super glue over them, to lock them in place. Then I epoxy over them to lock them in and seal them. I've found that my painting/topcoat system adds about 2-3 grams of weight to a lure, about the weight of one #5 shot, so when I'm installing the weights, I add one less than I needed to balance the lure to allow for the finish. I've found that, in gliders, generally the farther back in the lure the weight is, the more the lure has a tendency to be unstable, and the better it's action. It's like the heavier back section has more inertia on the pause, and keeps moving forward even though the lighter front has stopped. I put weight just past center, and again in the tail. I like big surface gliders to rest almost horizontal, slightly tail down, with about 1/3 of the lure's back out of the water. For jointed baits, I put the hook hangers in there rear of the first section, and in the rear of the third section if it's a four piece, or in the front of the third section if it's only three. I install any additional weight needed in the second section, and just in front of the front hook hanger in the first section. I generally split the additional weighting between those section evenly, so the lure will still sit horizontal in the water. Sorry to be so long winded.

If you're worried, try spraying one of the eyes as a test, on a piece of paper, to see if it clouds. That way you don't ruin two, and won't have to dig them out of the clear coat, if they do cloud up. It may be that the solvent in the spray clear reacts with the plastic of the doll eyes. I've never used doll eyes, even though my friend gave me a bunch and they're in my lure making kit, so I don't know how epoxy would react with them.

I wipe my screens lightly every time I clean the boat up after I fish with the same product I use to clean/polish the boat. A fellow club member makes it. It's called Peregrine 250. It really works for cleaning up the water spots and dirt that get on a boat during the day, and hasn't damaged either my Lowrance or Humminbird screens.

I use D2T to coat the insides of my joints, and then two coats of Etex on the outer parts of the body. I've found the D2T holds up well in the joints, which don't generally get hit by rocks during errant casts, but does peel off when I use it on the body faces which are exposed to my bad cast encounters. I lap the D2T out onto the face about a quarter of an inch, to make sure the two epoxies are overlapped and then I put the lure on my drying wheel and coat it with Etex, letting the Etex go into the actual joints as little as possible. This way, I can topcoat the lure assembled, so the hinge pin flags get epoxied in, too. I've found Etex is not as brittle as D2T, and absorbs rock impacts with dents or small chips, which I can seal on the water with brush on super glue, so I can keep fishing. I try and time it so I topcoat Wednesday night, second coat Thursday night, and can take them off the wheel Friday, and fish with them Saturday. Did I mention I love to fish? I wish there were a topcoat that was as clear as epoxy, but easier to apply and tougher, easy to store and clean up, cheap, no bad fumes, and compatible with my paints. Don't want much, do I?

I hope you can post some pictures of the lure before you feed it to some monster fish!

Oscar, That's interesting, and not my experience. I usually mix my Etex, and then let it sit for five minutes to be sure both components have mixed thoroughly, and that most of the air bubbles are gone. I've never had it set up in the mixing cup, but I've had to hit it with a hair dryer during the coating process, if I'm doing multiple lures, because it did start to get a little stiff. Maybe there are other variables at work?

Rofish, You are a very inventive person. Aside from doing a nice job wrapping the wire, your idea to use clothes pins is brilliant! Diemai, The carp we have out here in SoCal look like the middle picture, but with different colorings. My hat's off to you. You are a man of infinite patience. I would have ruined the lure by now, trying to get the paint off more quickly. I hope you can proceed without problems from here. Perch, I've hooked carp by accident twice, when they slapped at a crank bait and got snagged. Each time, it was five seconds of white knuckle excitement, where they just turned and ran as though my line wasn't even attached to them. I couldn't turn them, even with my thumb down as hard as I could jam it on the spool. And then they pulled off, leaving me, each time, with a huge scale impaled on my hook. In a club tourament this past weekend, one of our club members caught a carp, estimated 10 lbs, on 6 lb. test line, on a plastic worm. He said it took him 20 minutes to get it to the net. Another guy caught a 12lb catfish. All great fish, but this was a bass tournament, so the other fish didn't count, and just ate up their fishing time. But they both said it was fun. At times during the year, stripers are commonly caught alongside the largemouth bass, which are the only fish that qualify for the tournaments. Stipers grow very big, 30+lbs, and even the small ones fight very hard. They are a pelagic fish, swimming all the time, so they are very strong and fight like salt water fish. For some reason, one of our lakes, Cachuma, has a lot more carp than the others, but they are in all our lakes. And in the City lakes in Los Angeles, people release pet gold fish, which grow enormous, and make those lakes very colorful in the spring.

Out here in SoCal, we have big carp, including goldfish that people have released into our lakes, and which have grown and reproduced, so we have some really colorful carp. But the majority of them are greyish brown, with orange fins, tails, and bellies. I think their colors may become more vivid when the spawn, which is when we see them in huge schools in the shallows. They actually jump out of the water during the spawn, which can be pretty exciting when it happens near the boat. They don't rain from the sky like those silver carp in the Mississippi, though. Just the occasional boiler, slapping the water and making me think a giant bass is feeding until I actually see one in mid air.

I am talking strictly second hand knowledge. I've never actually used or seen the polyurethane decking, but I did research it enough to find out it comes thick enough to make lures from. You just have to remove the outer layer, which is finished. And it wasn't that expensive, if memory serves. Google Lowe's and then search for decking. You'll find it.

Very clever idea, well executed! You must be related to Pete (Hazmail). You both think outside the box! The epoxy topcoat may make the eye more clear. I can't wait to see the finished lure, and hear how it fishes!

I would recommend you use Envirotex Lite for the sectional swimbaits, and turn them for a few hours on a horizontal drying wheel. One that looks like a ferris wheel. I'd use the Etex for all of them, as I've had the unfortunate experience of the D2T flaking off when the lure meets a rock by accident. The Etex seems much less brittle. It's also not as hard as D2T, so, if you're fishing for pike, muskie, or salt water fish, it might not be as good a choice as the D2T. But for Bass lures, the Etex is great.

My garage shop is so crowded and disorganized I have to make an appointment just to walk in! Seriously, my garage is full of stuff, but I know where everything is, can find whatever I need, and can do what I need to do in it. But when my memory fails completely, I'll be lost.

Never heard of it before. Does it brush on? Have you tried it yet with water based paints?

Ah, so deska! Thank you, Sensei. I'll be spreading my Etex onto a flat, taped surface from now on.

That makes sense. It's a chemical reaction, so heat should speed it up. Maybe a double boiler ice bath will extend it's working time in the summer.

I think Lowe's sells polyurethane decking (thank you JR). You have to remove the outer skin, but it works for lures.

Weird! I'd love to know why that happened. Try emailing the Etex tech support people. Last time I had a question about their epoxy, the woman who replied was both knowledgeable and helpful.

Grrrr!!!!! I hate when that happens! I guess that's why I'm so hesitant to try new methods. So many lures, so little time.

They all look great!

If you use a larger ball peen hammer, and a die/mold to give you the right shape, you can make the lips concave.

I agree. The trout scheme looks great. One thing I'd recommend. I use Krylon rattle can white primer (thanks Nathan) over my waterproofing, after I've scuff sanded the waterproofing, and my water based paint sticks to that fine. A white undercoater also enhances the colors of the paint that goes over it, so they cover better with less paint, and the colors are more true.