mark poulson

It really is a thrill every time! Thanks.

This is what I found last Saturday. Fish are in the tules around flooded islands in shallower areas. Green pumpkin and black/blue wacky rig 6" senkos, fat 7" roboworms drop shot (MM3, Oxblood red flake), chatterbaits (GP Zako) and spinnerbaits (bluegill), 2.5 squarebills ( (delta red, bluegill) whopper plopper early, or at high tide near through spots with current. I'm going out again Monday. Hit me up after that.

How buoyant is it?

Feel better fast!

Dumb question time. I've dipped to make tubes a few times, but not a lot. I always used a rod, and dipped them vertically into my plastic. How is horizontal dipping different from how Roger Linnell does it?

I have a pair of 7" knipex pliers, and they bend up to .051 wire fine. I struggle with bend .062 wire with them.

That's a great video! Thanks.

TW has them: https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Owner_CPS_Centering_Pin_Spring/descpage-OCPSS.html

Hahaha That "great minds" thing is a stretch. I was pleasantly surprised when my first plopper, three years ago, actually plopped more loudly, and outfished my factory made ones, so, of course, I set about building them like crazy. I've learned enough now to be able to shape one in an hour, but fine tuning the plopping tail still involves test swimming, so it's far from an exact science. I did learn that having the tail just slightly down is key for me, because the PVC I carve it from is so buoyant that it won't plop at low speeds if it sits level. The original hangs down at more than a 45 degree angle, so it's tail is already turning by the time it gets up to even with the water's surface. A combination of a thinner "shaft" for the tail, with less buoyant material, plus additional belly weighting in the back part of the front section, allows me to adjust the angle of float at rest, and to get a good plop at low speeds. The actual cupped fins on my PVC tails are thin, so they do not have enough tensile strength to take impacts with hard objects, but fish up to seven pounds have eaten them with no breakage or damage. I typically coat them with gap filling super glue to provide some reinforcement, but I don't throw them around rocks.

I just posted a picture with build dimensions of a 4" PVC plopper I made a month ago. I let a 13 year old fish with it in a teen tournament I boated for, and he caught his three biggest keepers on it. I gave him my setup, warned him that my reel was set really loose, and he proceeded to put on a casting clinic, outfishing his 17 year old buddy from the back of the boat. I was blown away. He never backlashed once! I used it last Saturday to catch the big fish, 4.85#, in my club's tournament. It plops loudly, even on a slow retrieve, and lays almost level on the pause, so it doesn't pick up as many weeds when it lands. I carved the tail using a dremel with a small sanding drum. The paints are Createx, Wicked, and Folk Art, and the silver dots are "Big Silver Balls" nail polish.

So they now have textured skirt material back in stock. I was just bitten by the bait monkey again. Thanks Smalljaw! Grrrr Hahaha

Maybe denatured alcohol would be safer. I thin my epoxy with it, and haven't had any problems with my glitter.

Wow, that thing really wobbles! Congrats!!!

Thanks for the tip. I've been using Norpro silicone measuring cups for years to heat my plastisol, but I never thought to use one to mix epoxy. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_sc_1_16?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=silicone+measuring+cup&sprefix=silicone+measure%2Caps%2C294&crid=ZP5FFHJUQJME&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Asilicone+measuring+cup

I'd fill it with clay, restore the carving details, and make a mold. Of course, I don't know what's involved with making a mold for resin baits, so I'm not sure of the steps you need to go through prior to making a mold.

Thanks, Jonah, but I'm looking for an extra wide gap worm hook, for rigging thick soft plastics.

Thanks, Smalljaw, but I think the Trokar hook points open up too big a hole, like the old Owner slicing hooks did.

Baitjunky is just sharing what he has learned from being in the soft plastic business for years. I am sure it is based on a great deal of past first hand experience. You should contact the manuf. directly, and ask them for help. Everyone has a different policy when it comes to customer service.

I have no idea what to use. I'm sure someone here can help you, if you tell us what you're going to use to make the mold.

Does Eagle Claw make any worm hooks with that wire and configuration? I used to use the Mustad Megalite 5/0 EWG hooks for thick soft plastics, like Fat Ikas, but they stopped making them, so I'm looking for a substitute. Never mind. I just went through every worm hook on the Eagle Claw site, and nada. Drat!

I use Rustoleum Clear X2 Gloss as a top coat on jointed baits and crankbaits, and I love it. But I've found that it doesn't play nicely with soft plastics. I think the softener in the plastics actually bleeds over and softens the X2. I would keep that in mind for any spray acrylic that you use. This is not to say it won't work, but you do need to be careful what you leave it in contact with for an extended period, like overnight. Do a test piece first, to see if plastisol baits will affect it. I use clear nail polish as a barrier on baits that have soft plastics attached, like rats, in the area of attachment, and I remove the tails after I'm done fishing for the day. I store the tails in the same plano box as the rats, but in a separate compartment, and there's no problem, so it's really prolonged direct contact that is the danger. I also keep my rods rigged with hard baits on one side of my deck, and soft plastic rigs on the other side, to avoid problems. An hour's contact doesn't seem to cause damage, but I'm careful not to let them lay together on the deck, anyway.

That is a beautiful master. Be sure to seal it well before you make your mold, or whatever you need to do to protect all that great carving!

Once you've finished a bait with a gloss topcoat, you can knock the shine down to matte with fine steel wool.

I was able to get a wobble on the fall of my spybaits by a combination of shape and ballasting. Spybaits like the Duo Realis 80 look very much like the baits in your video, and that's why I've suggested my method of making them. I used one of their baits as a model for my first spybaits. I work with PVC trimboard, which is totally waterproof, and as buoyant as med. density balsa, so I can float test without worrying about water intrusion. That lets me play around with ballast placement more easily than if I had to seal a wood bait before testing. I keep the bottom flat to create the vortices Dave was talking about on the fall, so the water passing the sides exerts a pull on the sides alternately. I keep the sides flat, and the top barely rounded over. I found that having the ballast spread along the bait more or less evenly helps the bait to fall level. And putting the ballast 1/3 above, 2/3 below the centerline of the bait, drawn from line tie to tail hook hanger, makes the bait just top heavy enough to be unstable on the fall, exaggerating the wobble caused by the flat bottom . If I were going to use balsa, I would finish shape my lure, add my hook hangers and line tie, drill a series of ballast hole up from the bottom along the bait, and then seal it well with runny super glue. Once it was sealed, I would find whatever amount of ballast (3/16" lead wire in my case) I needed to get the bait to fall at the rate I wanted in my 5 gallon float testing water bucket. Then I would divide the ballast evenly along the length of the bait, and push each piece of lead up into the bait body to get the 1/3 above, 2/3 below position. Once that was done, I'd do another float test, in case I needed minor ballast adjustments, and then I'd pack the holes with facial tissue paper, and add some more super glue to make it waterproof. I've found that tissue works fine this way, and is lighter than bondo. I do use bondo for the final filling of the ballast holes, and sand it to shape. Be sure you have all your hardware, including split rings and hooks, attached before you do your ballasting, so you get a true reading of how the bait falls.