smirkplug

Yes Or No !!!

I make most of my plugs for stripers then fish with them for largemouth, browntrout, amberjacks, snook, yellowtail, calico bass, lake trout, etc. I have 2 photos in the gallery from smirkplug. I also have lots of wood blanks for poppers and plugs. good luck

As all learners to a sport i was a taker and For a long time i wouldn't give out any of MY secrets. Then finally i found the pleasure of teaching what i had learned. I think its an evolutionary process. I still give out bad advice to those who don't release bass, corbina, marlin or any fish thats too good to be caught only once. Ill be happiest when i get to share what ive learned.

Spike-It wins in my book, Thanks again Guys, You can't beat the price, the ease, and the great free advice T.U. is always happy to provide.

For no additional costs i use the term "the origional" on my products. Everyone knows the Kastmaster, but how many of us know or remember Mr Champ a very close knock off. If i was really smart or sucessful i would knockoff myself off, by making my origionals, then going to China, making a knockoff under a different company name, then complaining to other fishermen about it all the way to the bank. Good luck!

Worth told me the oval is about 40-50% stronger and i like the longer narrower profile for action and to have more swing or rotation on a hooked fish. I only use them on my hooks, not to tie to.

I spent about $15,000 to a patent lawyer on my own design and after so much confusion all i wound up with was a cheap design patent that i can't afford to protect. Good luck !

Call the guys at Spike-It, im having great sucess using it on my V.M.C. 4x cadmium plated saltwater hooks, old chrome spoons, etc. They were easy to talk to, their stuff works, and they shipped from a phone order to my house.

Thanks guys, again and again and again. As a small time plug maker T.U. saved me on the red hook issue by recommending SPIKE-IT blade dip, to change the 5000+ v.m.c. hooks i already have in stock. Its cheap, easy, and effective ! When shipping rods T.U. gave me great advice on shipping through the U.S. postal service and lightweight irrigation tubes with end caps bought reasonably priced from Home Depot. Alot of time and trouble was spared from the free advise given by my fellow members. I just thought i would start a thread for others to discribe their sucess in following the free advise from the great T.U. members. Thanks again Smirkplug !!!

Hi, everybody. Im caught in that red hook mania but i still have over 5000 various size 2/0--9/0 V.M.C. 4x saltwater hooks in stock. Does anybody have suggestions on painting or dying them red ? A friend at Tady lures told me they basically laquer the red on most red hooks, if thats true should i dip or spray them, and what about priming and or loosing the sharpness by adding a paint over the barb ? Im not looking for a super long lasting difficult process just maybe not wearing off or chipping too bad in a few days of hard fishing. All recommendations, and experences will be very helpful.

Just for kicks add a nail weight in the very back of a small frog or tube bait then work the bait over and past the fish then drop it back in front of the fish. If its rigged and swimming right it will swim backwards and drop in front of the fish.

I tried it on wood crankbaits by drilling the wood then pouring the shot in the cavity then sealing with resin and it didn't work out very well. It never sealed properly but it did rattle a little. Melting it is fine though !

All my baits are rattle can jobs and i start with the bottom usually in white then spray the different colors working my way to the top. Its fun to blend the different blues and greens lightly, and also experiment with art store powders brushed over the spray paints to add a little richness. I got p.o.ed by fishermen who got very pickey for perfect colors they wanted so i started adding gold leaf to some of them and charging more, saying 'here it's gold plated, if thats not good enough for you go make your own' ! See my only gallery photo to see an example, and have fun fooling around with it, you can always spray over any mistakes and large baits are much easier to learn on.

Isn't that a Bagleys Balsa 'B' or killer "B' or somthing ?

Last year tuna fishing at Gerranimo Is. in Baha Ca. (where those huge white sharks are all over the place ) we had a chicken dinner one night and threw the bones overboard. The next morning when 1 guy dropped his sardine bait in the water a large calico bass ate it and when he brought it on board it spit out a drumstick bone from the night befores dinner. On the same trip another guy caught and kept a black sea bass about 80 lbs. that when cleaned had a large cormorant skeletin inside it! Sorry about my spelling im too tired to check.

I did a tradeshow with a free flier i passed out for the Boy Scouts who i do some charity work for and on the flier it saod 'lets go fishing' and some jerk got in my face saying he had 'rights' to the phrase 'lets go fishing' since i was stuck at a booth alone all i could do was try and ignore the maniac until he got tired and left. good luck to all and 'LETS GO FISHING'

I've used pine on big poppers and swimbaits for years, I've made over 2000 of them and never had one fail with a good sealer, primer, paint, and 2 coats of 2 part epoxy. I've caught striper, amberjacks, pompano, largemouth, etc. up to 30 pounds, we tested the strength on a iziorline machine and the line broke at 122 pounds and the 4x v.m.c. hooks bent a little. but the wood is fine. I do like cedar, and poplar but in S. Cal i havent found anything but pine and some heavy wood.

Thanks for the reminder, i'll add a weight in the lip area.

I bought some orange 1/8 inch acrylic plastic i was going to make those with, using a wood body and painted like a crab in bright orange / red, and only one hook at the top to save on snags but i havent got to that yet. I bought a huge one with a thick sheet metal lip that was hand made and it worked great on red snappers in costa rica >

Birch i really like for topwater plugs and poppers, i can't find a use for heavier cherrywood, i tried to make a barely floating jointed swimbait out of heavier wood and it sank after hours of work ! I recommend cutting pieces to a rough size then float testing it in water before you put too much work into it..

One more point as i get older and more blind is i started painting the tops of my topwater plugs red so i can see where the heck they are. Im tired if seeing a fish swim by and saying to my friends "look hee's got somthing in his mouth, then realizing its my lure !!! also out west stripers and white sea bass are suckers for pearl white, and calicos in mexico are suckers for red white red, if that helps anybody.

Thanks for all the feedback, and i still want action as a first choice when im out on a lake, then when i find the right color, i often repaint the plugs that have the right action the color im most comfortable with for different sitiutations. I guess it never ends,

Thanks guys, ive been using 3 inch solid irrigation pipe from homer depot, then stuffed newspaper and heavy duct tape,, but im changing to caps and a screw end to save trouble and give some value to my rods. Im still afraid to use the perforated pipe because im afraid to csratch the rods.