Waterlogged

This is a 9" musky bait that I cut out of poplar and painted to resemble a walleye. One thing I've observed about open market walleye pattern baits is that their template is always the same as a perch. Except instead of using yellow, green, black and orange they are painted with yellows and browns and sometimes black. To me, they look nothing like a walleye. A walleye in the water, as you can see, is greenish-black with golden mid-tones and yellow highlights. Not much brown if any. Also, a lot of times bait manufacturers, like Dunwright, will make the eyes white. Another fallacy about walleyes in the water. Their eyes, on the contrary, are actually the blackest part of their whole body. All painting was done using rattle cans, building up the color into layers until I was satisfied. No brushes were used.

Here are two wooden baits I made and painted-up using rattle cans. All markings were added by use of stencils - no hand work. I'm trying to make a decent looking bait without spending a lot of time on tiny detail stuff, where I would need to use a paintbrush, markers, etc. The reason is, I want the abilty to produce multiple baits fairly quickly with consistent looking results from bait to bait. Regarding the patterns: I've been reading up on the theory of territoriality, where a big predator will attack another smaller predator not to eat it but to chase it out of the area or try to kill it. I thought a pike and muskie pattern may just do the trick in persuading the big girls to strike! Tell me what you think. -Don

After learning many great tips from this site I've decided to post my first set. These are 9" Grandma-style baits. The painting was done with spray cans and is a little crude but I overall I'm happy with my rookie batch. Most important for me is that they catch fish - muskies in particular. Because the season does not open here in WI until May 5th, I must wait patiently before I can put them into action. I will concentrate mainly on the mechanics of the bait - making sure it runs right in the water. Once I have that figured out I will work on my painting skills in hopes to raise it to the level of some of the folks on this great site. I'm open to any comments. Thanks all!