Howdy My name is Vern Clements & I reside in Arenzville IL. I was catching alot of bass on a handmade crankbait that was available on the net, I lost everything in a home fire & when I began to replace my fishing gear I could no longer get my favorite crankbait, the maker quit & sold his bussiness. To make matters worse the new owner made some changes to the crankbait & I could no longer catch bass like it did before. I found a few on eBay eventually. Over the next 2 years I read everything, researched, created, trained myself to use airbrush to reverse engineer that bait. I was obsessed to say the least. I had never tried to create a hardbait ! I didn't have any carving experence nor any art training or exprience, pretty much ignorant of the whole process. My 1st bait in 2008 was very crude but did function, I caught a 5 fish limit on it on a highly pressured lake that weighed in 16 to 18 lb my kicker fish was 18 1/4" this was the 1st trip with "MY" homemade crankbait. NONE of this would have happened without the people/help of this web site !!!!!! I can never thanks you guys enuf................ever !!!! IT is impossible for me to describe the feelings I had when I caught those bass. I'm sure somebody out there on the lake with me that day wondered what the hell all that yelling, hollering & WHOOO HOOOO ing was all about. LOL THANK YOU GUYS SO VERY MUCH !!!!!! I now sell a few to my friends to help with my bass tackle addiction.