diemai

Local weather's going up and down , some two weeks ago we've had some inches of snow and all stillwaters iced up , up to -10 C during frosty nights , ....approaching Xmas all melted away again , down Munich they had unbelievable 20,1° C last weekend ! ! ! Around 22nd and 23rd we've had some more snow , but won't last , right now it's stormy and rainy around 7° C , for Friday and Saturday friendly weather is forecast , but with slight frost again . Really weird weather , blaming it on global warming , during my younger years it used to be much more consistent . For your hunting baits , ..have you considered about a little blade on the tail end of the lurebody ? Somewhere I have seen a video of a Japanese lure like this , the heavier blade is not swivelled , just attached to an eye at the rear , ....it would hang and flutter to one side letting the lure break out to this side , ......if the line pull would get to strong dragging the bait back on course or the blade accidentally swings over vice versa , the bait would change direction and swim to the other side , ...all in all providing some kinda "drunken" course to the bait . Meantime an ordinary lip would let it wiggle all of the time . Guess , I'm gonna do some final casts tommorrow , before season ends December 31st . The missus intends to stroll the shopping malls in Hamburg city , so I'm gonna take rod , lurebag and net along to go down the "Alster" lake there and see , if I could still stir something up in the cold water , .......all the best and Happy New Year , ...cheers , Dieter

Thanks a lot , Mark , ....hope you're having an enjoyable holiday as well , ..at least you should have better weather over there , LOL . Your concerns about deforming lead weights get me thinking as well , ......there are one or two lures amongst this bunch where the weights do bind a bit AFTER final assembly(they did not in a dry fit , otherwise I would have reworked the fit) . I'm just busy topcoating two more large "Weightshifters" of abachewood , one of these has these issues as well . But possibly deforming lead is only one option ,..... could happen as well , that the belly hookhanger mounting screws could accidentally get too close to the internal straw liner inside of the center bore , thus maybe bulging up the wood to somewhat tighten that liner , making it a bit too narrow for the balls to pass properly ? Also that internal straw liner often comes to sit more or less curved , as I'm drilling from either side to meet in center , not always 100% accurate , ......... as a result the liner tightens as well somewhere in the bend . And the balls are stated 7mm dia. sliding in a 8mm outer dia. straw liner , so not much room left ! Never had these issues with the smaller .22cal (5,5mm)airgun pellets sliding in that 8mm outer dia. straw , simply because there is much more room left to even out little imperfections . But obviously these smaller balls do not provide as much sliding ballast , thus are not as effective compared to bigger lead balls(would be great to have some in 6,5mm dia. , but not available) . The "PN-Kid" and the rainbow trout colored lure have a 6mm outer dia. straw liner holding a couple of just 5,1mm dia. balls , ...looks like with this set-up the odds are a lot better in terms of the weights binding , ..all stands and falls with a bigger tolerance between ball dia. and liner size . I'm also not so sure , whether the balls might deform a bit after a while of use(would be able to tell more by the end of next years season) , ...but if the liner's dia. is big enough , it won't matter to a proper function , I guess , ...this is the point ! If you're using splitshot , you would need a bigger liner , too , as it is not much of an entirely spheric shape and also it might even deform easier due to it's deep slot . But two or three years ago I have also used cylindrical curtain weights of about 10 X 5mm dia , ......even inside of a PVC lurebody WITHOUT any liner inside of the center bore these do properly slide into the lures nose , when the retrieve ist started , ....so they overcome the friction with ease . I've used these lures quite a bit since , ..the bore dia . was 6mm , if my memory serves me right , ....no binding of the weights has occured so far . Greetz , Dieter

Really nice ones !