dhockey11

Picking only one is tough. I live on the columbia river in WA and fish for Smallmouth primarily so my answers will be a bit different than most. Instead of shad, we have smolt so I always like a chrome blue back or chrome black back shallow water bait. If I want something a little deeper, I'll use a deep lil N in spring craw. If I have to choose only one though, gold black back is pretty tough to beat.

Fish for small mouth. I'm always trying to put the red finish back on =).

It's def the right stuff. Works like a champ =)

My bottle looks a little different, but its about a year old, so that might be the difference.

Thanks guys, it is the same lure. The picture is way better. I plan on trying to get a better camera that has more control settings and trying it some more to compare. All of the advice here worked well though.

Personally, I would put #4s on both, and wrap some lead on the rear treb if it wasnt sitting down properly. Don't have any experience with these KOs though.

So I got together a really simple box, adjusted the camera, and followed the editing instructions for Photoshop. The biggest difference seemed to come from the photo box lighting, but some was found adjusting this setting on the camera from 1/500 to 1/1500. Not sure what the heck that does, but the picture looked a lot crisper. I attached two pics for comparison. Thanks guys, Zack

I have ventured into this with very little success. I do kill dots with a dotting brush, and thats about it. One thing I did try that hasn't worked yet, is called "inking" in the figurine world. It will only work on textured areas of baits, but I'll throw out the process so you guys can think about it. Paint your bait normally with acrylics, then either brush or dip on a coat of future. Take oil based artists paints, that contrast the colors of the bait, maybe red for gill areas, black for lighter areas, etc. and thin a ton with fake turpentine. You want the paint to flow just like water. Now, load a fine tipped brush, and place the tip in a crevice that you want highlighted. The paint will flow into the crevice and coat the entire area. Use a tissue to clean up goofs if there are any. To get really noticeable highlights, this process should be repeated a few times. Now, as I said, I have tried this on cranks with no real success visually. I use it on airplane models to make the panels stick out and it works great. I think my problem has been that the colors were too similar, but I haven't given up on it yet. Zack

Thanks to blazt and everyone else for their help. I will get to the pics as soon as I can, but it will probably be about a week before I can. I plan on trying pretty much everything mentioned here, and posting pics for comparison. Went fishing with the baby bass painted ones, and had a 15-18lb king salmon follow it to within inches of the boat. I almost died, I would have surely lost the bait, so I couldn't take more pictures of it. =) Thanks again, Zack

Thanks hillbilly. So, from your post I am gathering that the material in the video IS alumilight? if it is, have you ever had any problems with strength due to the the thin walls?

I'm not selling baits, just a hobby. I will try to get a better camera, but some new fishing rods don't sound too bad either =).

Any idea on what kind of epoxy would be adequate for the type of molding in the video posted by hillbilly? I am hoping to give this a try over the summer.