mainbutter

Mind if I ask if the doctors orders are related to anything specifically pouring-related? Sorry to hear you're closing shop!

What kind of paint would I want to use for panfish poppers? Do they need to be topcoated with epoxy or anything? Thanks

Thanks a ton guys I ended up hitting up Thorne Bros here in Minnesota and picked up a fairly inexpensive kit that came with a bunch of materials, all the tools I needed, and a nicely done picture book with a dozen or so patterns. I've also been doing all of the patterns on flyanglersonline.com that I had materials for. I've got a nice little assortment of flies now that I think will be perfect for panfish. One of these evenings I'll put up some pictures!

At least for the little guys, the name of the bait is much much less important than the actual bait itself

I've been eager to hear about anyone using those jigs as well and have been looking at them pretty hard for a few months now. I'm extremely eager to try them with the big reaper tails this summer for big pike and musky.

lure craft is pretty darn cheap. ~$35-40 for 1000 4x6 bags?

I got about a large raindrop size of plastic on my finger when I was mixing too vigorously and a tiny tiny tiny amount splashed out. Now many weeks later(3? 4?), it's still not fully healed. Skin sloughed off, serious 2nd degree burn about the size of half a dime. A very deep (for a wound on a finger) amount of flesh was just gone. The size of the wound was tiny and of no concern pretty much. However, this stuff has the capacity of causing serious, serious burns that will put you in the hospital for weeks, and racking up large health care bills if you're not careful. I wouldn't want to spill a pyrex cup on my leg. That's why I pour sitting on the floor rather than on a table. That said, Larry Dahlberg is a fantastic man, one of my fishing buddies knows him in fact!

I'm sure this is always a topic that people have on their mind when they're out fishing - does the taste/smell of my lure to the fish matter? I just want to get sort of a poll for the soft plastic makers here at TU for how many use scents and how many don't. I plan on doing side-by-side testing of at least my senkos, running them on two rods when I have a fishing partner, one scented and one not, identical colors and everything. Has anyone else done this for themselves and formed a results-based opinion?

Don't start pouring your own plastics. It's addictive and will drain your wallet. Just like fishing

Great suggestions so far, I'm definitely giving serious consideration to all of them. As to my fishing style, the only way I can describe it is: constantly changing. I'm going to be doing 90% of my fishing out of a canoe. I have only seriously picked up fishing as a hobby recently over the past two years. Before that it was just a treat to go fishing with dad maybe one or two weeks a year. What I'm trying to do now is branch out from a one or two dimensional fisherman with only a handful of techniques at my disposal to being as diverse as possible, which is why I'm looking for other directions to go in A few follow up questions to the replies so far: How do you fish beaver-style baits? Does anyone have a favorite hand-poured buzzing frog mold? Keep the suggestions coming! Thanks!

Most of my fishing to this point in my life has mostly been using hard lures (cranks and spinners pretty exclusively). Part of my future fishing plan is to further explore using soft plastics, since until last year they haven't been part of my tackle box except for the odd jig and grub. I just started pouring this winter, and my current molds consist of a few paddletail swimbait styles and senkos. I fish Minnesota waters, mostly close to Minneapolis. I am an all species fisherman. What types of soft plastic lures would you suggest I look at getting or making my own molds for next? What fishing situations do you like these lures for? Thanks for any suggestions!

I've never heard of the technique of dipping swimbaits. I'd love to hear more about it! LC sells a tool for making tubes by dipping steel rods into your plastic. They suggest lubricating the rods with worm oil (one of their scented oils) I believe. I have to imagine any of the soft plastic oil scents would work as a lubricant then to make pulling off easier.

Yeah I have LC's electric blue as one of my few colors, it's very very nice on its own. I add either large blue glitter or very fine silver glitter to it very often to give it some extra shine, but not needed.

I'm pretty sure maklure.com (a website in association with larry dalhberg) carries 'em.

For a topwater walk the dog lure, what's your method for weighting? I tried my hand at one back in the fall, and while it's alright it doesn't have GREAT action, it's pretty hard to get a good side to side cadence going. It's got some nice action to it, and will probably catch fish, but it certainly isn't a nice left, right, left, right etc action. when you try to walk the dog. It's got a fairly basic straight pencil shape to the body, like a jackpot or similar WTD lure but on a smaller ~4-5'' size. I think I may give one a bit more of an upward curve towards the tail next time. I didn't really know what I was doing as it was my 2nd lure I ever made, I just basically only put ballast in the tail.

The thing that makes double paddle difficult is you can't do a top pour or bottom pour. Baby e style swimbaits have a lower paddle because you pour from the top, so the opening of the mold is the top of the lure, and you have a flat top. Therefore, all the "shaping" occurs below the top of the bait, so you have to have a lower paddle. Lures like suzy suckers have a flat bottom, and are poured in reverse, from the bottom, and therefore have an upper paddle. Double paddles usually pour from the nose, as I cannot really see another way to do it. These are nice, but you can't easily pour vertical laminates(one layer of color on top of another), but you can do horizontal laminates which can make for interesting vertical stripes. They all have good action, but I generally like upper paddles the best. I find they have the least roll and the most kick, and I think it has to do with the plastic being buoyant. Just think of an upward force a bottom paddle, I could see it imparting more action to the body and causing a roll. The problem here is that I also like the look of a shaped bottom part of a lure (since the fish usually sees either the bottom or side silhouette of your lure), so it's sort of a trade off for me. In short, they all work and all have very similar actions. I'm going to be pouring and fishing all 3 this season. Also, to answer another question, double paddles aren't more expensive to pour. The mold I'm thinking of purchasing costs just as much as my baby-e style mold. I hope that helps.

I know that since this is the good ol' U S of A, most people here (especially in the soft plastics section) are probably bass fishermen. I'm not a bass fishermen. Sometimes I target them, but certainly not with the frequency I target toothier fish. I've often looked past soft plastics for pike. I fish a lot of spinners, bucktails, and crankbaits for the most part. You know, standard pike lures. One of the reasons I've taken up pouring my own plastics is to follow through with a new years resolution to make better use of plastics for pike fishing. I'm currently pouring swimbaits and senkos. Does anyone have any suggestions for what else I might want to look at for targeting pike? I'm going to be making my own mini bulldawg-type lure within the next few months as well, probably something between the micro dawg and spring dawg in size. **Apparently I can't edit my typo in the title, doh.

After making my first and testing it with a 2/0 mustad treble, it does in fact sink, but pretty slowly. I think I'd have a hard time working it deep but we'll see once open water season rolls around come may.

I just got my bob's baby e style swimbait mold delivered today, and I was just doing some thinking.. These things must be buoyant, even with an aluminum insert and a treble hook attached, with how chunky they are and how much plastic they use. Does anyone here who pours these or similar molds weight theirs somehow? What do you use? How much weight do you find necessary? Thanks for any tips

Doh nevermind. Yeah coming out close to 600.

I haven't seen any TWO inch yammies, but I've seen plenty of the bigger sizes. There are a number of threads on making your own mold from a master carving or an original bait, you could just make your own out of RTV silicone or plaster.

I know this comes up every now and then so I just wanted to post my own personal results. Pouring lure craft's aluminum hand pour 2 piece 5'' senko mold, I'm consistently getting 37 per batch using del's formula from his website, which is basically: 1 cup plastic 1/4 cup softener 1/2 cup salt If it matters, I'm just heating up in a pyrex measuring cup in the microwave, using lurecraft's plastic and softener, and bear's salt. I have very little extra plastic left in my pyrex at the end of a batch, maybe enough left for 1 worm but it cools too fast to pour out of the pyrex. It's going in the scrap pile for future use. This means I'm not even breaking the 300 mark per gallon. I'm making a lot fewer per volume of plastic than I thought I was going to make after reading previous similar posts regarding this topic.

I have a couple of soft plastic ideas that I want to make, no one really makes What RTV product would you recommend for casting a mold from a master carved out of wood?

Well I mean I don't want to make fish hooks out of barbed wire. I'm thinking more like natural materials. Wood? Bone? What kinds? How to do it? etc.

I want to make my own fish hooks, preferably without containing modern materials. This is mostly just for fun, but yeah I'd love to actually give a try at fishing with them too. Does anyone have any idea about materials and how to go about it?