jigginpig

I like wood too. PVC could be just a good proxy for wood in the design phase because of dimensional stability and resistance to swelling. But wood is good too, I use both. I love balsa.

Honestly, to avoid frustration, you are so much better off to build a batch of baits that are as close to identical as you can manage. PVC board is good for this because you can at least control for density, as one PVC board is more like another than one wooden board is like another wooden board, even from the same tree. Also, PVC need not be sealed or treated prior to testing, and the solid white color makes testing easy, as you are able to see it in the water better. The real trick is to not spend all the time on making a pretty lure until you know your bait is going to perform to your requirements, THEN spend time on the looks of it. So make a dozen identical baits, but vary the angle of the cut for the lip. Find the angle that works best, then try different shapes of bill. And so forth. Once you have a good stable bait to work with, doll it up to your heart's content. Your bait looks really nice, I don't think that will be a problem for you. If you are planning on using it with a downrigger anyway, I would go with a smaller bill in a cut that is more diagonal to the centerline. Such a configuration will not dive well on its own, but will have a good side to side action, and since the downrigger is taking it to depth, extra diving will not be needed anyway. Keep posting results. Cheers! SS

Anyone? I'm just looking for advice, for the moment.

Good stuff Dave. You are a hero among men.

Yeah, anything made with natural materials will rot... eventually. That said, mummies are made with "natural materials." Some of those are older than we are. Mikko Okkonen (Solarfall) put up a really good tutorial on Youtube on how to use fish skin on lures. Go check it out. As far as the clear-coating insects thing goes... why bother? Flies work great, are super easy to tie, and fish are stupid. Cheers. SS

As noted, microballoons can cause lung problems, and very serious ones. That said, they are very useful, if handled properly. Mix them into the "A" and "B" components separately, then mix the resin. You will have no more issues with the mix.

Sweet! I'm jealous.

I have no interest in B.A.S.S., but I have a deep and unrelenting obsession with bass. Clearly, they are doing something wrong. I do understand that competitive angling is a main driver of the evolution of techniques, but I have no interest in tournaments. None. I used to enjoy reading Bass West, before the focus shifted towards tournaments. B.A.M. is about the best bass centered magazine, but I don't really care to spend my money on it. In-Fisherman is the best thing left. True, you have to deal with ice-fishing articles, or how to catch trout on jerkbaits or whatever, but I have always felt there was benefit to learning any and all methods. Additionally, the amount of aquatic science they include is a breath of fresh air. You just have to go in understanding that they are, –ahem– well funded by Pure Fishing and Normark.

That bait looks great to me! I like to use through wire construction on balsa so the idea of painting and sealing a bait, then cutting it in half sounds like no fun... I am playing around with a laminate body consisting of PVC core with balsa sides. That would let me use screw eyes with more confidence, and could open up the possibility of utilizing your method. All and all I think PVC is a superior material in a number of regards, I just hate the way it smells. Wood is so nice to work with, but PVC holds up so much better. It comes down to aesthetics almost as much as more "practical" concerns. SS

I'm going to politely suggest that you can't pour an alewife imitation that actually looks (to a critical eye) anything like an alewife. They have too many iridescent colors that shift depending on the way you look at them. My best advice would be to go with a light smoke (with a green influence) back over translucent pearl, with a good amount of tiny holo flake and silver. Best of luck to you.

Hey gang. I just moved from Colorado to Oregon, and left behind the shop I was using to pour in. I am in an apartment now, with zero chance of pouring in here, and not really wanting to try renting a space. I was pouring some weedless swimbaits that were getting pretty popular for me out there with friends and friends of friends, and people are asking me wehn I will be making them again. I have a few for myself, but even those are going to run out soon. I was wondering how many folks have ever had other people pour baits for them that they designed, and if any of the people with experience of this could offer any suggestions as far as people to talk to or things to be aware of. I would be selling some of the baits. Cheers! SS

That is just a mylar tinsel woven into a nylon tubing. He had to wrap the ends with thread to keep it from un-raveling. It is a bit of a hassle to work with, but in the end can produce some neat effects. It is NOT shrink wrapped, you just feed the spoon into it, pull the ends tight, wrap it off, and epoxy. After the epoxy sets you can trim the loose ends of the braided sleeve, and that is that. Called braided mylar body tubing. http://files.stripersonline.com/ubb547/image_uploads3/Baitfish.jpg ^ A baitfish pattern using the stuff.

Wow... someone PAID MONEY TO Have all that drawn up.

Or waterproofing your toothpicks before you install them?

I wish we had muskies here. Our illustrious Division Of Wildlife is scared to death of anything that is not a snail darter, sucker, or (invasive) rainbow trout, kokanee, or walleye. The only gamefish native to Colorado are channel catfish, a subspecies of cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki stomias) which may or may not still be in extant, depending on who you ask, and green sunfish. We have hybrid muskies, and a fair pike population, with specimens a fair bit north of thirty pounds turning up every few years, but I angle for another trash fish... the largemouth bass. There are at least a dozen bass scattered across the state, living a life of fear and loathing. Ben, you raise a good point. I do plan on building some floating and some sinking baits. I will think on your remarks. Cheers all. SS

Well, by gosh and by golly, I guess I will quit while I am ahead. Forgive my sarcasm, but the implacable logic of your assertion notwithstanding, I do not believe I will be so easily turned aside as that. I intend to make large, muskie sized baits, and the larger the bait is, the less likely it is affected by the sins of minor imbalances and imperfections. I think it is just possible that assuming I make a good "skin" of the casting I will be able to offset the imbalances intrinsic to my clumsy technique with ballast and microballons. Then again, maybe I will have some aesthetically agreeable and cunningly manufactured paperweights. Cheers. SS

Yeah, thought about that. I am interested in doing baits of varying densities and I would prefer to keep my materials list as short as possible. I suppose the only way to find out if it will work for me is to try it. I just wondered if anyone could speak to the strengths and weaknesses of the method. Cheers all. SS

Hey gang- I was wondering if any of you had tried rotocasting a mold to make a hollow casting, then injecting the hollow of the resulting cast with resin to fill it. My idea here is that you could get a flawless, bubble free cast surface using a pure, un-filled resin, maybe a resin with a little longer pot life, and then shoot the cast full of a resin filled with, say, microballons. Sounds plausible to me, but what do I know? SS

Dave- Wonderful video. Thanks for doing that. If that really is a pacu that you are catching, they are South American fish that inhabit the rain forests. In the annual floods they spread out into the forest, and eat fruit, seeds, and nuts that splash into the water. I would think that all you would need to do would be to repeatedly cast anything at all into the water, aiming to get the "splash" effect. A popping cork might be good too, you could make a popper with a line-through feature and use a bobber stop BEHIND the float instead of in front of it. That way, whatever you use will actually still sink if you let the float rest, and get you around the "must sink" rule. Make a jig mold from a porous, gas permeable very fine mesh and mold banana flavored goop into it, then put the entire mold into a food dehydrator. Dress the jig with whatever fur or feathers, and lob it out there under your popping float. Pretty sure you would win, again. By the way, I had the same idea for my crankbait holders on my lure turner, slotted rod with a set screw. Beats the heck out of buying umpteen hobby knives at four bucks a pop. You are the man Dave! SS

Some wood is worse than other wood. There are (mainly) tropical species that cause severe allergic reactions. But the common inexpensive woods we tend to use for carving are not on the whole dangerous. Inhaling ANY particulate compromises respiratory function, and is best avoided. Inhaling synthetic materials is another matter. Inorganic substances do not on the whole degrade in normal environments (such as your lungs) so any that you do aspirate are going to be there a very long time. DO NOT INHALE PVC DUST. You only get one set of lungs, and they are useful. Ask anyone with reduced respiratory function, it is not a good life. SS

Blanks look really good by the way. Nicely sealed, and I much prefer the through wire in balsa as opposed to screw eyes. Cheers! SS