blazt*

Believe me, I learned this when I started making stencils. 10,000 ways to wind up off center.

The KO I'm working from is 2 7/8" and probably heavier than most...would you still say start with 1/8 oz? Would a bullet weight work, and if so, should it point fat side down to the belly in the lure?

I guess I'm finally ready to do what I've been itching to do for years...get started making wooden cranks. Balsa or basswood, I guess. I've been doing some searching on different topics - wood choices, ballasting, line tie positioning. Before the water gets too cold, I'd like to start by cloning a 2.5 KO and I just have to wonder if I would run into trouble by trying to reproduce one onto a wooden platform? Is this sensible? I doubt I really want to copy the internals just the outside geometry, then balance the bait from there. Has anybody actually tried this? Also, down the road maybe, I might try using the square bill body and converting it into a deep diver. I don't have a duplicator, refuse to build or buy one, so the baits will be shaped by hand. I might get a countour gauge. I know these plastic baits have one or more internal chambers, but the shape seems pretty straightforward, with fairly flat sides, even tapering and a lack of compound curves. I ordered a 1/16 inch plate of polycarbonate yesterday. I find the wobble produced in water clear or murky, warm or cool.

I tuned a couple of these with some good results. I bent the top arm straight down as suggested, and that helped. One thing I found out is that tweaking the upper and lower arms until they stand at slight opposition really helps, to a point. If you bend them too far the bait gets unstable and rocks side to side a little. Visualize the lower wire arm, which begins at the head. This one is bent to the right with the bait facing you. Now the upper part of the arm is bent an equal distance to the left. I would start with about 1/16" or less of offset on each arm. Remember, these are twisted eye baits and when seen from the front the upper arm will be positioned to the right before the mod because of the twist. Hence it is bent to the left to compensate. Lower arm is bent to the right to balance out the upper arm offset. I went ahead and tandemized one of these using the ink tube from a ball point pen as a spacer. I was just kind of guessing, but the two blades are nearly nose to tip with only about 1/32" overlap. We'll see how it runs when I hit the water in a few. For some reason the stock strk king blade (sz 7?) runs with less pull than the #6 worth blade I put on. I may go back to the big blade just because it is easier to burn and, producing less torque, theoretically should be easier to tune. The #6 worth is hammered; the stock blade had strike king's diamond pattern which I think is superior. One thing that gets me about the waking tactic is that it usually doesn't work in really clear water without wind...but the chop pushes your bait sideways unless you throw into the wind!

I didn't see an oil slick coming off the jigs in the water. My guess would be some of the wd-40 components have chemically bonded to the silicone, preventing contamination by leaching. Of course, if I snag it and leave it in the water the wd40, which is probably mostly biodegradable, will remain. Much like the plastic lures you sell, which will slowly break down (after being snagged and broken off) into minute plastic particles that will slowly kill filter feeding aquatic organisms by clogging them up. This is one reason I regret not having the time to make my own wooden cranks. Or you might consider the toxic vinyl plastisols that go into soft plastic baits. All of which are magnitudes worse than a bit of WD. Hopefully, Powerbait-like formulas will take over in the coming years.

Gold glitter. I have worked out a special application method that gives me a mirrorlike finish that is more like a real baitfish than chrome, foil or anything else. (See the chartreuse hyperflash 2.5 ko in my gallery to see a chartreuse version) Several months ago I wasn't sure if gold would produce too well in clear water, but over the past few weeks a have caught good numbers of quality (up to 4 pounds) bass in water clarity up to 14 feet! Some of these fish were caught on the burn but some were hooked on a moderate retrieve - testament to the power of this finish. I coat my cranks with a pearl basecoat, then the glitter, olive or black back over that. Small patches are left glitterless here and there to resemble a baitfish with a few scales knocked off. It produces equally well in murky water. When the water is dirty, the brilliant flash increases visibility. In clear water, it is incredibly realistic and the intensity of flash helps obscure the bait as a fake. Sunny or cloudy...doesn't matter!! Burn it when sunny, not so fast when cloudy..but it works under all skies. Gold for all conditions. But otherwise I would choose silver for ultra clear water, even though I haven't bought a jar of silver yet. But I'm dying to see if it will outproduce gold.

That worked all right! My skirts look and move a lot better now. Colors are a little deeper and richer but otherwise unaffected.Thanks for the tip. How long will this treatment last? I only have one can of WD and this is the only use I have for it!

No these are the regular cut. Just low grade silicone, I guess. The strands would stick to each other underwater a little.

Thanks, that solved the problem. I didn't think it would be loose, being a new reel. But then again....China.

Here's a good example of classic Bone: http://cf.mp-cdn.net/08/af/56019b3652b5353321b7fbd39967.jpg I know the pic is kind of small, but if you study it closely for a minute you can see that the hue is a little "warm" looking. Look a little longer and you can actually feel the red and / or yellow in there. When I used to work in a plastics lab one of the guys told me to look at a big grey, rubbermaid garbage can and he asked me what colors I "saw" in the plastic. I told him white, black, a little blue. But when he kept asking me "what held it all together" I couldn't figure it out. He had to tell me. It was yellow. Just a touch. But I saw the yellow in that garbage can from then on. What colors have you tried other than black / grey?

You mean you don't have a crank to match or an image in your head? Just basically off white...something like eggshell white but a little different, just a little more color to it.

Thanks I'll give that a shot. Yes WD40 is the only thing I've ever tried that actually gets more bites! Will it permanentely improve the skirts?

I've never mixed bone, but I can usually guess pretty close what it's going to take to mix up a shade. I'm sure you'll be handed a formula here shortly, but in the meantime I would go to the shop and try brown, yellow, and / red. Emphasis on yellow. Just a tiny trace of red. Not necessarily all three. Probably about as much as you can fit on the end of a toothpick added to the white. Let me know how close I hit it!

I just bought a mixed batch of 25 silicone skirts, and when I got them I saw that they were a little on the "dead" side - meaning that rather than being bouncy, springy, and full of life the strands tend to lack life. I tested one on a spinnerbait and it didn't really pulsate in the water like most skirts do. Just wondering if there is something I can to to add life to them. I'm going to trim them all down - that seems to help add some bounce. But, for example, I know soft plastic lures can be boiled to make them swim better...is there some kind of trick I can do with these skirts? As it stands I'm not real confident they will catch many bass or not.

Sounds like you want something fine but not too fine. Go to Sally beauty supply and ask for the hairnets. You'll find a pink one in clear plastic for about 2 bucks. It's perfect for bluegill or minnow scales. I also use shower scrubbies for a courser pattern. They produce a nice effect but some sections will be too distorted to use. Cut and toss. After a while you develop an eye for which parts will work for you and which are crap. You want the diamonds nice and even across a section big enough to cover your bait plus a little more length.

There is an ebay seller with the ID "unpaintedlures" and all of his blank auctions get high bids to the order of around $3/ pc. on lots of 10. I've been watching them for a while. People apparently know something about these. Unfortunately he has yet to offer 2.5s.

I just bought a new Pflueger Trion (probably last year's model, metallic gold color, crankin' model, 5.2:1). The reel operates very smoothly overall, but when all the line is wound on and the spool is full it 's lopsided, with the line on the right side being at least 1/8" lower than the left. Worm gear seems to be operating properly - although I may have noticed stopping short of full travel a few times -and I keep it rinsed and lubricated. There is no binding or resistance. This is the first time I've had this happen with any decent baitcaster - new or used - and I sure could cast better with a level spool. I was dissapointed to see a "made in China" sticker on the reel foot. Always thought they were made in Korea! I'm thinking the problem boils down to a basic lack of precision, but felt like I should post just in case somebody knows a little voodoo secret. Respooling makes no difference. Line size makes no diff, either. I've been working on my own reels for 20 years so have at it.

Thanks guys. I will try bending the wire closer to the hook, and I'll go ahead and convert to double willow with a #6 main blade. Stability wise, is there a best blade size to go in front of that #6? And how much overlap between the two blades? Musky glenn...in over 20 years of bass fishing, I have never caught one on a sideways running spinnerbait. When the model we're talking about runs nice and straight, it definitely catches 'em under the right conditions. (low light + wind) I'm afraid you can't covert me to anything smaller bladewise for now....it's fall. I guess I'll use some plastic vinyl tubing with a bead at either end for the spacing. If you want to chime in on this please do, before I buy anything.

The video isn't showing up? And I don't see a link...can you post just the link?

I found some big musky spinnerbaits (strike king) on sale and bought a few, changing the skirts or cutting them back (they were like 5" long off the rack). They have very smooth BB swivels but I have had mixed results when burning them just under the surface. Sometimes they run straight but they usually roll regardless of the fine tuning I give the wire arms. I even tried bending the upper arm just behind the line tie so that the wire was inline with the line tie (2 or 3 bends, much like the offset on a TruTurn worm hook). Not only that but sometimes they roll left, sometimes right. The roll is not severe, but enough to ruin the retrieve. The have a twisted line tie, sadly, rather than an R - bend. Head size is 1 oz. The back blade is willow, probably a size 7, front blade midsized colorado. I have tried changing the rear blade to a 6 with no change in performance. On one I removed the colorado , leaving the big single willow. This was a little better but I still got a bit of roll. Would converting it to a tandem willow make it more stable, and is there a best front/rear size combo to achieve good stability at full burn? Are there other possibilities? I definitely want to keep the big blade.

Thanks for the informative write - up. I have been looking on information on how to innovatively ignite my house into a blazing inferno but didn't know where to look. You have saved me a lot of frustration! But seriously, this reminds me of the incident when I was 12 or so and, on the large, wooden front porch of my parents' house somehow the jack-o-lantern I was messing with (complete w/ candle inside) starting burning out of control pretty fast. It took about 2 seconds to spread about 12 ft wide and starting crawling up the walls of the house. I was mostly worried about my parents seeing - I finally got it put out but I can't remember how. I had several pyromaniac incidents like this happen to me through my early youth.