barrybait

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone here. Barry

Thanks. The craws look great too. Oh yeah on the Spaz Stix....I'm just doing fun stuff. I have the respirator but prefer to use Createx and only painting lures here and there keeping it simple and safe. Thanks for the warning.

That sounds like a great idea. I haven't tried any pigment but remember some other conversation about it but I don't have any. What source should I use for that? By the way, I hadn't heard of Spaz Stix either but those baits of yours look great, including the blank looks to be great quality. Barry

Neo. Thanks. I'll give it a try soon as I can but the entire bone white color has got a blue tint to it like non fat milk. Perhaps I need to use sand color more to get the bone and I could add blue to that. BArry

A friend asked me to paint a lure just like the chartruese shad of a lucky craft pattern that is so popular. I'm saying no problem that will be easy. Now I have painted it 5 times and each time scrubbed the paint off because it did not turn out at all. Anybody? The bone has a blue to it and the back has a bluish brown to it. When I use my bone mix which has yellow in the white, then try and get the blue to it, of course it wants to make it greenish instead. Does anyone have this pattern down and could you get me back on track. Barry

Ballasting. You don't have to ballast a round top water lure. The bottom hook and split ring will keep it vertical and it will "walk the dog". BUT, they generally work much better with ballast and when ballasted properly, you can work them and achieve a wide walk the dog sometimes even 18-20 inches wide glide on walking the dog. Also, a ballasted stick bait "moves more water" when it is worked and I think water noise when walking a topwater bait is a good thing. Added weight also helps with easy long casts. So, I think you should ballast the bait and I suggest that you keep the ballast weight about 1/3 of the distance from the tail of the bait. When the back end is heavier than the front end, the walk the dog action is generally easier and the back end pushes the front end when you give slack line while walking the bait. When you check your ballast, have your hooks and split rings on. When you test, the tail of the bait will sit down lower in the water but don't make it too much lower. Compare it to other topwaters you have for how it sits in the water. In the bucket of water, tap the tail end of the bait with your finger to see how tender the bait is.(tap...tail goes deep in the water comes up slowly, tap...tail bobs back up quick and perky) Hope it helps, Barry

I like a regular tank compressor like you get from Sears. It is not that quiet but with a tank it only runs for 2 minutes then shuts off for 20-30 minutes. That way I can check and top off the tires on my boat trailer and truck when I need to. Especially now with the lousy compressors they have at the gas stations.

Sorry to hear of this set back Nathan. Prayers for strength in recovery. Barry

Brandon, Around here i find that the 1.5 squarebill lures are great fish catchers. Lots of small bass and big ones too they just get bit and are easy to fish. They cast well and most of the kids will be using spinning type tackle to throw them on and they float so if it takes the kids a bit to start winding them in they won't be hung up in the weeds on the bottom like a rattle trap type bait. Generally they are not very expensive and I have found that they almost always run true. Very consistent. Put No.4 Mustad or Eagle Claw hooks and No. 2 split rings and cost will be minimal for a real effective bait. The Griffon bait you mention may be similar in cost and performance. Predator, Dakota Lakes, Bustin Bass Baits etc would all be good suppliers. They may even help you out if you give them a call. I can't remember which one but someone had blems and the blemish was very minor in almost every instance and was generally cosmetic mark on the plastic, untrained eye would not notice it and it would not effect the fishability of the lure. Thanks for helping out these kids. Barry

I generally figure I paint a normal pattern plastic crankbait start to finish in 1-1/2 hrs. Say a craw pattern, steel wool cleaning up the blank, taping, painting, clear coating. But I also figure that I can do 6-8 of them with the same pattern in 2 hrs.