Slimy Salamander

Thanks, I use Rhinoceros 3D.

Thanks FishCandy, yes those were 3D printed as well. I opted for a significantly cheaper and faster printing material on those, but it's well worth the effort. Splitting the mold with clay is the only part of mold making I dislike and this makes it much easier, quicker and neater.

Thanks Mark

I've made a time-lapse video showing how to design and build your own fishing popper cork. In the beginning of the video I demonstrate how to catch African Sharptooth Catfish, but this technique should work for many other catfish species elsewhere in the world as well. I believe that Redfish are targeted in a similar way in the US so perhaps this will be useful to someone.

Check the Facebook page of "Custom Lure Factory", all those designs were made in Rhinoceros 3D and they are fantastic.

Rhinoceros 3D perhaps?

Looking forward to seeing your work.

You know, you are right. I have no reason to complain about the US government becuase I'm not from the USA. If you feel the $35 is justified then it's all good.My opinion about our government is very different but that is becuase our government is beyond evil and it's something very few foreigners will understand, just like it's impossible for me to understand how you guys can actually trust your government. This is a classic example of how cultural differences and vastly different circumstances can cause misunderstandings. I'll rather not discuss this further, becuase I came to this forum becuase fishing makes me happy and it's one of the few things that keep my mind off the political uncertainty going on. We already need bullet proof vests to go fishing in some areas becuase this country is full of savages.

So they do charge money for a copyright, another example of how a government rapes it's citizens for something that should be a right. Back to the point, very few things are worth patenting and I don't see the point unless it's something that will change the world. I've created some very ground breaking lures myself and I just couldn't justify the expense and effort to apply for a patent. In my case I focused all that energy and money into the product itself and made some great improvements.

Watch this and listen to the guy, he knows what he is talking about:

Lol, that's a scam. A copyright is FREE and automatic if it has the words copyright and your name on it.

JRammit is correct. Don't waste your time or money on patents, they protect nothing unless you have millions to spend on legal fees going after copycats and they are very likely to get away with it in the end anyway. Very few ideas are worth patenting and the only people that win is the lawyers.

Hi m_vandorn, How's the development of your lures going? Have you made any new breakthroughs? I've finished designing my lure and managed to shrink the size down considerably. Photos: http://i67.tinypic.com/2pr62s6.jpg http://i64.tinypic.com/1426hw6.jpg http://i65.tinypic.com/mtt2lh.jpg

Just some feedback. I had an aluminium mould made as well as 3D printed masters from the same lure designs. There are two sizes of the same lure design, small and large. The aluminium mould is far superior, it's cheaper, it's smooth, highly detailed and ready for production. The mould is for 2x small and 2x large lures. For the 3D printed masters I went with PolyJet resin, because it's one of the 3D printing technologies with the most amount of details and best smoothness, but very expensive. The 3D printed masters (1x small + 1x large only) were more expensive, not smooth at all as claimed and I still have to make rubber moulds from them, so it's not production ready upon arrival. I also waited longer for the 3D printed masters. Conclusion, don't bother with 3D printing it's not not that great and I highly recommend getting an aluminium mould machined from your 3D design.

Hi Garreth, I'm a South African as well, will you share your supplier's contact details with me becuase I find it really hard sourcing good quality paints locally.

Actually in the process of doing this. I'm going to 3D print the lure master and make a silicone mould from that. I'll be using a professional printing company to do a print using stereolithography so that it's highly detailed and smooth. I will not print the actual mould, becuase it will be large, so expensive. It's best to do a master lure and make sillicone moulds for production.

Nice M

Ahh, yes I misunderstood your plan. I think you have a solid idea and it's worth testing the humming sound to see what effect it has on fish.

Yes, technically it would be possible with today's technology. There are IC's with all the functionality like song storage and speaker driving capabilities built into a single chip, size is not a problem if you have the engineering skills and funds, look at Apple, they created an entire system in a chip for the Apple Watch and designing a small and compact music player like the iPod Nano is probably an afternoon's work for them. I'm not sure I'll be able to do that on my own, but with enough time and funds anything is possible. Designing a waterproof speaker that still play music clearly underwater might be a challenge since the density of water vs air will most certainly impact the sound of audio waves. I don't think playing music under water will attract fish though, it will likely frighten them away. You can always test it by putting one of those small MP3 player in a ziplock bag and throwing it into the water with an underwater camera and see what happens. In the river and dam where I fish for catfish they probably rely on 95% vibrations and 5% vision to locate prey. The water is very murky, so vision does not play an important role, that is one of the reasons they are not frightened away even-though I'm standing only 3m away from the lure. The technique for catching sharp-tooth catfish are different depending on their habitat and feeding habits. For example, in this I'm catching them in the river and there they primarily prey on small animals like birds, crabs, reptiles, amphibians and smaller fish, so I'm plopping a smallish pumpkinseed lure into the water. However, 110km downstream in the dam they almost exclusively hunt large prey fish like carp up to 3kg and there I use a large lures and splash my rod's tip very aggressively below the surface of the water as can be seen in this . The splashing will attract them from where ever they are hiding and they will attack the lure very aggressively. The sharp-tooth catfish is a predatory fish, but will scavenge dead prey as well. Most people around here use bait to catch them, but I find it boring and have more success on lures. Fresh bait at 2-3kg in weight works best for our catfish. Thanks, but I'm only a hobbyist like yourself.

Yeah, the solenoid with the moving mass is pretty much what a linear resonant actuator is, I got this awesome one from Jinlong Machinery and will test it soon: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rrvJoqk51vRlF5VDhKMWFpVW8/view They only just started production on it, so could only spare me one sample, but it's a nice alternative to ERM's and more reliable and energy efficient. If you can make a lure that attract fish by electro-magnetic pulses it will be a winner, it will be small, very energy efficient and super reliable. ERM's and LRA's don't last forever due to mechanical failure, but a coil that generate electro-magnetic pulses will be very reliable. Fantastic, would love to follow your project's progress.

Yes, that's possible. My lure can already vibrate to the rhythm of music, but the prototype doesn't have enough memory to store a song yet. I'll have to add memory and that takes physical space, energy and add costs.

Thanks. The first video was at the "Vaal river" in South Africa and the second video was about 110km downstream at "Bloemhof dam". Our catfish in the Vaal and Orange rivers in South Africa are very aggressive, so they will smash a lure and are easily attracted by vibrations. I don't think you should bother with patents, in the end you are better off spending the money developing your lures and on marketing if you plan on going commercial. Patents are worthless unless you have millions to spend on legal fees trying to protect your intellectual property. The only people that gain from patents are the lawyers. I think you should continue to do what you currently do and don't worry about others copying you, rather spend your time and effort on building a brand with a loyal following. Thank you. Jigger poling? Is that what it's called in the US, very interesting and I didn't know the technique was used in the US as well. Thanks. I use an ATTiny microcontroller, but you can use PIC if that is your preferred micro. Solenoid vibration? Is that similar to a Linear Resonant Actuator (LRA)? I didn't read about the silent magnetic field idea you have, but I'll look for it and have a look, sounds interesting. My original idea was to switch the lure on automatically when it's submerged in water, but for the prototype I decided against it, because it requires some tuning to get it reliable and energy efficient. I was also concerned about electrolysis and corrosion that will take place when metal electrodes are used. It's still something I'm interested in, but for my prototype I wanted to keep it simple.

Hi m_vandorn, I recently designed a vibrating lure of my own and posted about it on a South African fishing forum. One of the members there informed me about your project and I though that I'll join here, because we share a common interest and I can assist you with the electronics of your own project. Here is the thread I created on my local forum: http://sealine.co.za/view_topic.php?id=100731&forum_id=78 We don't do the same kind of fishing and our lures are completely different, but the basic principles apply to both our projects and I think we can learn allot from each other. Fist of all, here are two videos I made of the fishing I do, called catfish calling: Here is the video where I demonstrate the first prototype that I built: I still have to make a video about my lure in action, but will hopefully get time to do it in a weekend or two. My lure is programmable and if desired can be tuned to play a specific sequence of vibration waveforms, it also has a build-in battery and charging circuit. Your lure is allot smaller, so fitting all the electronics into such a small space could be a challenge, but I'm willing to offer you my assistance if needed.