Mr.t

Dale ,I fish a smaller creek called yellow creek in dickson,tn has a good number of smallmouth and red eye(rock bass),some largemouth.

Here in Tennessee we catch salamanders in small creeks use them as live bait for smallmouth in streams.if they see it they'll eat it anytime of year.there are mainly two different colored salamanders here one is mostly dark almost black the other is orange with black spots.in my opinion a shallow diver would be the best one to try to make.

Dremel with a cut off wheel, carefully grind a t shape in the center of the eye, careful as not to go to deep,take a small flat screw driver and pop them right off, works for me anyway!

Thanks Alot for the info! Right now I've got nearly 2,000 split rings that I wouldn't put on a bait I got those from ebay. Live and learn I guess!

If your buying knock offs and painting and selling those take what your actually making off the bait and charge that for just the paint job. If they are providing the bait, some painters charge more if the hooks and split rings aren't removed or if the bait needs extra prep work ,say an old used plug with chips or scratches.there are Alot of variables, some charge more according to the length.some patterns definitely take Alot more time than others, so really it comes down to what you feel comfortable charging people.also you might try to check out other custom painters Websites see if they provide pricing maybe this will give you an idea what thw average painters charges,like you said you don't want to overcharge people but you also want to make it worth your time.

You can check out cedarrunoutdoors.com I looked around they have a large minnow body looks like the bomber to me

Ok thanks

Anyone ever tried the ss rings from barlows?

The offset makes the two end closer or more parallel with each other.it's not a straight coil like a spring is coiled up.it reduces the width of the ring in area the two ends meet.

By high quality, I mean they have angle cut ends with the offset.if you look at various split rings on ebay some are cut flat on the ends,this can cause the ends to hang up on the hook hanger during fighting a fish bending the split ring,I know from experience! ,some of the ends of the wire don't wrap around very far leaving a big gap between the ends,those type aren't as strong

Looking for high quality stainless rings with angle cut ends with offset center.I'm aware of Worth rings, Unpaintedlures.com.Unpaintedlures.com describe what I'm looking for but are out of stock.I ordered my rings from ebay,the rings were usa made but the angle cut on the ends was backwards making the points on the outside.Alot of the pics I look at its hard to tell if it angle cut and offset, looking for bulk with decent price.thanks for any help

Some companies use high frequency vibration to fuse the two sides together,you can watch on YouTube how ratltraps are done this way.since no glue is used in this process wonder if anyone has had them swell?

I had red eye shad swell in a Plano box in a boat compartment. I contacted strike king about the issue they told me that they believed that the glue used to hold the the two halves together when expose to heat created a gas that expands causing the bait to swell. I was told by strike king to send the baits to them and they would make it right. I also had various other brands in the same box with no issues,even some other redeye shads that were unaffected. They recommended keeping the baits in storage out of direct sunlight to help prevent lures from swelling. Maybe manufacturers will a dress this problem.

I have a buddy that had a die built for the coffin style blades he UT some on ebay and zman told him to take it off or they would take him to court! !