2 new swimbaits

[jrhopkins]

finished these the other day. smallmouth is 6", slow sinking. the striper is 7", slow sinking ( no stripers around here but what the heck.)

[kahawai]

fantastic, amazing lures!!!!! btw, where do you get your micro fibetts from? i'd like to try some of that stuff.

regards,

Peter

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see my custom made gingermojo lures at:

http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c376/big_kahawai/?albumview=grid

Edited November 24, 2008 by kahawai

[mark poulson]

finished these the other day. smallmouth is 6", slow sinking. the striper is 7", slow sinking ( no stripers around here but what the heck.)

Plenty of stripers down here in SoCal (strippers, too). If it gets lonely, send it my way.

[A-Mac]

those are killer!!! How do they swim? Reason why I ask, my bluegill (avatar) has the hard plast dorsal and ventral fins replaced w/ micro fibetts now. However, I experimented w/ pectorl fins and the bait didn't swim at all. I chopped off the pectorals and it swam perfect. nevertheless, amazing looking baits.

Oh yeah, microfibetts are avail at sportmans warehouse. However, a nylon paint brush is the same and costs far less than buying individual microfibetts. I think the microfibetts were about 2 bucks apiece at sportsmans, which means that one of Marks lures has about 3-4 packs. You get about 30X that amount if you buy the brush packs from hobby lobby for about 5 bucks. However, your color is limited.

[jamie]

Great job John, you have again raised the bar in the field of swimbaits. I would like to thank you for sharing your secrets in past posts about making your baits and you are truely the swimbait master in my book.

[chartreuse]

may i ask how you accomplished the smallmouth's scaling?

[jrhopkins]

may i ask how you accomplished the smallmouth's scaling?

i use Apple Barrel acrylic paint

1. base color-moss green/country tan, mixed to get a dull olive color

2. scales- pineapple yellow. i found some mesh ( little girls tutu at the halloween costume store:roll:) the mesh size is kind of oval in shape, but whatever you can find. i hold it around the lure segment and use a deerfoot brush to dry dab it on. dry brushing is the technique where you have very little paint on the brush, just enough to barely leave some color and you keep dabbing the brush ( easy does it.)until you have a good imprint. do each segment individually.

3. back- moss green/black. work the paint along the spine and down to form the vertical bars. not too heavy on the sides or you will paint out the scales.

4. belly- white with a touch of black to dirty it up. again, start at the bottom and work up the sides a little. this will blend the scales in to give it a graduated effect.

5. overbrush the lure with metallic pearl white. again, dry brush technique. if the pearl is light enough it will tone down the colors without hiding the details

a little paint goes a long way. easier to add paint than to remove it.

practice on a drawing first. i draw out a lure on posterboard and practice the paint job on it first. that way i can make notes as to paint mixes and steps as i go. i have a stack of posterboard templates that i use when doing a lure, especially if i haven't done one in a while.

[Predator Bass Baits]

Nicely done, thanks for sharing your technique as well.

[CL Rods]

Nicely done, thanks for sharing your technique as well.

Ditto!

[finfever]

WOW!! very nice looking baits.

[hazmail]

John- Thanks for sharing your techniques, seems to be quite rare lately - lots of wanting and selling, but not much giving. pete