Lurehardware?

[Munkin]

There was an advertisement on the top of this page for lurehardware.com or net that sold wood blanks. Has anyone used them? I am interested in the ones that look like a Poe's 300 and DBaits.

Allen

[michael merrill]

would that be dbait or wee bait?Never used a premachined blank-takes too much of the challenge out of it.Never used a dbait either and would not.Ethics.

[Tenacfan]

I'm kinda lost on the ethics side of using the DBait. I'm not quite sure I follow ya Michael

[michael merrill]

Without being disrespectful in any way shape or form-ethics,to me, is the fundamental difference between right and wrong.The business has tons of makers and borrowers.There is a older fella round my area who has been making crankbaits for a very long time he is very good at what he does and it would really surprise me if more than most tournament guys round here havent thrown at least one style of his crank at one time.He is still alive.I,myself would not borrow any lure that a living man is still making.The dbait is from what I hear one helluvabait -strong,strong thump-but it just looks familiar.That could be a coincidence,but I have my loyalties.Thats all and opinions are......

[Tenacfan]

Hey Micheal, Pete Reynolds came up with that shape of lure body long before Gary or Wes was making theirs. This shape or ones close to it can be attributed to Pete Reynolds IE Little Petey. The baits on lure hardware are for guys who want to build them and paint them. To each his (or her) own, I guess. There's still allot of fun to be had at building and painting without carving.

[michael merrill]

I have a hard time believing the notion that wes borrowed .He has made far too many different styles .Havent we all had this "brilliant idea" at one time or another only to later find out that someone else not only had the same one, but had already taken it one step farther?I realize that there are always others who are just as innovative as anyone else.I just greatly appreciate honesty and integrity.Tenac it seems as though your a well-studied person on this,and I always appreciate that.If you dont already have some, get your hands on a large "silver dollar".thanx.

[Terrydabassman]

I've had tons of ideas/inventions over the years only to see them realized through someone who had the financial resources to promote and mass produce.

To bad for me, but hey, good for them...and I surely wouldn't go round calling them copy cats even if it was my idea a couple years before.

I mean how many different shapes can a bait fish have? You got your rounder fishies and ya got your longer fishies and any combination in between.

I think if we as bait makers copy anything, it's mother nature, not each other.

[Tenacfan]

Hey Micheal I just know some history about homemade flat sides, especially in east TN. I am curious about that "Silver Dollar" though. David Walker (FLW Angler of the Year) had showed me some of Wes's baits. Great baits, awesome flash, but they still stem from Pete Reynolds. Show some pics of that Silver Dollar. Like I said I'm curious.

Still learning,

Stacy

[Tenacfan]

Michael, do you live around C-Town OH?

[michael merrill]

I live in southeast Ohio.There are a ton of makers in this area.Wish I had the ability to post a pic.,but I cant.

[BobP]

"Copies"? How many variations on the wooden minnow shape exist? While the theoretical answer is infinite, the practical answer is "not so many". JMHO, but a crankbait is the sum of its parts, its design and the specific processes used to build it. You can copy a D-bait body, use the same bill shape/size/angle, build it to the same lure weight and STILL end up with a crankbait that is significantly different in performance from a D-bait. That's good for Gary Dees. Personally I see very few "original designs". I see cranks that may have a few design element changes but are derived from an existing successful design. Bait design is almost always incremental.

[jawjacker]

micheal most of the boys here in east tn. have made the crankbaits that look like d baits long before gary dees did there are alot of copys floating around with similar designs. as for pete renolds aka little petey when he first made the plugs he only made the body and had two other makers whom i will not say to paint them for him while he was learning to paint himself. as for using a pre made body i myself think that it is not very ethical for someone to use a body that someone else has made and call it handecrafted or handmade.as for using a design that someone else has come up with and calling it by another name that is just wrong some people work for a long time to come up with the perfect balance between lip angles shapes position of line ties for someone else to purchase one to disect and copy or mimic simply because they can to save time.remember to call it handemade you have to make it from scratch including all hardware such as weights all wires punch your own lips. thats what the guys in east tn. call homemade ................got to go ...................will fish for food.......thank the good lord for nice fishing and days off of work to do it

[Tenacfan]

What's wrong with a hobbyist buying pre-made components and building great baits for themselves. Then learning the craft to build their own components. I know when I started out I would've given anything to have been able to buy components and all I had to was assemble, paint, clear then fish.

[michael merrill]

And again I will say that I mean no disrespect to anyone,in any way shape or form.First thing-About premachined blanks-I completely agree with TenacFan-For hobbyists it is the cats a.. ,I also wish they were available when I started this neverending adventure called luremaking.Second thing "copies"-I never called anyone anything- I simply meant that I knew someone who made a crank for a very long time before another one very similar came out on a larger scale.I will stick with the tried and true,and keep my loyalties-all at the same time.Mr. Dees has made a fine lure from what I hear.I have given credit already.It seems as though the guys in Tenn. have the feeling that Mr. Reynold's creation came first.I wish I knew more about the history of these cranks,but I know what I know and I won't say that any one is better than the other, and later on, if the situation repeats-I will keep my loyalties then also!Look fellas I am not here to point fingers so I haven't, and I won't.Everybody has something they can teach others.Fellas a lock only keeps an honest man honest-the new era of duplicarvers just made it much,much easier for the dishonest to borrow.I know for a fact that you can copy-EXACTLY-whatever lure you want,if you have the resources.It is also very easy to be left out in the end.My advice to all-date your creations officially-One easy way-mail it to youself then do not ever open it.

[jawjacker]

michael if you want to know the history of the little petey e-mail me for the truth of the history so i can get in touch with you over the phone its my dime and i will use it .my dad was a close friend of pete and we used his crankbaits before they even had a name.he is one of the main reasons i build crankbaits e-mail is jawjackerlures@bellsouth.net as for using pre cut bodies i did not say not to buy them i said i thought it was wrong to call them by another name so dont get your shorts in a wad tn fan(stooksbury) i sell my bodies just like you do as well as components have been and always will .how do you think i pay for all my machinery that has made my job as a crankbait maker so easy over the last 20 years make your hobbies pay for itself this is supposed to be fun not another job but you dont want to loose money in the process

[blackjack]

Is it a crime to make a bait that is not in production?? Or Taking a bait and modifying it to make it better?? I currently sell several baits that were not my sole creation. I purchased baits that I liked and modified them to my specs and made them better. Did Fred Young balk when all of those companies came out with alphabet plugs.?Did Jim Bagley or Lee Sisson wake up in the middle of the night and shout "Eureka!! I just thought up the B baits." Every lure in the marketplace today owes its success to another bait.(Also called borrowed technology)Sometime when you are bored go to the US patent office site and type in fishing lure and see how original your best idea is. I bet dollar to donuts that someone already thought of it. If we all had such great ideas we would be rich and having someone else do all the work for us. I am constantly searching the internet for new ideas or looking for out of production baits that have a following so that I can scratch and claw out my own little niche in this industry. I started out in the Business in 1994 doing repaint work, I have stripped down and taken apart almost any commercially made bait out there. Wanna know why I started making baits because when I was doing all of this tinkering for the repaint business I looked at all of the baits that I was working on and said, I can make better baits myself, and that is just what I did. Am I a lure innovator? I think Not. Am I a shrewd and unscrupulous business man? I think not. I am just a guy that likes to make baits that catch fish. That's my story and I am sticking to it!!

[michael merrill]

Whoa....easy there....It was completely careless of me to have worded things the way I did, because I apparently hit a few exposed nerves...completely by accident.Just being able to successfully stay in this business deserves the utmost respect.That is for all who I accidentally offended.Fellas, I have visited several of the sites posted , and you are all where I am trying to get.Some excellent cranks...all the way around.There isn't a damn thing wrong with "borrowed technology",or improving an existing idea.More power to ya.That wasn't the issue,I will leave it at that.Different people do different things for different reasons.Sometimes technology defeats itself.All of the one-offs that are well made prove it all the time.How long will people continue to pay a steep premium for a mass-produced lure?Handmade generally means assembled by hand,cut by machine.If that is the case then there is nothing wrong with that.If that isn't the case then there is nothing wrong with that either.I successfully use a bunch of these,as do most,I just want to have the option of something that is touched by one man's human hand every step of the way(Excluding paint...of course).Individually handcarved,hand sanded,hand sealed,hand painted,hand assembled,and hand tested and tuned.Even then I'll still use the mass produced plastic and wood as need be.Lets face it- there are no magic lures that always produce,so carry everything you have and "Cast on thine water with style and resolve."

[Dink Mendez]

Hi Fellow Members,

I read this article and just had to reply to it. The wood crankbaits are new to me. However; there is only a few pros that make a good quality wood crankbaits. Furthermore: pros like Tim Hughs baits, Black Jack crankbaits and many others crankbait makers are skilled and talented in some many ways. Matter of fact, I enjoyed looking at there creations, I'm in the process of trying to make cranbaits for my own use.

But wood carving is not one of my strong points. Prep, sealing, paint and epoxy finishing came easy to me. However, making a crankbait body, I really suck at. BAD! I'm glad that LURE HARDWARE.COM is out there. If I can purchase a crankbait bodies and paint and finish them, then watch them HUNT!! That is great! For a person to invest in equipment to produce crankbait bodies and many other things. More power to him.

Second, for years I held on to 47 ORIGINAL Poe's crankbaits. The ones in the blue and yellow card board box. These are the first ones made, the original ones, made in Ceres, California in 1978 unused still in the box. The Poe's are the 300 and 400 series. I opened and used about 9 of them and 4 hunt great. The old coach dog and frog color. This is where Lure Hardware came in to play. I sent him four unused crankbaits. Two 300 and two 400 series baits. The rest is history.

This is what makes me upset. For years I tried to have some one make the crankbait bodies. Never could find some one reliable. Now we have a good man able to do it and there is always SOME BODY UPSET OR UNCOMFORTABLE ABOUT THE WORK HE DOES. MY ANSWER TO PEOPLE THAT ACT LIKE THAT---- DON'T BUY THE PRODUCT OR LOOK AT THE WEB SITE. Kelly at Lure hardware is very nice and has helped me out on alot of info on crankbaits. I'M JUST GLAD HE IS ABLE TO MAKE GREAT PRODUCTS SO THAT PEOPLE LIKE ME THAT CAN ACCIEVE MY GOALS ON MAKING CRANKBAITS THAT ==HUNT=== IN MANY CRANKBAIT BODIES STYLES AND THE COLORS I CHOOSE TO USE.

AND FOR THOSE THAT WANT TO SPOIL SOMETHING GOOD THAT OTHERS LIKE ME ENJOY. GO TO A WEBSITE THAT ENJOY TALKING ABOUT MANUFACTURED, POOR QUALITY AND JUNK CRANKBAITS MAKE IN MEXICO. I ENJOY TACKLE UNDERGROUND FOR THE CUSTOM IDEAS AND HELP.

DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT= CALL KELLY AND ASK HIM IF IF I SPEAK THE TRUTH.