Do You Make Your Own Lures?

[solus_vero]

I'd just like know who on here likes to make / mold / tie or whittle there own lures.

Growing up I lived on the Big Piney River and had allot of time to experiment with lures. Of course we didn't have allot of money so I would whittle popping bugs out of just about anything and take the hardware off old lures to incorporate them in my own designs. It was a great thrill when I caught a keeper with some thing I made with my own hands.

I think it would be silly to ask if anyone else on this forum builds they're own lures, so, I'll ask instead,,,

what do you like to build?

How did you get started?

what do you find enjoyable about it?

Have you ever sold anything you made?

Do you have any tips you'd like to pass on?

If you have any pics,, post them too !

[exiledguide]

I never had the patience or the skill to carve a lure out of wood but i have made plastic baits and tied my own hair or marabou jigs and tied my own

flies and built a number of fly rods and casting rods out of Fenwick fiberglass blanks (a long time ago). You are right one of my big thrills was

catching a 15 inch Largemouth some 30 years ago on a home made fly I designed myself on the fly rod I built on a So Ill strip mine and a week later

catching 2 keeper Smallmouth from Dogs Bluff on the Big Piney. Also it it was a lot cheaper tying my own jigs and catching Smallmouth in NW Ontario

on them.

[AmericanAngler]

I got started back in the 80's while in grade school. My father was a comercial fisherman of hs own stick boat where they fished Albacore Tuna with Cane Poles and Feathers and Live bait at times. I would see the lures he would make with feathers and he showed me how to make them. Later influenced by the Rapalas we used I tried to make my own carved lures making a few poppers and billed diving baits. I later got into making my own Soft Plastics in the late 90's after working at several tackle stores on the west coast as a custom Rod Wrapper and Reel Repair Specialist.

Currently after not being able to find work due the economy I have endevored to start my own lure company. Which I make my own Soft Plastics hand poured and made in the USA. I designed my own website and forum for the sport fishing community so I may have a marketing tool for my lures it has become a good pocket change provider as of yet. I curently have one style of bait but many more in the works which after doing some testing in the Ozarks I shall be releasing later this year.

Making my own baits is a great accomplishment when you catch something on a bait you made and see that works. Especially when your out fishing the guy next to you and he asks where you got it. Its just something I made I tell em and their amazed by it. It is very relaxing also to make your own baits on rainy days or when you cant get out to fish. Im always molding clay into some kinda form to try out. Also always looking for people to try baits out. Its a great conversation starter.

[Dutch]

I rarely buy any baits. I make most everything that I use: spoons, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, craft hair jigs, rubber jigs, bucktail jigs, stick baits, bass tubes, slab busters, swim jig trailers, and on and one.

[solus_vero]

.

In the early 90s A friend of mine poured his own jig heads and bodies. He took me small mouth fishing on the upper Osage Fork. I used store bought lures and he used his home made lures. MAN,,, did he take me to school!! Not only did he use his own design jig head but he had a specific way of fishing them that absolutely floored me. He passed away 10 years ago but the last time I visited him he still had a 6.6 small mouth hanging on his wall that he caught that same day,, with the lure he made hanging from his mouth.

As good as that lure worked I thought for sure I would see it hanging in the tackle stores by now. I HAVEN'T, AND BELIEVE ME, I'VE BEEN LOOKING.

I would like to find someone who has the equipment and time to make a few. What you do with the design after that is up to you. I have other ideas too but I just don't have the time or equipment to follow through with it.

Without giving too much away, it is a specific lead-head jig with a specific plastic body.

If you have the time and equipment and are interested please, PM me or e-mail me. You can contact me through this forum in my profile page.

.

[Dutch]

Hey man you can take your design and your jig to any machine shop along with a do-it blank mold and they can make anything you want. But be sure your wallet is full. The last time I tried it they wanted $500 for tooling the mold and I passed on that one and made my own.

[Al Agnew]

As many here probably know, I make a number of my own river smallmouth lures. Perhaps the biggest reason I do so is because nobody commercially produces lures exactly like those I make.

The first wooden lure I began making was based upon the old Midge-Oreno. I started making mine because the patent for the lure had changed hands, and the new company changed them to where they didn't work as well. And the available colors weren't any good, either. Later, I made them in different sizes, and finally figured out that it was possible to make them more simply by changing the shape of the front. But the reason I made them myself in the first place was because, with the addition of a skirt, they were one of the most effective river smallie lures I've ever used.

At about the same time, I started re-painting Rapala floating minnows to match the colors of the minnows in local streams. As an artist, I was quite able and interested in reproducing the colors of minnows like bleeding shiners, stonerollers, and topminnows almost exactly, and I was convinced that such lures would be more effective. However, I rather quickly found out that they were NOT all that much more effective, and with the time it took me to paint them, it just wasn't worth it.

Soon, another old lure that was always one of my all-time best smallie lures, the Shannon Twin Spin, disappeared from store shelves, so I started making my own. I started out by making a form and pouring the lead heads exactly the same shape as the Shannon, but later decided that I could buy painted spinnerbait heads and modify them a lot easier (and probably safer when you consider the health risks of pouring lead).

After that, I began to come up with my own ideas for lures, and attempt to make them out of wood. I've made a lot of topwater lures over the years that worked well, and have had quite a few failures as well. My biggest failure is that I've never been able to come up with a deep-diving crankbait that will wobble like my homemade shallow crank when you attach a skirt. My latest success is a smaller version of the Rapala Subwalk, a subsurface, slow-sinking walk-the-dog lure. I started trying to make them because the Subwalk was just a little too big. Now...Rapala has come out with a smaller Subwalk this year--I haven't tried it yet to know whether it's as good as my homemade version. And at present, I'm also experimenting with walk-the-dog topwaters that I can work just under the surface like a wake bait.

Oh, yeah, I also modify a lot of existing lures. I've modified Pop-Rs Zell Rowland style, added various skirts and dressings to lures, added weight to make floating lures suspend, etc. In fact...there are relatively few lures that I actually use right out of the box. I think at times this gives me a bit of an edge...and anyway, it's fun and satisfying to catch fish on your own ideas!