The Sunfish Family

[hoglaw]

I've seen TrophyFishR's work first hand and it's nothing short of amazing.

[Guest]

Al,

could you post up some pics of your painted lures?

I'm real curious to see what kinda patterns work for you..

Thanks

[aftersh0ck]

You might have a second job lined up

[Al Agnew]

In my homemade crankbaits, I mainly use two basic color patterns with a lot of individual variations due to the amount of various colors of spray paint I layer onto them. The first is basic brown back, mixture of brown and copper or gold sides, almond belly. On that one I have a template I cut out of a double layer of clear contact paper. The holes in the contact paper make vertical, irregularly shaped bars when I wrap the contact paper around the lure centered on the back, hold the two edges at the belly with pliers, and give it a quick spray with black. So it's basically a brown, coppery or slightly gold, almond bellied lure with black bars on back and sides. Doesn't really imitate much of anything, although you could loosely say it's crawdad-like.

The second is a minnow-colored pattern. I start out with chrome spray paint on both sides. "Kill" the chrome with a drizzle of gold on both sides. Cream white on the belly half further kills the chrome, and olive on the back finishes it. The drizzle of gold makes it look slightly like scales. I add eyes with a big nail head dipped in gold or red, and a smaller nail head dipped in black. Variations on this one include using a quick spritz of purple on back and upper sides first, killed a bit with another quick spritz of "appliance avocado". Or do the sides in cream white and drizzle with gold or chrome. Add some yellow to the belly, or a quick hit of red on the head end of the belly. Mix the green back with brown or gold. Maybe use my template and a real quick spray with lure held a long way from the paint can with green to make slightly green bars on the sides.

Basically I just play around with the spray paint, because as long as the lure is kinda brownish, or kinda greenish backed and silvery or gold sides, it seems to work just fine. Like you, I have used a lot of things to imitate scale patterns in the past, including a piece of mesh cut out of an old ball cap, which worked surprisingly well. But I don't even do that anymore.

I also use the spray paint to alter colors on store-bought lures, especially the Lucky Craft lures I often use. Yeah, I know it seems silly to pay $16 for a lure and then change it, but I really don't like a lot of Lucky Craft colors. One color pattern I always modify is the mostly clear one on Sammys. I like translucent lures in very clear water, but I don't like the way you can see all the rattles and inner structures from beneath, so I give the belly on this lure a thin spray of cream white, just enough to make it almost but not quite opaque.

I'll try to get some pictures posted later.

[Guest]

This color scheme is similar to what you described...

The photo is kinda dark, but its the same bait.

I've already caught a few small bass on this pattern.

[gotmuddy]

I need to find more time to practice. I have a drawer full of H20 crankbaits I bought on clearance at academy.

[Guest]

I need to find more time to practice. I have a drawer full of H20 crankbaits I bought on clearance at academy.

This bait is actually a LuckyCraft RC 1.5,

but I've heard those H2O baits are very similar.

I sure would like to be out fishing in this rain.

[gotmuddy]

I love the LC RC 1.5 and 2.0's. I just bought some custom painted ones from a guy in MS. I got silent models.