Redfin Modification

[abkeenan]

Posted this in the Best of Table Rock but thought I would post it here as well.

Don House, on 12 Jul 2007 - 16:22, said:

  On 7/12/2007 at 9:17 PM, Don House said:

Well guys, A very nice old man up on Truman Lake show me this trick a few years back when I was heavy into tournament fishing, they work very well. Smaller bait profile matches the hatch on Truman and Table Rock very well.

But don't melt or try to bend the bills on a red fin.. Bad choice, I wasted a lot of good money trying this one.. They will break.. I've tried too thick of a bill they heat up and crack.

What I did was to go out and buy the cheaper double jointed and single stick bait from rapala 4" and 6" floating, I liked the color choices better, (Tennessee Shad and Silver Minnow) and then these guys have a smaller plastic bill on them, you can heat these up and bend the bill down to get the Wiggle-Diggle affect really nice. I have some old picture on this site somewhere maybe I can find them if you would like.

Red Fins work very well down here as Bill has shown, so it is just a matter of choice or just playing around to see if you can make a better mouse trap..


Good Fishing Everyone

Well its getting about that time for top water to heat up so I took out my redfins that don't "wake" right. I remember Don saying how he has tried using a bic lighter or matches to heat the bill and they crack. Well I decided to heat up the bills using a hair dryer and well...... it worked. I heated the plastic on the bill for about 30 seconds putting the hair dryer about 1/8th of an inch away from the bill and then just put even pressure on the bill with my thumb being sure not to got to fast to crack it nor too slow as it does cool pretty quick and re-harden. It worked perfectly and I have the perfect angle on the bills which is almost a 90 degree angle perpendicular to the bait. The angle of the bill is now basically identical to my Buckeye Wake Up and I really think this is going to make the redfin run fantastic. It shouldn't dive now retrieved at any speed which is the problem I have with just about all of my redfins. I haven't thrown it yet but I am pretty sure this will be a home run so to speak. Just thought I'd share.

[motoman]

Good thinking there ab!!......be sure and keep us posted on how the water test goes.:-)

[Pepe]

How about drilling a hole, adding another BB and patching up the hole? I read, years ago, about Charlie Campbell doing that with some wake baits.

[gabe]

Thanks for the info. I will give it a try.

[dtrs5kprs]

Brett, et al...

Be sure to test them. It only works sometimes.

Another suggestion...throw it on braid. Fixes a couple of problems.

[abkeenan]

Well I did a water test on 4 of them I bent the bills on.....100% failure rate. Back to the drawing board. Might have to fully replace the lip with various sizes of circuit board. What a disappointment.