Painting jerkbaits for big trout

[duckydoty]

8 hours ago, Flysmallie said:

You can also just use sharpies. 

I won a tournament in Pomme de Terre one time on hand painted crankbaits. Caught some fish prefishing in a certain color and couldn’t find any others that color. So we headed to Walmart in Bolivar and bought some nail polish and painted them that night in the room. 

 

But a airbrush is so much easier to use. 

That’s funny because that is kind of how this whole adventure began.  I started coating some lures with a fingernail polish and was getting good results fishing that lure.  I wanted a smoother, more even coat, so I got the airbrush. Fingernail polish was horrible to clean out of the airbrush, so I started looking for a water based substitute and found the powdered mica pigments.  Started having fun with that but did not want to purchase any more $25 lures, so I found the $2 blanks that looked similar.  Now I’m just trying to narrow it down to the ones that will fish and suspend similar to the original lure I coated with fingernail polish.  Definitely no detail involved in these guys.

[Gavin]

Looks like a fun hobby but why are you trying to imitate 3.5" rainbow and brown trout instead of forage fish? I have always done better with forage fish colors with no black shad dot. Lucky Craft's pearl shad color is probably my favorite trout jerk bait color but it is impossible to find anymore.

 

 

 

[duckydoty]

Because the browns I’m catching are regurgitating rainbow trouts instead of forage fish and I will be imitating 5-7 in rainbow trout

[snagged in outlet 3]

Dwayne beat me to it.  Me and Gary Flipping watched a gang of browns coral a bunch of stockers against the bank on the White one time.  They would take turns charging into the rainbows and eating them.  Some of the rainbows jumped out of the water onto the bank to escape the marauders. 

[duckydoty]

17 minutes ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Dwayne beat me to it.  Me and Gary Flipping watched a gang of browns coral a bunch of stockers against the bank on the White one time.  They would take turns charging into the rainbows and eating them.  Some of the rainbows jumped out of the water onto the bank to escape the marauders. 

Pete might be smelling what I’m trying to step into.👍

[snagged in outlet 3]

I'll be back the last week of August to see what's up...

[JestersHK]

Nice job man.  Hopefully you can find some more stock.  I gotta try some of these out at night time LOL.  I'll take the rejects off your hands for a good price since they don't seem as picky at night on colors. 

 

[Al Agnew]

Well, if you really wanted to match trout that size you’d paint them as juveniles with parr marks etc. I always shake my head when I see a lure company producing super realistic finishes on crankbaits imitating bluegill and sunfish but the colors of a 2-3 inch bait depicts an adult sunfish. The juveniles that size look very different.

On the other hand, I was asked to design some realistic color patterns for lures that were to be done by a guy who shall remain nameless because the whole thing fell through and I never saw a dime from him.But he had a lot of experience in the lure business. I was going to do juvenile sunfish, but he said they wouldn’t sell. So I dutifully did adults like every other lure.

[fishinwrench]

The best jerkbait trout guy I have ever fished with threw only one bait.   Rapala F13SFC on 12# line.   

The first time we fished together he rolled more Browns in one day than I had caught all year.

[snagged in outlet 3]

What color