pat28 Posted July 22, 2012 Report Share Posted July 22, 2012 Guys, I have been visiting this site over the past few years each time I had a few hours (yeah, say many) on my hands to build a few muskie plugs, and I have to say I have lways been impressed with the quality of the information here. I now try to add my very humble two cents worth whenever I can be of some use. So far, I have made a reef hawg knockoff that works so well I make it a point not to use it as it makes the catching too easy. No kidding on this one. I have also had good success with one out of three topwater designs I put together last year, although the action of the other two is fine and should prove useful sometime in the future. And finally, I am currently working on seven inch cranks for pike and muskie, and playing with all the variables. I have a bunch of twenty blanks sitting in the workshop, made out of basswood, cedar, birch and pine, sealed and waiting for their lexan lips and ballast to be installed. I am literally having a ball doing it, and it is all thanks to you. Pat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diemai Posted July 27, 2012 Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 Good luck with your oncoming lureprojects , ........any experiences with birch in terms of water sepage or cracking up after having been exposed to moisture ? I've read , that it would not be that well suited for outdoor use , .....made a slingshot out of a birch branch fork the other day ,....... found it so convinient to carve , so I'm thinking to pick a few branches from the woods for carving lures from it as well . greetz , diemai Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pat28 Posted July 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 For my gliders, I started out with maple and birch, two species that have a nasty reputation for splitting. But I have been lucky so far, after 4 years fishing with those. I sealed them with one coat of Nu-Lustre55, then primed and painted, and then sealed again with Nu-Lustre. Perhaps 10% of the 50 baits I made did end up with a minor crack, but these still work anyways. I have also tested my first four crankbaits (basswood) in the unpainted version (and only one coat of sealer), and I am speechless. This operation was one of great luck, I know, but for those four, everything seems to have worked fine. I found out only two trebble hooks gave them a better balance, so I removed the middle one (out of 7-inch plugs, trebbles are 6/ 0 size), but it so happens that on the next 16 I had made, I had already decided to use only two hooks and had not added a third hanger. Now I still have to play with ballast in the remaining 16, especially as they are made of three more species of wood. I just love the personality of wooden plugs. I know they are not consistent, but I was brought up in a world of Suick lures that are never the same, and I have come to accept and love those differences between the plugs. Pat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diemai Posted July 27, 2012 Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 @ pat28 Thanks a lot for your extensive reply , ....so I think , I'm gonna give it a shot on birch , ......at the fishing pond they downed some trees a while ago , some thicker branches still stacked up there so I could cut off some pieces . I'm absolutely with you about the personality of timber plugs , though I've switched to PVC decking as my main luremaking material for a few years now , ....at least for smaller and medium sized crankbaits and swimbaits . But for bigger baits timber is my first choice , one can chose between different species providing different grades of buoancy and density , .........big plugs of PVC would have to be overloaded with ballast , as the material is so much buoyant . Thanks again , ......cheers , Dieter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodieb8 Posted July 27, 2012 Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 its great to have more folks adventure into lure building. what region are you in. pat28. when you find a wood species that gives you efficent results stay with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pat28 Posted July 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2012 Hi Woodie, I live in Quebec City. I agree with you that I should stick to the wood species that give me the best results for a particular model, but as for crankbaits, this year was my first testing year, and thus I developed a jig to have all lures of the same shape and size, and tried four different species of wood. Now I know that basswood works well with the lip and ballast I put into the lure. But the testing is already half of the fun as you already know, and pretty soon I should be able to tell newbies about the effect of density with my new hands on experience. Just love this! Pat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
