muskiemarc

Great looking bait, love that pattern. Marc

BobP: I read an article in last month's Musky Hunter magazine that dealt with this. The author was adding weight to the top of slammer/grandma style crankbaits to get more body roll out of them when twitching. Once a bait was weighted this way however it rendered it useless for trolling as it would not track straight. I personnally have not played around with this yet but I plan on trying it on some of my homemade Jakes and see what action I get out of them. Marc

Corey: I cut the lip out with a jig saw and finished it with a bench grinder and a file. Marc

Thanks guys JP the lip on this Jake was suppose to go on a Hooker style bait it's almost 3" wide and 4.5" long. I tried the lip on a Jake for the hell of it and was happy with the result. The bait does have a big wobble, sort of like the original Jake put with more body roll. It also handles speeds of 4-5 mph well. Marc

Hi guys, with what I learned from this site as well as JP's Out2llunge website I built a few 13" Jake/Grandma style crankbaits. I headed out to the Ottawa River on the 2 Oct. and trolled one of my baits. 30 minutes into my first run my reel was screaming and after a short battle I landed a fat 48" Musky. It's always nice to land one of these fish but hooking it on one of you're homemade baits is priceless! Here are the pics of the bait and the fish.

John: If you do a search for Hughes River you should find a post with an X-Ray of a Hughes River Glider. This x-ray gives you an idea of location and amount of lead used when using cedar. You definitly won't need as much lead with a hardwood just adjust the quantity of lead to get a slow, horizontal sinking bait. Here is a picture of a glider that I build with the info from that post. I'm happy with the way it turned out and the action. I'm still fairly new at this but this site and the guys here are really helpfull and have shortened my learning curve a great deal. Thanks All Marc

Fairly new to the hobby and have learned a great deal recently thanks to the guys that post here. Really appreciate the info sharing. I was just wondering what percentage of baits in your tackle box are your own creation and what % are store bought. Do you strive to get to the point where you are using your own baits 100%? I fish for pike and muskie. 100% of my bucktails and spinnerbaits , 70% of my jerkbaits and top waters, 20% of my cranks are homemade. Marc

Thanks for the info Jed. Guess I should start wearing my mask. Marc

CJ The action is the same as a regular buzz bait, just throws up more water. I actually prefer the counter rotating alum. blades over the plastics. Marc

Here is a picture of a couple of Musky sized buzz baits, 10 and 15", inspired by the old Blue Fox double Buzz. The larger bait is tied with peacock feathers, an 8" grub was threaded onto the wire shaft and uses two plastic quad blades. The smaller one was tied with bucktail and uses two counter rotating aluminum blades.

Very nice Nathan. Like a few people have said here if you trolled that bait long enough on waters such as Georgian Bay, St-Lawrence, Ottawa River or other trophy water of NW Ontario eventually a big musky would attempt to eat it. I have read and heard expert state that big Musky prefer to eat baits that are 20-25% of their size. That means that a 40 lbs musky prefers to target fish in the 8-10lbs range. We have all heard the stories of anglers fighting 5-10 bass, pike, walleye ect... only to have a big Musky come up and attack their catch. For these reasons I made a few baits in the 13-20" range to target muskies this year. Here is a picture of two of these baits that I made. I included a standard size musky lure in the picture fo size comparison. Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures of a monster musky caught on one of these later this year. Marc

Nice bait Trick Trout. Nice colour pattern. Seems like it would run really shallow with that lip angle, great for running over weed beds. I was thinking of making one about 10-12" for muskies. Marc

With that much lead I don't think that these baits would be made of maple as I was told and mentioned earlier. I would be more inclined to think that they would be made of cedar. As for the popularity of the Hughes River I think that it as alot to do with their finish. They have awsome finishes and the top coat is just like glass. They probably catch more fisherman then muskies because they are so pretty. Supply and demand drove the prices up. That being said I would never spend that kind of money for a bait. There are plenty of gliders out there that go for half the price and would be just as effective. Better yet build your own! Marc

Very nice baits and paint jobs Czar. Marc

RiverMan: There are some round gliders that work well without a tail, the origional Musky glider the Eddie bait is an example of this. However they often needed to be modified by adding lead to them to make them sink. I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned "sinking version". The gliders that I referred to earlier floated at rest. Another thing I should have mentioned earlier is that I add the lead at the head and tail of the bait as oppossed to the middle of the bait. Marc