TBait

If you want Auto Air in Cincy there is only one place that stocks it... Smyth Automotive in Mt. Carmel...This is their main paint store. Mike

Balsa.....High humidity. Seal the bait with 1 coat Etex. Begin painting.... and apply second coat of etex.....now torch to remove bubbles..... I have had the bait sealed with first coat of Etex almost explode due to the heat from the torch expanding the moisture under the first coat of etex. They will crack to let the humidity expand. Everything needs to be dry, really dry. I saw a bunch of handmades at BPS yesterday that were cracking and the paint was peeling off of baits priced at $22.95 each. Not sure but it sounds like a humidity problem as well. The clerk said they were all starting to do it, he threw them in a basket and took them to the back room.

Making things too complicated You can buy lips at a place like lurehardware.com fro 20 cents a piece.. or you can buy a 4x8 sheet of Lexan for 60 dollars.... That would make 1000 lips mighty cheap. You have internet access...order it off the internet... I am familiar with the shrinky dink stuff and I havent seen a uniform shrinkage from my past experience. But I was helping my daughter make figures.. They buckled and disformed. I suppose if it were an emergency...but I cant imagine that kind of emergency. M

Skeeter, how thick are your baits? from 3-20 feet? Are these around 3/4 inch? How would you weight a bait that is 3/8 inch thick, without making it sink?But yet still have it cast like a bullet, without tumbling. You see , here on the Ohio River and surrounding lakes, your bait would end up scaring fish. Our fish require a smaller presentation...Of course our fish around here arent much larger than your bait. Downsize is the word around here. It is easy to see how you could weight your bait a whole bunch without sinking it. There is over double the flotation from twice the amount of balsa or whatever type of wood. The heavier the bait the easier it is to cast. If you dont get the bites....whats the point?

I went to your link and didnt see any pics. I am interested in seeing these baits.... Please post to the forum M

Hey Skeeter, how about posting some pics of your baits. I am curious about the designs. I did a search on the hardbait forum under your name and got 58 pages of return posts, all the way back to 2003. I am interested in seeing some of your cast like a bullet designs. Am I doing the search incorrectly or havent you posted many pics of your baits? I saw a pic of the standard "skeeter" deep diver...but I am looking for the other baits that cover the 3-15 feet range. Or are these designs a secret? Mike

I was building cranks 6-8 years before I discovered this site.......everyone is entitled to an opinion.

My point was that if you look at the picture posted on the thread, You will see why it is so easy to get a bait to tumble. Versus if the bill were coming straight out of the baits centerline like the pic in Skeeters Avatar. If everything is in line, there is not wind resistance on the cast against skeeters bill, however there would be wind resistance on my bait due to the bill angle being off the centerline. This resistance is what initiates the tumbling. I would almost assure you that anyone using a bill angle similar to this will have tumbling problems as well. The reason I say this is because the bait in the above pic is weighted to the max. without creating a sinking bait. Weighting is not an issue. Bill angle and wind resistance on that bill are what create the tumbling.

What is a balanced bait? Surely you arent calling it balanced while sitting in water? It should be balanced while running under water. There is a difference. Balance with what attitude... nose up/ nose down? This is a result of bill angle. Do baitfish swim with their noses down? No they swim in a horizontal fashion, unless they are changing depth. I make a bait that has a body length of 2 and 5/8inches long. I weight each bait perfectly and recheck in the water for rise at the end of the finishing process. I can deduct weight real easy by a tuning tab on the bill. Each bait will slow rise.... very slow rise almost a suspending bait. When cranked it will reach max depth quick and retreive in a parallel fashion..horizontal..not nose down. 2 things... Sinking Rapalas and Rattle traps have nailed more bass than any of our lures put together. No disrespect to anyones bait on this forum. However the mass production of these 2 sinking baits has covered a geographical area much farther than we as custom bait makers can cover. These are great baits. So a sinking bait has it place... I have weighted a 25/8 inch bait to its max without creating a sinking bait and still get tumbling. My lure catches fish... I just got back from Kentucky Lake and nailed them on it. I can crank these baits at a fairly high rate of retreive before getting blow out. How do you weight a small bait to cast straight without creating a sinking bait? Or is my bait designed wrong? It is too small? Should I remove the line tie from the bill and place on the nose? A natural look on retrieve? Baits with bill's coming straight out of the end of bait...(deepdivers)with bills parallel to the bait tend to run with a digging motion.A nose down stance. Most of the shad that I see that havent been scared are swimming in a normal horizontal fashion...typically in a circular motion if they are in a school. But they never appear to be getting no where with there noses down. Is that natural for a bait fish? The relationship of the line tie and the angle of the bill to the bait is what causes tumbling. . If when a lure is cast everything about the lures axis can be put into a perfect line....it should cast straight. However you will run into tumbling as you begin to deviate from this parallel configuration. Line ties in the bill... tend to throw a bait off center during the cast if the bill is not perfectly straight with the bait (parallel). This causes tumbling... such as in shallow runner bill configurations. The bait is wanting to go one way through centrifugal force however the friction of the line coming off the guides along with the opposing wind forces being created by a non parallel bill, is causing the lure to spin out of control. So my theory is that if you run a line tie on a bill that is set parallel to the centerline of the body of the bait or in the same plane you will get a good casting bait.( no tumbling ). However if you attempt to run a line tie on a bill in a different (non parallel ) plane than that of the centerline of the body of the bait... it could result in tumbling. Is it worth fighting the tumbling for a more shallow running/ running horizontal (more natural ) on retrieve bait? Versus a digging motion? So how can I make a bait with a line tie on the bill and a shallow running lip configuration cast without tumbling? What if I want wobble and dont want to go to the nose of the bait (wiggle) with my line tie? Of course I dont want it to sink either. Am I overlooking something ? I can currently cast this bait 30 yards with reasonable accuracy...5 ft plus or minus.

A bradpoint bit will tear chunks out of balsa....be careful. The flat bottom tends to rip the wood. Depends on what kind of wood you are working with.

Drill some of the weight out.... plug with a piece of balsa and seal with epoxy... or start a new bait...

How will it sand after it is glued? That is the question. I use tightbond as well.

Where is your line tie? Is it at the nose of the bait , or out on the bill?

Thanks for all of the input....

From what I have heard...Flouros are very unforgiving in the stretch area. So if you are using a sensitive graphite rod for cranking this may be a bad combo. Virtually no stretch. Which may cause the bait to tear out of the fishes mouth. Although the sinking line may add to the depth. Still leaning towards Silver Thread An40...low diameter with stretch.

Which and why? Graphite or Glass? Which line is the lowest in diameter to allow a crank to acheive maximum depth, yet still retain some stretch to absorb some of the fishes movement. Any comments on Silver Thread AN 40?

What kind of topcoat and how many coats?

are these scratches breeching your topcoat? If not, what are you gonna do when a fish chews on the bait? Bass or Musky they will get scratched. Unless it is breeching your topcoat......it is life. Make one for display and never throw it. Make one to throw...they are tools...thats all.

Createx, heatset with a blow dryer... etex.... 12 hours is sufficient between coats. I apply up to 4 coats of etex per bait.

Cincinnati was full of them about a week ago as well.

ETEX light is correct. Take a look at skeeters avatar. Looks yellow doesnt it. Stay away from Devcon.

A lure running 4+ feet, under the actual shad "jump" 2.5 to 3 lb bass...

Skeeter, surely you have seen this on Kentucky Lake.....the schooling thingy.....When they get in a "hunt mode" they are like sharks....not sure if they come back to eat the cripples after the fury....but when fish are really schooling... and move in on a pod of SHAD, I dont know what they are thinking. I always seem to get foul hooks after a day of action like this. You can literally catch fish every cast when they have the shad in the jumps. They are working together as a team....I tend to think they are trying to cripple

.040 soft copper... for bass.. 18 gauge

I have had that happen in the fall, on schooling bass quite a bit. I wouldnt think it was a design flaw...just overly excited bass.