Cartrpill

As a spring maker that makes perfect sense to me. If we made 100 springs for ace hardware they'd be expensive compared to the 500,000 springs we made for a door company, even though the door spring is bigger. I would recommend doing what dlaery did, find a cheap off the shelf product that has some springs that look like they'll work, or strip any useful parts from your old printer, vacuum, or windshield wiper blades before you throw 'em out. Springs are everywhere if you look for them.

I have been using Devcon 2 ton for my topcoat and rotating by hand usually for 45 minutes. I have made several flat sided baits where the epoxy flows away from the edges (1/8" radius) and doesn't completely cover the edges, so I end up putting on a second coat. I have tried rounding the edges off more and more on each new bait to see if I could stop this from happening. Are there any recommendations how to get the epoxy to stay on the edges, other than 2 coats? Or a minimum radius on the edges that should be used to keep this from happening?

I was out testing some surface lures out the day after the lake thawed out. Caught a nice small mouth on the 3rd cast. Unfortunately, yesterday my bail snapped shut on a cast and my first fish catching lure smashed against the retainer wall, chipping a nice chunk of the E-coat off along with some paint (paint didn't look to be adhered very good). Oh well, guess I'll just have to retire that one and make a few more to replace it.

I was out bluegill fishing with a worm and bobber. About to call it quits, reeling it in, my worm was dragging across the bottom and I caught myself a clam. To get my hook back I had to crack it open. As it turns out clam guts work great for bluegills. I find it so funny when I am pulling a crankbait in and a minnow half the size of the lure bites. I know carp suck anything in (spit on the water surface), but never had a pole around to see if I could catch one.

Anyone ever try painting lures upside down? A darker bottom, and lighter top? Will it catch fish? I'll be testing some out as soon as the lake thaws.

If the hole on the spoon is as far away from the edge as the material is thick, open the split ring and put it through the hole standing up. By the sound of it you are putting the split ring on laying parallel to the spoon.

Don't stab yourself with something sharp trying to work with split rings! Could you put a piece of tape over the hole on the painted side, and once you get the ring on pull the tape off?

I use clear transparency sheets, its thin, cuts easy and bends easily. I've also painted on it to see how some new ideas would look on the bait before actually painting the bait. I haven't tried heating it up and forming it to the shape of the bait yet, but will, just to see if it works.

I started off with surface lures to get the hang of things, without having to worry to much about weighting, and lip placement (Plus smaller prop lures work great from my dock). Hand shaping (carving and sanding) is a lot easier on softer wood. Oak is tough to carve, Pine was alright, but I have been using cedar lately. Try the search up to for some more details on preferred wood types, and weighting.

Thanks, sounds like I will have to wait until the lake thaws. I forgot to mention that the pie pan that I picked up is as thick and seems a little stiffer than the aluminum bibs on the Arbogasts.

I've only used 1 kind of jitterbug (Arbogast), but I've seen others with what appears to be a shallower angle on the bib, is that so they can be retrieved slower? Anyone tried a steeper angle on the bib or a heavier body to get more splash along with the typical jitterbug action? I know what action I want to try for but I'm not exactly sure what a panicking drowning rodent looks like. I love the cold weather here but the lures just don't act the same skipping across the snow.

Thanks to this site, I can't just sit on the couch and watch TV anymore, I'm always playing with the lures I'm working on. I was going to order some Jitterbug bibs but thought I would try to make some first (more fun that way). Is there a bib shape, or body weighting that seem to work better than others? I want to start with a 3" body or so begin with. I picked up a aluminum pie pan (already close to the right shape) at a thrift store and bent up a slice of it to somewhat look like an old jitterbug I have. Any words of wisdom? The 8" of ice and 8" of snow on the lake make things a little tough to test out.