Brad S

lurecraft.com has hundreds of silicone molds for soft plastics & they're not expensive (from about $7.00-$45.00). I would check them out if I were you. Surprisingly, the free catalog they send you in the mail is much better than the online catalog i.m.o. I just got my 2012 catalog about a week ago & they have a bunch of them (molds) that look very similar to the Gulp sandworms & in different lengths. Some of them have curly tails which you could just cut off after you mold them & use the remaining body. Good customer service also @ Lurecraft. I've also made a couple of pop molds from sections of a ringworm I bought @ Dick's or Wal Mart & they looked pretty close to the Gulp sand worms. Personally, I love the Gulp baits, & no longer use live sandworms when tube 'n worm fishing for stripers here in Rhode Island, & the Gulp works great. Caught my biggest striper last year on a tube 'n Gulp bloodworm, striper was 42" long & very fat (about 35 lbs.), from a kayak. Brad

www.lurecraft.com has a mold to make 10" sluggo look alikes with a hook slot. The silicone mold costs less than $20.00 and the lures come out great and have great action. The online catalog sucks, I suggest getting a free catalog through the mail, It's a little slower getting it but the pictures are MUCH better. I think they have about 450+ molds for sale, not expensive and have all kinds of plastisol, colors etc. in addition to some pretty nice molds. Brad

Segacious Those are some nice looking molds and grubs. I made a 2 piece mold for grubs/curlytails out of p.o.p. with the sprue hole at the head of the bait like yours but when I poured some baits the plastisol would not flow all the way up to the end of the tail. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Brad

Miles I don't know what kind of fish are in the waters you fish and I'm no expert but in my experience LMB usually inhale the whole lure so I don't know why you'd be getting so many short strikes from them. Have you tried texas rigging them? Brad p.s. On second thought, striped bass feed very similar to LMB and I was getting some short strikes with them also until I rigged them differently.

I finally got to try the banjos out on striped bass and here's my report: There's an area near where I live here in Rhode Island where people (including myself) have been snagging and live lining adult bunker/menhaden/pogies (whichever name you prefer) very successfully for big striped bass for the last month or so, so I saw no need to use the Banjos and, to be honest, I didn't have to much confidence in them, but as the water's warming up there've been days where the bass won't even take a live lined "pogie". I had two days like that in the past week or so, and I pulled out some of the large 9" Banjo minnows and guess what? They worked and worked well both times!! They don't cast very well, but I trolled them off my kayak with sweeps of the rod tip and the bass were slamming them. I wonder how well they'd work on a "good day" instead of as a last resort when the fish don't seem to want anything? I didn't use the hooks that came with them, I used a couple pairs of pliers to bend some salt water jig hooks that I had around to make some jumbo "worm hooks" and texas rigged the banjos with a "hitchhiker" on the eye of the hook. This eliminated most of the short strikes I was getting when I had nose hooked them. Using braided line you can feel the rapid beating of the tail as you sweep them and then drop the rod tip back to prepare for another sweep, so they act very much like a darting baitfish. I.M.O. they're great, and I'm looking foreward to finding some effective ways to fish them down deep where the big striped bass usually lie. Brad

redg8R Thanks for actually answering my question, I was getting tired of coming back to this thread only to find another person (apparently having never used them) telling me that they were a rip off. Fact is, I did some research online and found at least 50 people at different sites that have used them in fresh water and swear by them. They were anglers, not people trying to sell them. Who says you have to use the hooks they use on the informercial? Fact is, if a person were to watch the fishing show "The hunt for big fish" with Larry Dahlberg they'd see him catching lots of very nice, large fish of many different species on a lure he made called "Mr Wiggly", which is VERY similar to the banjo minnow, he just rigs them differently (with a treble hook). They have great action and I'm confident that the banjo minnows will be effective on striped bass and fluke (summer flounder) in salt water and I plan to give them a good workout this season. Just wanted to know if anybody online at this site had tried them in salt water.

Where did you buy a rotisserie motor?

Great tutorial, thanks for posting it. Do you know if this type of silicone mold can be used to produce lead or tin jigs or would that be too hot? Thanks.

Very nice, and great tutorial. Thanks for posting it. Brad

Brett That makes sense, since the glue is water soluble and pop molds hold moisture (water). The last 4-5 molds I've made I put in the oven for a couple hours at the slow cook setting to dry them out but they seem to break easier when they're dried out real well. Brad

Joe That's a bummer. When I sealed mine I only sealed the concave surface (where the plastic would come in contact including the sprue hole) so when I store the mold there's no glue to glue contact and so far it's worked well. As for the mold you already made, I would let the glue dry again and then try covering the problem areas with another sealer like Johnson's paste wax. Good luck and keep us informed so we can learn from your experiences as well. Thanks. Brad

I agree with segacious. If you have the line capacity Dacron is the best bet. Brad

Joe Thanks for the warning. I've only done one mold with Elmer's so far and after I read your post I checked and I had only used it on the concave parts that don't normally touch. It will be interesting to find out what the final verdict is. Brad

Fishapocolypse No disrespect intended but I disagree. The backing (whether mono or not) is NOT just to give the braid something to bite on. Many of my reels are filled with braid and no backing at all. The problem many people had/have with just using braid is that the braid would spin on the spool, hence the they would use use mono to give the braid "something to bite on". I simply use one layer of duct tape on the spool (either over or under the arbour knot and the problem is solved without the need for mono etc. Fly fishermen have been using backing behind their fly lines since long before braid was even invented and it was NOT to give the fly line something to "bite on" (a fly line doesn't need it). Some people use BRAID backing with a MONO "top shot" which is just the opposite. Many fly fishermen (including myself) use braid as backing for a fly line. A major purpose for "backing" is to give adequate line capacity for the fish you are targeting. For example if you are fishing in Hawaii where the water gets very deep very close to shore and you're bottom fishing in, say 300 feet of water (which is very common) you've already got 100 yards of line out, so if you hook a powerful fish you could get down to the backing very quickly. If your backing is not in good condition, is not at least the same pound test as the "top shot" (in this case braid), connected to the braid with a strong knot and long enough to allow for the line taken by the fish, you're in trouble. Even here on the mainland it's not unheard of for a large fish to take 100 yds or more of line off a reel. If you don't have enough line on your reel (in this case braid and backing) you're going to lose that fish as well as all your line. Just last season here in R.I. a woman was fishing for fluke (with typical fluke gear) and hooked a 50 lb amberjack! It took her over an hour to land it, but if she hadn't had enough line on her reel it would have been impossible. A shark or a pelagic fish can peel off a lot of line in a hurry and if I hook into one I'm not going to cut away my expensive braid unless someone's life is in danger. It's not good for the environment or the shark to be trailing all that line around either. Brad P.S. If the backing is not at least the same pound test as the braid you're using you'll have a "weak link" between the braid and the reel

Anybody use a super braid line like Power Pro?

I found a sealer mentioned for pop molds somewhere on this site a couple weeks ago that is inexpensive, easy to find and worked out great for me. It produces a smooth shiny finish with good detail, is non toxic, produces no fumes or bad odors and allows for very easy release of the finished plastic. It took a few coats with a little extra in spots to fill in air bubble voids etc. but the finished plastics came out beautiful. It's Elmer's Glue all, like you used as a kid in school . I used it 2:1 glue:water (as recommended) and applied it with a small paint brush. I've been trying to find the post again to thank the guy who wrote the tip. If you try it I'll bet you'll like it. Brad

Braveviper I just came across your post and I just recently asked someont else this same question. The answer was: Bondo resin, available at the same places you buy Bondo. Brad

Anybody use them/like them in fresh water or salt? Brad

Anybody used them for salt water species? Any tips for using them in current? Thanks. Brad

I like to fish Power Pro on almost all of my reels and struggled with this problem for quite a while. The best solution I've found is as follows: You'll need; a hand held drill (elec or battery) two (preferably large) empty line spools two large (1/4-3/8 dia) machine screws approx 6"-7" long two washers and two bolts for each screw Procedure is as follows: Take one of the machine screws and screw one of the nuts approx half way down the screw and then slide a washer up against it. Slide one of the spools onto the screw to the washer, next the other washer and then screw the other bolt up to the 2nd washer. You should now have a large empty spool secured approx halfway down a large machine screw with a nut and washer on each side of the spool. Assemble the other spool the same way then Proceed as follows. a) Take your empty reel and attach one end of the Power Pro to the spool of the reel with a piece of duct tape. Reel on the length of Power Pro you want to use. c) Attach the P.P. securely to the backing line you intend to use (preferably with a uni to uni knot). d) Fill the remainder of the reel with the backing. Your reel will now be filled with the P.P. on the inside. e) Attach the loose end of the backing that's on the reel to one of the large spools (I use a small piece of duct tape for this also), put one end of the machine screw in the power drill, guide the line with one hand while you use the power drill to wind all the line from the reel to the lg spool. f) Replace the lg spool with the line on it that's in the drill with the other lg spool. Attach the loose end of the P.P. to the spool in the drill and wind it from one large spool to the other (I usually hold the bolt of the spool not in the drill between my feet and the rim against the floor to control tension). The P.P. will now be on the inside of the 2nd spool. g) Securely attach the loose end of the backing to your reel spool and wind all the line onto the reel. You now have your reel filled with the correct amt of backing and the Power Pro on the outside of the backing. Brad p.s. I would use the pound test that would give you adequate amt of backing for the fish you are targeting and water depth. If the spool is very large you could use heavy mono to fill it up but I would not use a pound test that is less than the strength of the braid you are using.

I've been wrestling with that problem for several years now and didn't like the clip on type of counter like mentioned as they only will fit certain size rod blanks. What worked pretty well for me was to fill my reels with white Power Pro (I like to fish with braid) and mark it every 30 feet or so with black permanent marker (sharpie etc). The white/black contrast makes it easier to see the markings and I believe that the white line is less visible to fish than other colors of braid. Sure it's more visible from our perspective (looking down on the line), but notice that fish have evolved to avoid being eaten and almost all fish have a white belly so that when a predator is looking up (most predators I'm familiar with in salt water feed looking up) the white belly blends with the lighter colored surface of the water. I tried the add-on line counter for my ABU 6500 and it was a piece of junk. I now use some factory color coded braided line (on some spinning reels) which I like better than my self marked line but I believe it's more visible to fish and it costs quite a bit more than most braided lines which, IMO are already pretty espensive. It's easier to keep track of amt of line out than my self marked line. Best of all I've found to solve the problem with my casting/conventional reels was to buy a couple of Daiwa Sealine line counter reels. They're smooth, have excellent drags and from what I've seen and read they're excellent quality. With these reels you can use any type of line and glance down and see exactly how much line you have out at any time. Brad

Valspar Sealer? Etex or Epoxy? Can you give more detail as to where I can get it, advantages and disadvantages of each. If you're talking about the two part epoxy that comes in a small tube at Home Depot etc how do you thin it out and apply it to the mold. Thanks for the help.

Fatman I also use tin (about 98%) to pour jigs and spoons, it's somewhat more expensive than lead, about 60% as heavy, melts at about the same temp (I melt mine in a pan over a Coleman gas camp stove), and it's harder than lead so if you bounce it off of rocks it doesn't get beat up as easily. It also keeps a bright silver looking finish and doesn't turn dark like lead. I like it, especially fishing in shallow water because with tin jigs I can still have a nice slilouette and hook size of a larger jig but I can fish it slower and higher in the water column, or I can fish larger jigs without plowing the bottom and getting snagged as much.