diemai

Talk is silver , silence is golden !

...I can only second to Dave , .....good recovery furthermore , Nate ! All the best , Dieter

@ kaimon You have mentioned to use a bicycle to head for your local ponds , ....so I assume , that you are still too young to drive a car . As a man "at his best age" I'd strongly advise you to work on your attitudes not to have it too difficult in your future life , ...you're still young , it's never too late ! I mean , ....a strong self confidence is a good thing in general , ...but the way , you communicate it to others , makes the difference . Greetz , Dieter

@ RyanFishing For basic , written info about luremaking go to www.luremaking.com , ....it is the site of a Canadian component store . On top the entry site they offer some free downloads , so check out the third one , the "Canadian Guide to Luremaking" ,....... some brief , but compact info in there , also about hook sizes on plastic crankbaits , Otherwise there are also quite a few books on the subject available , ...if interested , you may go to YouTube and type in "Luremaking Book Review # 1 " and " Luremaking Book Review # 2 " into the search function bar , ....you would find two older clips of mine talking about a few luremaking-related books , that I own , .....apart of one all in English language , ...some fairly recent issuse amongst , that should still be easily accessible today . Good Luck , Dieter

OK , ......i was a little short of time , when writing my post above , ..my apologies , ....now I can get into the subject a little deeper . There is a German blog about how to make those "porcupine sinkers" or "spider weights" by pimping a mold for ordinary , bomb-shaped heavy sinkers . Sadly I'm unable to provide straight links with my IE browser and also it's a little complicated to get onto the blog ! Please use Google or Bing search function and type in term "zeebarsland.wordpress.com" ! Now the site of "WordPress.com" should appear , ......click on top term "zeebarsland.wordpress.com-zeebarsland" and the entry site of the blog should appear . Now scroll down the site and look after the listings column on the right , .......click on term "Tips und Trix(12)" , it is almost at the bottom . Now scroll down appearing page and you will see a series of pictures dealing on making these particular sinkers out of a mold for ordinary sinkers . In a nutshell , ......the mold has been modified by just drilling some holes through it's cavities to accomodate wire pins whilst pouring in the molten lead , ......the pin's purpose is solely to create a pair of crosswise holes through the readily cast sinker . Now the author uses some thicker steel wire and a hammer to beat a groove above each hole exit(utilize a piece of soft pinewood to lay underneath) , .....these groove's purpose is to accomodate the plastic tubing cover(in this case ear cleaner sticks)of the wire prongs . These pieces of plastic tubing inside of the grooves are neccessary to lock the wire prongs in place in their working condition , pointing towards the eye of the sinker . . When the sinker is retrieved with a fish on or to change bait , the prongs would spring open at tension and the plastic tubing would release from the grooves and as a result the wire prongs would fold backward not to snag up during retrieve . For the new cast the wire prongs would just be turned back into working position and the plastic tubing would lock them back again . Needless to say, that the wire prongs must be able to pivot freely inside of the crosswise holes through the sinker , yet be bend snug enough against the sinker , so that the plastic tubing slid over each wire prong would reliably lock them in place , .....BUT..... also open up under the tension of line pull to have the prongs fold backward reliably ,too . Might take some tinkering to get the hang of it and satisfying results , ......I never was in need of such sinkers , so I do not have any practical experience, .... ..but by these blog pictures it does not look too difficult to do , ...the author states in the end , that he used roughly 30 min. to cast 20 sinkers and another two hours to do the grooves and rig wire and tubing to them . If you should have any more questions , maybe regarding translations , ...just feel free to call back in , ........good luck , Dieter

.....took a very brief once-over on the describtions of those Polish timber blanks, .......looks like they are not weighted and rigged with hardware yet , so some more work to do prior to sealing and painting them . Good luck , Dieter

An ordinary sinker mold souped up with crosswise drill holes for wire shaft insertion whilst casting , ...... and later wire pieces assembled through the holes , secured with plastic tubing on either side not to slide out , .......just saw it on a German site , but can't seem to provide a link , sorry . Greetz , Dieter

Just had a look at www.ebay.com , typing in "lure blanks" into the search function bar , ......quite a few listings filling several pages in there , many plastic blanks from China , but also larger timber blanks from Poland and the USA , ....maybe something suitable for you ? Greetz , Dieter

@ fshng2 Thanks a bunch for having helped my with putting up that straight link , .....I knew , that there would be fellow members chiming in to help me out ! @ all Thanks a lot for your kind words , it is really a great opportunity to review my own lure work . After having thought over it , I'm not so sure anymore , ......because in the video I'm saying , that the lure must have soaked up water to lay in the water so deep at rest , .........I think now , that difficulties did occur at the build of the lure , ........I seem to remember, that I was unable to place enough ballast into the lure's rear to counterbalance the weight of the bigger 3.0mm lexan lip , ........so I placed as much ballast as possible to let the lure hang that deep . Also a reason , that I had lost that lure there , maybe , , ....as this lack of built-in buoancy did not allow it to pop off those underwater obstacles quick enough ? Anyway , I'd leave it in my lure rack to dry until Xmas and then rig the hooks and drop it in my trusty bath tub to figure out , whether it would then float up higher or not , .........I'd report back in here then ! Best greetings ,Dieter

@JRammit Thanks a bunch for linking those videos ! There is no sealer required at all , since the material being used is not timber , but some kinda plastic hardfoam,.......one guy used to sell this stuff on a German angling forum , ...once he stated , that it was left over remainders of refridgerator insulation material . Propionate sealer would even surely damage it because of the containing acetone harms almost everything artificial ! Because of being plastic , the material does not soak up water , ....but prior to foiling I might apply an epoxy coat , as this material is a bit porous ,.....just for better adhesion of that aluminium tape shown . Also I would apply epoxy OVER the foiling prior to painting as well , since paints do not adhere that well on the sheer aluminium tape , ....also serves to even out little wrinkles in the foiling . I would not trust screw eyes in this material , so one would have to go thru-wired only , but being about as buoyant as light balsa wood , it makes up for fine small and mediuim sized lures , ..........only drawback are the occassional inclusions of bigger airbubbles(up to 2 millimetres in dia.), that might break through the lure's surface , ......if one is concerned about these , one would have to go another working step of applying filler and sanding over again prior to painting . All in all the material is quite similar to the PVC decking mentioned in quite a few threads here on TU . Thanks a lot again , my friend , ....best greetings from northern Germany , Dieter

@ RyanFishing Step-by-step working processes are also schown in two YouTube Videos put out by a south German friend of mine , for part two he had asked me to write subtitles in English , but since to spoken comments occur , it's also easy to follow without any knowledge of a foreign language . But these lures are not made of timber , but of PVC hardfoam , thus no sealing process required , ...the material has about the same buoancy like Balsa wood , ...also same tool gear involved like someone would use for softer timbers . With my IE I'm unable to put in straight linkss by just copy and paste , so you'd need to go to YouTube's search function and type in words : Making Crankbaits Part 1 Making Crankbaits Part 2 Or in German : Wobbler bauen Teil 1 Wobbler bauen Teil 2 YouTube Name of the channel owner is "deranglerundmehr" . Sorry for inconvinience ,....good luck and lots of success with your project , ......greetings from northern Germany , Dieter

........just one week ago it happened again , ....this time I even pulled out my own lost lure by myself , ....exactly after one year of absence from my tacklebox : www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlRku97y8Ng Greetings , Dieter PS : Sorry , straight linking by copy and paste on TU does not work for me with my IE browser, .......therefore I just typed in the link , but does not work either, ...maybe someone could put the link into a reply post in here , ...please go to YouTube search function and type in words : "Another Lost Lure Coming Home" Search result should then be on top of list , .....my YouTube user name is "61diemai" , .....sorry for inconvinience , .....thanks a lot , Dieter

.....haven't been here for a while , .........just saw a notification Email for a PM by Curt , .......I AM ONE OF THE WINNERS ,.......I just can't believe it , that my humble lure work has been regarded this way ! Thanks so much , everybody , .....I would never have expected this to happen , as there are so many brilliant , talented and innovative fellow luremakers around here , .....thanks a bunch for the congratulations as well , ......and off course I'd like to congratulate all the other winners as well ! Thank you so much again ,......really made my day , ....best greetings from northern Germany , Dieter

@ surfk9 Thanks a lot for chiming in and wishing well , ....these days I'm often remembering my Grandma's(1901--1986) sayings , ...when I was a kid , she often used to tell me , that life is a struggle from it's very beginning until it's very end , ......did not pay much attention back then , ....but she was surely right with all of her adages . Thanks a lot ,.....best greetings , Dieter

@ Nathan Wishing you a good and speedy recovery , get well soon ! ......all the best , Dieter

...hhmmmhh , .....seems, like this is getting somewhat controversial , ......but yet very interesting . Greetz , Dieter

I tend to agree to JRammit , this body quiver on the descend rather has to do with the lure body's shape and cross section profile rather than with weight placement . Some two years ago one guy on a local webside asked me to make some so-called "seatrout-wobblers"(great lures all around the Baltic Sea) for him ,...these do look like small glidebaits but are cast into the surf and steadily retrieved , occassionally paused to drop back down . This guy especially demanded such a quiver of body on the drop to have the flanks of the bait flash , ....never did such before , but hit it right away . The body shape was a slender minnow with flat sides , body outlines rounded off to a full radius , no taper of forward and rear body . The ballast was lead sheet passing all the way down the length of the lurebody , glued in together with an internal wire form(line tie eye and rear hook eye , no belly eye) into a belly slot to achieve a sink rate of about 1 1/2 feet per second ,maybe even a little more . BUT , ......this way of ballast placement(all the way through) would never work for a well performing glidebait , .......on such lures the ballast requires to be CONCENTRATED at only one or two locations at the belly length(wether one or two ballast holes depends on the shape of lurebody ,...most likely it's two ballast points , anyway). Last year I've made three glidebaits sporting this belly quiver on the descend as well , ....my goal of design was to create a bait , that sinks fast(a tad more than 1 foot per second) and that can be worked through the reel handle alone , no jerks of the rod tip neccessary ,......I wanted a winter bait , sinking to the bottom real fast and sporting not too exaggerated sideward darting movements . Body shape is a simple kinda symetric willowleaf , similar to a spinnerblade of same name , but a tad higher and the widest point of it's height placed a tad towards the nose of the bait . Sides are flat , no nose -, or tail taper and again all body outlines rounded to a full radius . Line tie and rear hook hanger screw eyes are lead pointing upward as much as possible to gain space underneath for the belly ballast holes fore and aft , placed as much towards the body ends as possible , .......the lures are trimmed to sink horizontally . I've never gotten deeper into into this topic of body quiver on descend ,but I guess , that it requires a flat sided baid of not too much height , at least not over a longer portion of the body , .......but I reckon , that a cross section fatter at the belly than the back might work as well or maybe even better ????? Greetz , Dieter

@ bass100 Great read,.....thanks a lot for sharing , .....greetings , Dieter

Thanks a bunch , my friends , the only bad thing is , that in particular lure fishing is just too slow these days , at least in that gravel pit my wife likes to fish these days ,.......... yesterday she had outfished me 9:0 using catching Brown Trout on live baits like wiggler worms , nightcrawlers and maggots versus my successless lures . She's even lost a big fish that tended to drag her into the water , must have been one of the huge grass carp said to be there, I reckon , ......so I guess , that I would skip my lures and sit down underneath my fishing umbrella(wet fall weather has finally commenced around here)and do some float watching as well . Fishing and the outdoors mean everything for us ,....makes us to forget about our troubles and health issues at least for a while . Thanks a lot again for your compassionate words , ........I know , that may others share or did share the problems of having to take care of senior family members , .....it's really something , that someone cannot imagine how it would be like , if one does not go through such as well . @ scrubs I hope , that everything went along fine with that change of location , also that you're going to settle well in your new environment , .....I never experienced having to leave my hometown , always had everything(School and afterwards Job) in the very close vicinity . Greetings , Dieter

The running depth of a particular crankbait is variable to a certain grade accordingly to line thickness or line out and speed(trolling only) . I had experienced this for myself earlier in the year ,........It happened , that within a few days apart , I threw one particular bait at the same spot on the bank of a deeper pond , but with two different rods ,......one of those a casting rod equipped with 0,25mm dia. braid(in Germany we classify fishing line by diameter, not pounds test) , the second rod was a spinning rod with 0,14mm braid ! .......and guess what , .......on the 0,14mm braid the deep diving crankbait started to hit the bottom in a much greater distance from the bank , as if retrieved on the 0,25mm braid ,.........the thinner braid surely lets the plug go down 2 or 3 feet deeper , I assume . But to get back to the question , .....I think , the only way to test ,....or better said ,...to determine about crankbait running depths for practical use , is to troll the lures behind a boat and same time utilize a sonar,........but surely one would have to take previously mentioned variables into consideration . You may also check out this book , it contains tables , where the author had put down his own diving depths testing at a given line dia. and a given length of line ot and a given speed as well . Sorry , somehow I'm unable to put up straight links in here , ...just google term : "Lure Encyclopedia by Frank Prokop" , should take you to Amazon or other stores . Greetings , Dieter

Thanks , Dave , ...by now my wife had caught a few more , ....I've blanked , since they just won't strike lures these days ,...and swimming red wiggler worms below a float is just too boring to me , LOL ! Greetings , Dieter

Just dropped by , ...very interesting video this is , never was familiar to such scrapers , but just remembering to have read many years ago(in a describtion of how to make a old English style yew longbow) , that pieces of freshly broken glass could also be used as scrapers , ...in that particular describtion they were recommended to be used to smoothly round off and equally taper the ends of the bow's stave . I've also checked the internet for some more info , .......some stated , that they'd prefer using scrapers of pieces of broken glass to skip the effort of having to re-sharpen metal scrapers(just need to break some fresh glass ones) , but yet others complained about the increased hazards of the glass' sharp edges to the guiding hand . Greetings , Dieter

@ mark poulson A clever way to take best advantage out of the gallery, Mark , ........as for myself , I'm also very forgetful these days and have quit on making sketches and keeping records on my baits for a long period of time(one might call this attitude "unprofessional") . What I'm doing now , one might call a "buckshot solution" ,......carve at least half a dozen of new baits and one amongst will be the killer , LOL ! Greetz , Dieter

Sorry for not having replied for such a long time , my friends , .......thanks you all again for your kind words of compassion , thank you so much , .....I really do appreciate it . We are trying to make up for our tensed situation by hitting the outdoors as often as possible , but fish would most likely let us down during past weeks , ....but yesterday I had broken the bad spell by catching a trophy perch on the very first cast with a recently made homemade inline spinner , .........another nice Brown Trout struck same lure lateron , but jumped from the landing net due to my own stupidity ,......the net was wound around it's hoop , so the fish could not plunge into the net's depth , vacant hook points got stuck into the mesh and that was it , .........at least I've made a bystanding fishing buddy laugh ! Today the old folks are on our schedule again , .....and days are becoming too short to be still worthwile take a ride to the fishing ponds afterwards ,...too bad,........and still I need to have duplicate house keys made , so that the new nursing aid for Auntie(started last Monday) can have access , too ,......just in case , ........also we have had first talks to check out the options with a local nursery home . Anyway , .....I guess , I'm still reluctant to participate that much on the forums , ...but I'm sure that my willingness to do so would return some day ,.....probably as soon as the oncoming local closing time for lurefishing would commence January 1st ? Thanks a lot again for your kind words of support , my friends ,.....best greetings , Dieter

Haven't been here for a few days , ....and now I see this thread , .....WOW !!! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR COMPASSION AND WISHING WELL , .....this is really touching to me ! But I can reassure you you , that nothing is wrong with me , ....at least not physical , .......it's only , that my wife and me are going through some kinda hard times presently , .......we've got my aunt aged 86 and my mother aged 80 to take care of , both living together in a house in my hometown . My aunt never had any kids of her own and my brother and sister are living too far away to provide assistance , .........but at least auntie had a foster child(she's about my age) , also not living around here too close , but luckily she's doing all the paperwork with insurances and authorities through the internet and by phone , a great relief for my wife and myself . Auntie is increasingly suffering from dementia and other health issues of old age , and it's also becoming harder for my mum to run the household , she's starting to suffer from several physical health issues as well nowadays , ......right now we're trying to get some daily home nursing , just to provide a little added help . We've got to look after them several times in a week and take them out downtown for shopping and to join up with the town folks for a little chat on market days , also take care of auntie's medications , .....but we also have the phone ringing almost every night to hear about the latest problems , it has become a real burden for our mental state and relationship , .....also because they haven't been treating my wife too kind back during the years we've been freshly married(married for 33 years now) . About two years ago it was only by chance , that they did not have the house burned down due to electric failure of their old washing machine , only quite a bit of damage down the basement due to smoke and soot , but just two or three minutes later , and the basement walls covered in pineboards would have been set alight endangering mum's life , who was upstairs by the time , totally unaware(auntie was just out for a stroll in the neighborhood) , ......firemen called by a neighbor , who noticed the smoke blowing down the road , forced entry and just got my mother out on time and finally saved their home from falling victim to the flames . And right now we're facing a fairly high plumber's bill , since auntie flushed newspapers down the toilet to have the drain pipes clogged up , parts of the basement got flooded . Together with auntie's foster child I also have a notarial recording to officially take care of auntie's affairs , since she became absolutely unable to run them by herself , ...before we even became fully aware of her illness about 3 years ago , she's piled up quite a few debts , that she supposively won't be able to pay back during her lifetime , ....banks are always happy to give , if you've got a home in the back of your hand , ....even to an old lady scratching her 80's(by the time that first loans were obviously issued), .......it just always made her happy to give and donate , also enjoyed to play it big , maybe , ......far more , than she could afford . Since she's on the decline almost on monthly bases , sooner or later we would have to sell the house to make up for the cost of a nursery home for my aunt and at this event also would have to look for a little flat for my mum , since for obvious reason she won't be able to live there anymore , ....so quite a big task still ahead . So well , ......all in all , ....all of these problems do really bother my wife and myself , somehow making me reluctant to too much communication , hence my increased absence on TU and also other forums during past months , ....also both of us have turned quite forgetful these days , I also blame this on our present situation , at least partly . I even do not feel like making as many YouTube videos anymore as I used to do , ...at least not as frequent as before , .........guess , I've turned a little depressed over our present family situation , ......often I just like to be left alone . But don't you worry , I'm gonna try my best to still participate in the forums accordingly to my daily moods , though maybe not as intense as before . But as time goes on , I'm quite certain , that things would turn out better for us again , ......that's how life goes , I guess . Again , ....thank you all for your compassionate words , I appreciate it very much , ....best greetings , Dieter