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kahawai

losing lures

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just lost a recently completed lure to a snag.....OUCH! felt a million times worse than losing a store bought lure. how many of you lose your homemade baits? and how frequently? especially those who fish snaggy areas or make bottom hugging or sinking lures? how do you cope? counselling?

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I fish with the inline spinners and minnows I make, mostly with inline spinners. My personal "best" was 10 spinners lost in a single fishing day. It was a very windy day with the wind changing direction in seconds, and my lures landed mostly in the bushes on the opposite side of the river, or in trees.

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I've actually lost very few of my own lures, probably because I'm careful with where and how I throw them. But, if the water's not too deep or cold, I "fall" out of the boat, with no clothes, and go down and get it. Otherwise, I curse up a blue streak, and then go home and make another one. Hopefully, a better one that won't get lost!

I lose more when I'm fishing alone, because boat control while saving a lure is more difficult when you're alone.

I'm always a little braver with my home made lures when they're floaters. I fish mostly rocky lakes, with very few snags, so the chances of not being able to retrieve a snagged lure is reduced.

Mostly, the line slips between two rocks, and the lure comes up to them and gets wedged. Usually I can just drive directly over the lure, and past, and it will come free.

But I don't drag the bottom with my home made lure unless I know it's smooth, especially in deeper water.

I have several different lure retievers, including my "golden retriever", a telescoping retriever from Bass Pro that earned it's nickname from the number of cranks it's save over the years.

For my bigger swimbaits, including the Huddlestons, I use a heavy weighted retriever that has a long cord attached, and which slides down the line to the lure. It has several lengths of chain attached, so it snags the hooks on the swimbait and I can wrench it free. I also got that at Bass Pro. I did change out the cord to a heavier cord, so I could straighten a hook if I had to without breaking the retiever's line.

One tip I learned from my partner is to pull on the line with my hand instead of the rod when I'm directly over, or just past the lure. For some reason, this seems to pull stuff free when jerking on it with the rod won't. He learned that on a trip to Lake Bacarrac, in Mexico. So now, whenever I use that tip and it works, I say, " Thanks Juan Montoya", the guide who taught it to him.

Edited by mark poulson
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I've actually lost very few of my own lures, probably because I'm careful with where and how I throw them........

I have several different lure retrievers, including my "golden retriever", a telescoping retriever from Bass Pro that earned it's nickname from the number of cranks it's save over the years.

For my bigger swimbaits, including the Huddlestons, I use a heavy weighted retriever that has a long cord attached, and which slides down the line to the lure. It has several lengths of chain attached, so it snags the hooks on the swimbait and I can wrench it free. I also got that at Bass Pro. I did change out the cord to a heavier cord, so I could straighten a hook if I had to without breaking the retriever's line.

Ditto, at minimum get a hound dog or BPS version add some light chain links. I know guys who use old reels and broken off rods to lower the line and reel it back in to keep it organized. Me, I use a closed cell foam buoy (i cut it out from a larger piece) just in case the line falls in, so I can ALWAYS get it back. But I use the extending pole most of the time! :yay:

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I don't lose too many lures when fishing from my little boat , I have a good homemade lure retriever .

But most snags occur with jigging spoons , casting spoons and plastics rigged on leadheads , these are less prone to get caught by the chains of the retriever , but I still get 90% of them out .

Crankbaits or jerkbaits equipped with a set of trebles are far easier to catch up with .

The problem is always to keep my light collabsible boat vertically above the lure , when the wind is always drifting it around the anchors rope . Talkin'bout depths od 15 to 45 feet usually .

When fishing unknown waters from bank , I am more cautious in making my choice of lures , since I hate it to sink my "goodies" .

I'd first tie on a "search" lure like a cheap spoon or a simple plastic shad on a lead head , lure choice accordingly to estimated or known depth and make a few casts on that new spot , always letting it fall back on the bottom or even tossing it along .

This way I quickly get an idea about depth , the bottom structure , it's consistency and , off course , about snags .

And if I'd lose it , well , bad luck ,...... as long , as it doesn't get too much..........:huh:!

Still better than losing one of my precious homemade wooden lures , though this also happens every season .

Worst thing is , that a wooden proven homemade you can never get to be exactly the same again , like the one , that you have lost.........much "prefer" losing commercials !

greetz :yay:, diemai

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If you aren't snagging cover occasionally, you aren't fishing right! One reason I started making crankbaits is that I hate losing a $15-20 custom crank in a laydown tree or brushpile. If I made it, I'm not out big bucks, mostly just the enjoyable time it took to craft the lure. I keep several Plano boxes full of replacements as "hot spares".

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I lost a gorgeous 14" cedar Sucker replica glider when i first started doing this. I'd put a ton of hours into that particular one and i lost it when my titanium leader snapped on the cast. I was REALY upset over that one!

I had a customer lose a really nice 11" Walleye glider and I felt so bad for him I sent him a replacement for free!

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BobP is right on the button with this, If you are not throwing your cranks where they will get hung up you might as well not fish cranks at all(become a worm fisherman!). The great beauty of making your own is to be able to reproduce the ones that work. That is why record keeping is mighty important to lure builders.

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I lost a gorgeous 14" cedar Sucker replica glider when i first started doing this. I'd put a ton of hours into that particular one and i lost it when my titanium leader snapped on the cast. I was REALY upset over that one!

I had a customer lose a really nice 11" Walleye glider and I felt so bad for him I sent him a replacement for free!

Your a good man...

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BobP is right on the button with this, If you are not throwing your cranks where they will get hung up you might as well not fish cranks at all(become a worm fisherman!). The great beauty of making your own is to be able to reproduce the ones that work. That is why record keeping is mighty important to lure builders.

Blackjack,

I am lousy at record keeping, but I make paper templates of my lures, marked with the hook hanger, joint, and ballast placement.

But I'm always surprised at how I "used to do things" when I redo an old lure.

Funny how, for me, any improvement in method or material or design quickly becomes so ingrained that I just delete the older methods from my mind.

Or maybe it's early Alzheimer's.

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I build a number of "standard" crankbait designs (which vary over time) and I try to "improve the breed" as I go. When a buddy I gave a bait to a year ago asks for one "just like that purple back one you gave me", I wouldn't have the foggiest idea what he's talking about except that I can go back to my notebook and find out how I built that bait. The body template I used, the wood, The lip shape and material, the hardware and ballast, and the paint pattern, plus the finished weight of the lure. If you can build 100 baits and remember how you built number 23 from memory, you must be a "Crankbait Idiot Savant".:teef:

When I started throwing Lucky Craft cranks, it took me a few months to get over the feeling that I was throwing $20 bills out of the boat on every cast. All I can say is "GET OVER IT!". Bass fishing is a pay-to-play pastime unless you only use live worms.

Edited by BobP
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@ blackjack

Don't keep records apart from my design sketches to shape the lures after .

I usually make at least two more lures after a proven new prototype , most likely more , and if my stock goes down to only one of a kind remaining , that one strictly stays at home , until I'd be done with some new ones shaped after it and the design sketch .

But still they do not all act exactly the same , even when making three or even five of a kind , there'd be always subtle differences !

Or do I just work inaccurately ?

But losing lures might also have advantages , like in this case :

Many years ago(didn't own many cranks back then) I have lost an orange/brown "Rapala Down Deep Fat Rap" , an excellent lure both in terms of catching and casting . It was the deepest running crankbait , that I knew back in those years .

Well , after that trip , still with my small boat loaded on the car's roof , I went to Hamburg city , to get myself a new one , since I had vacation and goin' fishin' every day .

Searched three or four tackleshops in the city , they all had almost the entire "Rapala" line in stock , but not that particular model anymore , none at all !

In need of a deep diver I have found one big lipped lure hanging lonely on the shelf of a smaller tackleshop , never saw it before !

Well , I was fed up to search the other remaining shops in town and so I bought that one and fished it successfully the next day , it even went down deeper than my lost "Rapala" , thought did not cast as well .

This was my first contact with the "Mann's" line , and nowadays I own at least a dozen of their deep divers and smaller cranks !

greetz , diemai

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great to know i am not alone in my agony! I fish from shore and i have not found any effective lure retriever apart from me getting very wet. (sometimes slipping, losing glasses, losing footwear etc... but thats another story)

losing a homemade is especially painful when

1. its a new model/finish/paintjob type that you have spent ages working on.

2. its an old favourite that swims with a special inexplicable "eat me" flavour. no matter how closely i replicate my lures there are some which simply are "special" or have history.

another general question - is there a tendency for us to make surface/shallow lures, and use shop bought models for deeper/bottom models?

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In answer to your second question, I know I'm more careful with a home made lure, or one I just repainted.

But years ago, I learned, as a carpenter who took pride in what I built, to "let it go", once I'd finished a project. The project now belonged to whoever I was working for, and I had to move on.

The process was mine, but the finished product was theirs.

Maybe that's why I don't get as upset when I, or a friend, loses one of my home made or repainted lures.

I make them to fish, not to sit.

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ive lost over 250 buck in swimbaits at diamond valley lake in one weekend! 3 or 4 bbz and a hudd. and i think a castaic rock hard swimmie.... so id rather loose a homemade bait over store bought anyday!

$250!!! Dude! Bill Siemental is loving you right now.

When they open DVL back up, tell me when you're going, and I'll follow you around and retrieve your lost lures! :lol:

Seriously, it's easy to lose lures if you don't know the tricks for getting them back.

Patience is the key. And keeping your line tight, so it doesn't drift down into the rocks and get snagged, too.

I throw my sinking swimbaits on 25lb Bass Pro mono. It has enough stretch to absorb casting "errors" like tip wrap, but it's heavy enough to give a good hook set.

I throw my floaters on 20lb mono, and my shallow cranks on 17lb. mono. I use flouro and braid for everything else.

Seriously, invest in several lure retrievers, both the extendable shaft and the slide down the line with chain kind. They pay for themselves in one trip.

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@ kahawai

So far I've made more shallow runners than deeprunners , but not because of snagging-up issuses .

You might lose those shallowrunners and topwaters easily as well , thought not to bottom snags but by inaccurate casting , strong winds , etc . !

When I make a new lure model , I would never think about losing it already , lol :lol:!

If I have made a new model , that proves or even only seems to work well , I won't fish it anymore , until I would have made some more after it !

But losing an old "warhorse" surely would bother me a big lot , only finding out about a new "sure catch" favourite in my tacklebox could ease my pain , lol :lol::huh:!

@ mark poulson

For European issues you're fishing "ropes" , I guess , our attitude clearly goes to fish thinner lines .

Lure anglers over here hardly use mono anymore , but in the pre-braid times a 12 to 16 lbs. test mono was recommended for pike , for perch , zander(european walleye) , trout , etc. somewhere between 4 and 12 lbs. test .

But on the other hand , the lures , that are(or also were) used over here , are not as heavy by far , a thicker line won't cast them too well .

Once I have spooled up a 0,25 mm braid for fishing the "Elbe" river , which is full of snags , this way I could often get back my ledhead shads by just pulling and bending the hooks open , but this way I don't have enough feel to control the lures with that thick line and miss a lot of strikes :(!

I went down to 0,20 mm braid , still a little thick for subtle working plastics , finally I ended up at 0,12 mm for this purpose , 0,20 mm for heavier average lurefishing and I've got that 0,25 mm braid on my heavy jerkbait rod , since it has to withstand a lot of abuse with this method .

In a nutshell , I have learned for me , that it is quite useless to choose line diameter accordingly to avoid losing lures , at least for certain types of lures and fishing methods .

Greetz :yay:, Dieter

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Dieter,

I agree about line size. Typically, I throw 8lb flouro for smaller jerkbaits, cranks, plastic worms, and flukes. I use 12lb flouro for jigs and Ikas, which are a Yamamoto finese jig plastic.

And for topwater, walking lures, I use 30lb braid with a leader of 17lb mono to keep the line from fouling the hooks.

I use 50lb braid for spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, which are both reaction baits that move so fast I don't think the fish really "see" the line, and for deep spooning, so I can get an immediate hooset, and bend a snagged hook if need be.

I go down to 4lb flouro for throwing 1/16oz. dart heads and tiny plastics to boiling fish, but that's the only really light line I use, and it's in open water.

Flourocarbon line has changed the way I fish. It is supposed to be "invisible", with almost the same degree of light refraction as water, so I'm able to use heavier line for worming than I used to with mono. So I can use baitcasting reels for everything I throw except the 4lb. stuff. And it's low stretch, so I can feel a tick even on a slack line.

I use big mono for big lures like swimbaits and surface gliders for two reasons. First, it's buoyant, so it stays up and doesn't drag the gliders down or inhibit their action. And second, because casting a 4-6oz. lure puts a lot of strain on the line that's dropped down from the rod tip to the lure at the start of the cast. The big mono is strong enough not to snap from the load of casting, and has enough stretch to allow a little margin of error, like occasionally forgetting to hit the spool release. Plus, even though it's "rope", it's still more managable than flourocarbon of the same strength rating.

Sooo......that's my story, and I'm sticking to it! ;)

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@ mark poulson

Mark ,

at first glance your line choice , that I have considered a "rope" , looked really thick to me , but after your explanations I really see sense in using it for those big swimbaits :yes:.

Just remember to have lost a couple of lures years ago(most likely spoons and plastic shads , but also sinking jerkbaits)because of an improper reel(was a quality brand) , that would shut close its bail ocassionally on a powerful cast !!!!!

It was too much of a good thing , the rotor of it turned so smoothely , that it hit the closure notch for the bail sometimes :eek:!

If I think over it , if I would have been geared with your own choice of line instead of my thinner braid , I would still have all of these lures:huh: !

But seeing the sheer digits like 17 or 25 just put me off , I still have a handful of line spools like that in my basement , ordered them from the US years ago , didn't have an idea about their thickness , since over here we measure our line after metric thickness , not pound test .

So well , if my memory serves me right(have a conversion card in my basement by now) , a 17 lbs. test mono would be well over 0,40 mm metric diameter .

This is , what I would use for deadbaiting a 50" pike , if I knew , where to find one , lol:huh::lol: !

Got only two rods/reels spooled with this thick line , using it exclusively for fishing real big eel(very poor casting with float set-ups) , since you can't afford to play with these , once they are hooked , just gotta toss 'em out as fast as possible .

Really seems, that in Europe we probably go a bit thinner concerning line diameter as you do in the States :?!

Thanks for your explanations :wink:!

greetz , Dieter

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My therory is if you dont loose a bait once and a while your not fishing tight enough.I dont loose one all the time, very rare, but if it wasnt for my lure retrievier I would be in trouble. I carry three different types of lure retrievers and one will usually get the plug loose. But on another note my dad is 78 years old and still musky fishes with me and you want to talk about loosing plugs. my dad gets upset but Im just glad he still with me and he can loose every lure in my box ,I dont care. I just tell him dont worry I will make another one. Lord knows how many of his I lost when I was little.

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How's this for losing a custom. I go to a resort evey year to fish for trophy bass and pike. I made the sweetest holographic 3oz spinner you'd ever see. Ultimate detail on that little head with scaling, gill marks, etc. Top notch polished willows, bearing swivels, the works. Very first cast after pitching 1/2-1oz'ers back home...... backlash! Got good distance on that cast. Too bad the line broke. :( Cheap loss, but painful. LOL

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