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Slammingjack

River Shad

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I'm trying to make a river shad swim bait. One thing is there is a spot just behind the eyes. I hand pour. I know how to make an eye socket hole. Can you make something like that to make a spot? What would you fill it with? paint? Then dip like to cover the eyes. Not sure myself. Plus the shad has a spilt v tail would you go way or put a thumper tail on it.? BTW it's a thread fin, I'm trying to get it to look like . I would like to get anybody's :twocents:  

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I just dot it with paint for soft plastic lures.  I used a q-tip at first, but it just wasn't worth the effort.  Now I use a #10 machine screw.  I think I have some of my LBS shad on the pouring bench.  If I do I'll post a picture later.  I can dot three kill spots with each dip in the paint can. With threadfins the kill spot is a coloration of the scales like the bars on a perch or the back and lateral line on a largemouth.  Its not a physically different feature so a good plastic paint that is level with the natural surface of the bait is the way to go. 

 

Don't waste your time with a sharpy or even a paint marker.  The spot will dull and bleed out to a blurry blob fairly quickly. 

 

If I was doing a lot of them all at once I think I would be tempted to try something like a fountain pen filled with soft plastic bait paint.  (Sorry, ToadFrog whacky moment there.  LOL)

Edited by Bob La Londe
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Bob, are you any closer to carving the shad with a swim tail?

 

 

Nope.  I modeled it with one, but I have no immediate plan to put a ping pong paddle on it.  Maybe someday.  Instead I have been looking for ways to catch fish on it the way it is.  In fact my reason for making an insert filler so I could make it without a hook slot lends itself nicely to several of them.  I even have a couple guys who get them to accent taxidermy mounts.  (You should see the paint job they put on them.)  I have other projects that are a lot more interesting.  Besides.  There are already three million nine hundred and eight seven thousand four hundred and sixty one ping pong paddle tail swimbaits out there.  I don't make a lot of the LBS Shad, but I have some very very loyal fans of it the way it is.  Like I said, maybe someday I'll make a paddletail tail version, but it will have to have a totally different name. 

 

Maybe: TFLP3T Shad. Totallly Fake Looking Ping Pong Paddle Tail Shad

 

As a side note, If any of you have ever fished a shad spawn you know its very hard to get the bass to hit anything else except a live shad.  I have caught bass chasing a shad spawn with these. 

 

Right now I am working on an injection method to rival or in some ways surpass some of the handpoured swimbaits.  If it works THOSE will have P3 tails. 

Edited by Bob La Londe
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I was thinking about your shad the other day when I was fishing one of the mini chatter baits.  I thought your shad would be a good fit for that.

 

I have a Basstackle mold that has a similar body design to your bait, but it's much thinner...too thin IMO, but I may shoot some just to see if it works 

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I was thinking about your shad the other day when I was fishing one of the mini chatter baits.  I thought your shad would be a good fit for that.

 

I have a Basstackle mold that has a similar body design to your bait, but it's much thinner...too thin IMO, but I may shoot some just to see if it works 

 

On a chatterbait is one of the ways they are being fished.  Also on big inline spinners, and on scroungers.  Probably the most successful for me is rigged sideways on a beast hook around feeders and boils or sideways texas rigged and flipped. 

Edited by Bob La Londe
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bob what mold are you using to make those baby bass looking jurk baits in the picture.

 

These?

http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/gallery/image/9489-square-back-minnow/

 

This One:

http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/gallery/image/9431-square-back-minnow-one-shot/

 

I cut the mold myself a long time ago.  I actually did one in a smaller scale back when there was a Federation Western Region Final on my home waters.  One fellow had found a real bite on watermelon red jerkbaits and had bought every single one in every store in the area.  One of his sponsors had asked me to take him out one day before official practice, and that was all he threw all day long.  I was impressed with how well it did, and I tried it the weekend before in a Yuma Pro Am tournament.  I caught fish all day long on it, but when I went to buy more there were none.  Thanks Joey.  LOL.  I went home and made my first version of this bait mold. 

 

(Joey finished 5th overall in that Federation tournament if I recall.)

Edited by Bob La Londe
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