kfellmy

good answer. When I would get lead a few years ago, the company would have 8 55 gallon barrels full of wheel weights and 10-12 barrels of plumbers lead. Now it's a 1/2 barrel of wheel weights and one barrel of plumbers lead. Your answer now makes sense. The other salvage yard I stop at hasn't had any type of lead in at least a year. As for hoarding, I live in a condo, so I don't have much room in my carport for lead. I only buy what I need for that order. I may stock up on lead around August or so. That is when the dealers start stocking up for the upcoming "season". Even then the orders were not as good as in past years. Hell I might retire and move to Brazil. Catching peacock bass every day for the rest of my life doesn't sound too bad right now.

I used an uncoiled paper clip.

When I lived in Indiana, I used to see the copper blades all the time. After I moved out of the state, I haven't seen one Hildy any where. I used to cut off the blades and keep them. I threw the rest of the bait away. Yakima bought them out. Wow I didn't know that.

Lead here in Fort Myers, Florida is 91 cents a pound whether you get wheel weights or soft plumbers lead. I don't stock up any more, too expensive. I buy just as much as I need to complete the order. I used to have 1100 bars of lead. Now I got 20 bars of lead.

A couple of years ago I could get lead for 15 to 20 cents a pound. Now it is 91 cents a pound at the same place I have always got it. It's gonna drive me right out of the sinker business. I stopped selling sinkers on ebay since I can't compete with the sellers on there. Maybe I need to go back to lure making. I miss making spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, jigs and reapers. PS-I get 2 dollars a pound for finished sinkers.

I tried this back in 1986 when I was pouring jigs and spinnerbaits. The process is way to slow in my opinion. I'd rather pour the heads all at once. Keeping the mold warm is a pain also. Jigs may not pour perfect every time (like they would when the mold is hot and stays hot). My process started on the left with the lead pot and mold. Next to that was the pliers to get the sprue off. Third was a small bench grinder for smoothing out the bump. The heat source (one of those long lighters that you would use to light a grill). Then dump in the paint color of your choice. Last I would hang it on a special oven rack (for jigs) so the paint drips down the hook (and not the actual spinnerbait head. Spinnerbaits I would just hang them on a regular oven rack with the line tie on the top part of the bar. After filling up the rack (I could do 50 jigs on a rack or 100 spinnerbaits) I would then bake the lures. All done with gloves on (a pretty good trick itself). Was way too slow. I went back to doing all the heads at once, then working on the sprue, then painting.

Caught a 28 inch redfish yesterday. Have seen several large black drum swimming around the dock. Looked to be in the 40 pound range. Not much time to fish since the "order from hell" came in.

I last logged on March 9 of 2006, two days before "IT" happened. I made a few posts about playing online poker while making skirts, putting on spinnerbait blades or making saltwater rigs. The "IT" I am speaking of is the Poker Stars Sunday Million tourney. Entry fee was 1080 bucks. On that fateful day I won the tourney and my first place winnings were just over 1/4 of a million dollars. Cha-ching baby. I sold my lure making stuff and haven't made any lures or sinkers since. Well I missed making sinkers and have returned to supplying the only fishing tackle shop in the Fort Myers flea market. This guy just ordered 40,000 sinkers....I need a drink.

yea I have been the victim of this too. In Indiana I didn't make sinkers. You can't sell a 1 pound sinker to anyone in Indiana. So most of the time I made spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, jigs, crappie jigs, etc. I was experimenting with a flexible leader wire instead of a wire shaft for a spinnerbait. I fished with a guy that was really interested in the bait. The problem I had was the leader wire coming out of leader connector sleeve and loosing the blades. Guess what happened a few months later? The Limberneck was a big hit. Even used the guys name on it...he was in the back of the boat with me that day. I never talked to him again. Other lure that I was messing around with was a weedless bass jig with a flexible wire coming out of it just in front of the weedguard. I poured the jig with the wire coming out and the mold wouldn't close (since there was no spin jig mold at that time.) I was fishing a BASS tourney and got partnered with a big time pro. I used the lure and was doing well (I finished in the money.) The pro asked me about it and I told him a little about it. Then the next season of Bassmasters TV show, here he is using my lure to catch fish (this was the first Bassmasters show that shoed them fishing and was not a tourney.) Problem was that he called it a Spin jig from so and so company. The lure industry is tough. Your ideas will be stolen if given an opportunity. It is kinda like the Wld West any more. I can't imagine how tough it is now, when I was doing my lure stuff in Indiana was 1985-1990. Then I gave up tourneys and went back to creek smallmouth fishing.

I live on the Caloosahatchee River and get to fish just about every day. About once a week something big and dead usually floats by. Today's target wasn't big and silvery (like a tarpon). It was dark in color and didn't look like a fish. But I heaved my Zara Spook out there and snagged it. As I was reeling it back to me I realized that I had a dead body. There were two little kids with me so I got them the hell out of there before I got the body in close enough that they would know what it was. No pics were taken of this catch (eeeewwww gross).

what soured me on the bass tourney thing was at a Chapter Federation state finals tourney(the one that takes you closer to the classic). It was on Lake Monroe in Indiana. All the fish being weighed in had no lip injuries. All the fish were spawning. Everyone was flipping a large jigging spoon with a 5 times to large treble hook into beds. Not quite what I would call "fishing" and I never called "snagging" a sport. My partner the first day tried to test me and I told him that was illegal. Second day partner didn't care he snagged three fish and weighed in 19 pounds...then I refused to sign his weigh in card. Only my fellow club members would even talk to me after that. The ethics of the big time tourney guys is never a question...too many cameras. The little guy tourneys may be legit, but some are not. This really put me off of tourneys. I fished a couple of more tourneys after that but the sour taste in my mouth never left. So I quit tourneys. Then I quit pond fishing (other people around) and only fished creeks. Now that i moved to where I can't catch any smallmouth bass, I now wade the river and catch tarpon, snook and redfish. Occasionally get chased by a gator, but that only happened twice.

looks like the same deal when I quit BASS back in 1992. Got fed up with all the crap and realized that i was having more fun when I hopped in my creek, waded a mile or so, caught a bunch of fish, and saw no one the entire time.

OUCH Now that I am healed up and ready to go...I can't make sinkers and/or lures. Time to batten down the hatches Wilma is on the way.

Weagles? Okay i'll bite...what are weagles?