trick trout

Finished this bait before christmass, as a present for my brother... haven't much time to post, but here it is...

1. Tools that you will need: bait blank x-acto knife file or sand paper pencil 2. First you will want to get your bait blank and take you pencil and draw the details (gills, mouth, fins, etc,) that you would like to carve into you bait. (In this tutorial I am only showing how to gills and the mouth details, but you can use the same instructions to make fins or anything else) 3.Now you will make your first cut. The first cut will start at the farthest back part of the gill or as I like to say the main gill. Now take the x-acto knife and just stick in the bait along the line and then follow the line around to the other side. 4. Now that you have the first cut in the bait you will take the x-acto knife blade and put it almost flat on the bait and carve out the gill. You DON'T want to go to much at an angle with the carving because if you do then you will have a huge chunk taken out of you bait and it will be impossible to get it out. here are 2 pictures that will help you make the cuts and chip off the wood. (Once you carve out the first side you will want to follow step 3 and 4 for the opposite side) 5.Now that you have carved out the gills at the angle you want pull off all of the excess wood that has been carved off. this is how the fist gill should look after you finish taking off the carved wood. 6.For this step you will follow steps 3 and 4 with the gill that is next of the forward or if you have a gill that is higher than the other like the one in the picture you will want to do the process on this gill now. 7. You will take a file and file behing the furthest back gill and get it nice and smooth. This step can be done when you finish the gills but I like to do it now and make the bait cleaner for a better working surface. 8. In step 8 you will just follow steps 3 and 4 for any gills that you have left on your bait. If there are no gills left to carve out then don't pay attention to anything I just said in step 8.... 9. This is just a picture of what you bait should look like when you are completed carving out the gills. 10. Now to start with the mouth. The mouth can be tricky because if you do not have the drawing allined dead on or close on both sides it will look much worse once you have made all the cuts. So you will take the x-acto knife and follow the both part of the mouth all the way to the other side. 11. Ok almost done !!!! now take the x-acto knife and carve the bottum of the mouth off. For the time being your bait will look like it has an over bite. 12. Now you will take the x-acto knife and cut the sides and top of the mouth off. If you don't get what i mean by this take a look at the picture above and it shows that i drew a piece of a jaw which i call the side and top of the mouth. I know i know i'm a little confusing. 13.Now that we are basically done we will fix the over bite that the fish has by taking cutting away a little of the upper lip with the x-acto knife and filling it off to make it nice and smooth. Also to make the rest of the mouth smooth take the file and file the bottum and sides of the mouth to make it pretty. 14. FINALLY DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!! . ok this is what you bait should look like or be similar too once you are finished. Isn't she puurrty. Tutorial & photos by TrickTrout gills1.pdf gills1.pdf gills1.pdf gills1.pdf gills1.pdf gills1.pdf gills1.pdf gills1.pdf gills1.pdf

i like to just wet sand with 600 grit

my bro and i had an 8 inch bass in a tank about 2 years ago... we would feed it gold fish, crawdads, and nightcrawlers... but every once in a while we would do a test to see what the fish wanted... shad bait with eyes, shad bait without eyes, worm with eyes, worm without eyes... and 10 times out of 10 that little bass would eat the shad bait with eyes over the shad bait without eyes or worm with eyes over the worm without eyes. So to me bass will almost every time eat a bait with eyes over a bait without eyes when they are presented exactly the same right next to each other... but then we would put the shad bait without eyes or worm without eyes into the tank and the bass would eat it... so really it doesn't matter to the bass, but if there is a bait with eyes next to one without, usually he or she will take the one that looks more realistic.

Well bascially finished, just have to clear coat and then add back 2 sets of fins, sorry i blurred out that front fins, but the design is not mine and i did not get permission to make them and show them. but this is the bait, feel like i finally got the rainbow trout pattern down... hope you guys like it, feel free to comment, good or bad.

37,945 lure bodies.... thats insane, i have like 11 total lying around my garage and room.

thanks guys, savacs, the bait is 7 1/2 inches including the tail and i make my baits between 4 in. and 10 in.

here's my most recent swimbait, the Triple Joint Trick Trout, it is about 7 1/2 inches including tail, it is still in progress and has been a while since i have taken at wack at trying to finish it but so far it is my best looking bait with most detail. hope y'all like it.

nathan, my parents locked me away in our dungen and gave a some tools and told me to start building baits and making money. but thanks again guys for your compliments, also wondering if you have any suggestions for changes?

this is my new and improved 5 piece trout swimbait. First off the joints are a new improvement to the swimbait, which there is really no gap in between each peice. Second, the fins are a new material i have found that works totally awesome, its a plastic that is very durable yet bends at the touch of your finger. this bait is about 2 1/2 inches shorter than my first 5 piece trout swimbait which makes it exactly 6 inches, weighs exactly 1.2 oz. i have only been able to try it in my sink since the lake near me is closed but from what i can see it is going to be a killer.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am very impressed... that must have taken some imagination.... and the paint job is totally awesome... MAN I'M IN AWE.... that is about the most creative and functional bait i've seen and to top if off with an awesome paint job... GREAT JOB

mesabooger, for the fins i used a different type of material, what it is, is rubber off of my brother's floor mat for his truck, when he bought it there was a tag end that you cut off and it was the perfect stuff, right color, tuff, flexable, so it works good. For the price i would probably start at between 100- 125. Yeah E-TEX is the only way to go. Yeah the 5 piece was something i had thought of doing for a while but never executed making it. Stuff takes some imagination and if you have that there are no limits to bait making. Thanks again guy i really appriciate your compliments and i thank you again for all the tips that i have recieved from this site.

ENVIROTEX...thats all i use and will ever use... devcon doesn't work... haha i would use any but envirotex is cheaper and better.. YS, Here is a better diagram of how i make the joints hope it is a little bit easier to understand.

i live in san diego, CA and for the past 3 or 4 years swimbaits have been the rage. i recently in the last year or so started making my own swimbaits. Over the past couple of years i have picked up many tricks for throughing swimbaits. I will help you out as much as i can with what i use and what alot of the southern californian guys use. Gear: 1. first of all you definetly need to have the right gear. Using swimbaits on your normal 7' med-hvy rod and a low-profile reel just won't cut it. I tried this for the first couple of years and thought i was in good shape until i bought the right gear and used it. Rods are a little tough becuase you need a rod for 5-7 inch swimbaits and a rod for 7-9 and 9-12 if you plan on using baits that big. First of all for the 5-7 inch baits i would go with a 7'6 rod med-hvy action or heavy action rod with a fast tip. now i am not pushing any of the products i will list now or later but the products i will tell you about are what i have used personally and i have had the best expierience with. For a 5-7 inch swimbait rod i have just recently tested out a new okuma rod specially designed for swimbaits. here is the site to give you and example of lure weight that you may want to use for 5-7 inch swimbaits.http://www.okumafishing.com/products/rods/gs/gs.htm the bottom two models are the rods specifically designed for swimbaits Now for the 7-9 inch swimbaits i would go with a rod that is 7'10 at the least and preferably an 8' model. You will want to have a heavy action rod that can handle 4-8 oz. baits with a fast action tip. And for 9-12 inch baits you will need not want but need a 8' rod with heavy action or xtra heavy action and can handle 6-10 oz. baits. The reason all of these rods have to have a fairly soft tip is because if you are using any bait with a lip or bill the tip has to give a little bit to alow the bait to swim correctly. you don't want a broomstick for a swimbait rod because that will give your baits the least bit of action. Also a soft tip is need when setting the hook and fighting the fish. When you set the hook with a swimbait you don't want a quick and hard set, you want to sweap the rod to the side and use your power to put the hooks in there mouth. if you set to quick and hard you risk the chance of ripping the hooks out of their mouth because you are using such heavy equiptment. So a soft tip will give you a better chance of not ripping the hooks out of the fishes mouth. Reel: if you are casting a swimabait i recomend only 2 reels because of durability and spool commpacity. The first reel i would recommend would be a Shimano Cardiff 300. The Cardiff 300 is fairly cheap but in my opinion is the best reel on the market for swimbaits for the price. But the all around best reel for swimbaits would be Shimano Calcutta TE 300. This reel is a little bit over priced but castability is great, the gearing gives you maximum power and speed which is needed and a oversized handle which will help you crank in the monsters. But if you are not a shimano fan an would like to stay with another brand of reels than i would still stay with the 300 size or whatever is equivalent to the 300. Again i am not sponsored or am nor trying to push any product i am just stating what i and others have had good use with. Line: Line can be a bit difficult. First off i would try and stick with monofilament as much as possible because of the strech factor. I like to use Stren High Impact in the 20 lbs. or the 25lbs. Also Berkley Big Game in the 20 lbs. and 25 lbs. is a good line. But if you have confidence in another line i would try and stick with 20-25 lbs. test or for the smaller swimbaits like 5 and 6 inch i may go as low as 15 but that is the least i would throw. Baits: this otta be the fun part. There are many swimbaits on the market and many different styles. There are small waking swimbait, suspending swimbaits, deep diving swimbaits, bottom bouncing swimbaits, weedless swimbaits, wooden swimbaits ( trout plugs), plastic swimbaits, and any other i may have missed. Now i will name some of the more popular swimbait on the market going by the different applications. Waking: some of the soft plastic waking swimbaits on the market are the Osprey swimbait in all of the sizes they make which are 6,7,9,12 or i think they make a 6 inch model, the 3:16 Rising Son swimbait which almost floats but when you throw it, it throws off a big wake, the SR Plastics SR swimbaits like the SR5,SR7,SR9 are all good waking swimbaits, the Megabait Charlie Sr. swimbait which is 8 inches long and is like a large buzzbait in how much water it throws but still looks like a fish, and the Castaic Soft Bait Co. makes a bait known as the Castaic Swimbiat but it has a hard head with a bill or lip and the back 3/4's of the bait is soft plastic, this bait floats and when reeled in will dive a little bit under the surface at a medium pace but at a slow pace it will wake. Deep Diving Swimbaits: Some swimbaits on the market say that they are deep diving swimbaits but really aren't becuse they have no bill and with a medium retrieve will want to rise to te surface, but then some baits that are weighted properly will stay down deep. But just in the last few months 2 companies have designed swimbaits that are all soft plastic and that have a lip or bill like a crank bait would. These two companies are SR plastics and they make the 8' Dagon and the other Company is Jerry Rago and he has the 9.5' Soft Live Trout. Bottom Bouncing and Weedless Swimbaits There are two swimbaits that can really be usedas a bottom bouncing swimbait. 3:16 makes the Mission fish which is a virtually weedless swimbait and the SR plastics SR7W which is also a weedless swimbait that can be used as a bottom bouncing swimbait. Wooden Swimbaits: Wooded Swimbaits are some of the best swimbaits you can buy for many reasons, you can wake them, get most of them to dive down to 5 feet or more, the quality is usually better than plastic, and are very durable. The most used and probably most well known wood swimbait is the M.S. Slammer. The M.S. Slammer has 4 different sizes which are 7, 9, 12, and just recently introduced 13.5 inches. These swimbait are well known for how well they swim because they can wake and you can pull them down to a couple of feet and they will swim just as well under water as they do waking. i am not affileated with this tackle shop but most of the products i have listed on this post can be found on Tacklewarehouse.com well i hope this helps you in trying to get started with swimbaits

the action is very sutle... it wakes at a very slow speed... i have found that if i hold the rod tip on the water line it will wake a little bit faster and if i wake it and give it about 5 very quick jerks it looks like a trout fleeing from a bass or a trout chasing forage...but as a wake bait the head goes right to left back and forth about a centimeter each way and the tail follows through and wakes... really it is something to see because it has no lip and its like it has a mind of its own