mainbutter

So i have a favorite rod of mine, a gander mountain medium action spinning rod, where the reel seat has come a little bit loose and twists around the blank (or whatever it is supposed to be anchored to on the handle). This makes for pretty uncomfortable fishing as casting has the tendency to make the reel come out I don't know a darn thing about rod building, so I don't know how reel seats are supposed to be attached anyways. Is this a repairable problem? Anyone know if I took it back into gander if they would fix it? If I did not sufficiently describe my problem, let me know Thanks!

Good question. If you asked me last year, I would have given you a different opinion. I fished swimbaits pretty heavily this year, of all sizes, exclusively in Minnesota (and a few Canada) lakes. Last year I would have said my dream swimbait would have a wide S curve with no wobble, no lip, an extremely artistic and realistic finish including side fins. Pitching various swimbaits of all sizes this year, I'd say: I prefer my swimbaits to be unfinished (or have an unrealistic finish), whacky S curve action with at least 15 degrees of roll to either side, and a lip added to give a wider, faster wobble is fine. This seems to be good for getting the bass and pike going. My only musky raised on a swimbait this year was on a big flat-sided very unrealistic looking lipped swimbait. This thing only has good action at high speeds. It's also painted terribly with vertical yellow/orange stripes. That said, I would still kill for a super-realistic bullhead swimbait.

I have basstackle.com's through line swimbait in the bigger sixe (5'' i think) and LOVE it! I throw it more than anything else fishing bass and pike in MN, and even picked up a very ambitious crappie on it. It fishes best at the very top of the water and rises very fast if you let it drop to the bottom, so if you want to have a paddletail swimbait that fishes lower in the water column, you'd want to expand your tackle box with something else as well. I'm sure del's is extremely good as well. I originally bought basstackle's because I wanted to have the bigger eyes on my lure, but I've found that I don't improve my catch rate even with eyes glued on. It's a very easy top pour, my favorite color to throw is pure white. I haven't decided if it looks more like a baby seal that needs a good clubbing, or more like moby dick. I also like to use 1/0 (I think that's the size at least) mustad trebles, they seemed like a good fit.

A classic leech presentation soft plastic is a lure style called a "reaper tail". I bet you don't need a complex mold and could very well do with strips of thin plastic as well. especially on a drop shot.

I pour this in the regular and Jr bite me sizes, and have never had a problem pouring this mold with plastic hot from the microwave, even into a room temp mold. I'd say your plastic is too cold? I use LC soft plastic, and pour slow and steady straight down the middle. A steady hand is required to make sure the stream doesn't hit the sides on its way down and create clogs.

The closest lakes to me all have big pike or stocked muskies in 'em, so I never get funny looks testing lures. Heck, even snot rocket pike will attempt to eat magnum sized musky swimbaits. Yay Minnesota.

Here's my take on weighting(with limited experience mind you): Each segment should be weighted so that the overall buoyancy of each segment is relatively similar. This will mean that any buoyancy, (negative, neutral, positive) will affect all parts of the lure equally. If you have a sinking lure, this means that the lure sinks flat (not head first or tail first). When weighting a segment, I like my weight to be low and centered, perhaps a slight bit weight forward. For a natural presentation you obviously want your lure sitting belly-down. The biggest issue for a good S-swimming action really is just head shape. A more rounded and less pointed head will throw off better and stronger low-pressure vortices which cause the swimming action. However, this is certainly not 100% a rule, as any volume of mass sitting in a flowing fluid will throw low pressure vortices.

For my 5'' hook slot swimbaits (mold from lurecraft) I use a 7'' (I think, might be 7'6''?) medium power rod IM6 graphite rod from gander mountain.. I can't remember the model name, but it wasn't too expensive. A medium power rod has done just fine for me in sending 5/0 swimbait hooks home, but a MH would certainly do the job better. I can just cast these swimbaits farther with this particular rod. For my 5'' line through style swimbaits from basstackle, I use a MH tiger lite ugly stik, they're just heavy and bulky enough I want a little more backbone for casting.

I pour the 5'' (the biggest version they offer). LMB over 2.5lb will chomp it, as will pike of any size. I lose a ton of the tails to pike, which makes the lure unusable, but I just remelt the body again to recycle the remaining plastic and pour a new one. I went through five of these out fishing yesterday, but the inserts are cheap and reusable, and it doesn't take much extra plastic when you recycle old beat up/chewed up baits. The action is great. With the aluminum insert and a 1/0 treble giving some negative buoyancy, this swimbait swims right at the top of the water, so you can get a wake-bait thing going along with the paddle tail action. The tail really just has a perfect wag to it, and if you need a comparison to another lure, its cadence is very similar to a suzie sucker. If you want a swimbait that swims deeper, this probably isn't the lure you're looking for. Even when I let it sink to the bottom, on the retrieve it quickly rises right back to the surface. Then again, maybe if you could come up with a lead insert or salt your plastic for added density, it might swim deeper, I haven't tried yet.

Welcome to TU! I'm about $500 or so in.. but then again I have a number of aluminum molds which can get pricey. If you're doing this just like I am, making your own baits for personal use, you CAN do it and save money. There are two factors that will play into whether or not you save money 1) fishing a LOT 2) pouring only a few styles You have to go through a lot of baits before you break even compared to buying store bought ones, but you WILL eventually break even if you use enough plastics. I'm certainly no where close to breaking even except on my through line swimbaits.. the commercial ones sell for $5-10 a piece. I use them for pike fishing, so the only way I can afford to use them is to pour my own It still costs me $1.50-2.00 to make one though (at least inserts are reusable), so it's still an expensive lure to use and lose often. The good thing $ wise is that used molds, especially aluminum ones, retain quite a bit of value if you decide you want to sell to someone else. If you're serious (always hard to judge whether you are or not until you start doing it for real), I'd highly recommend buying plastic in 5 gallon portions. $ per gallon is so much cheaper, and if you fish once a week and regularly use plastics, you WILL eventually put a big dent into a 5 gallon bucket. If you fish senko style worms a ton and decide that's what you want to pour, you can probably make your $ back fast comparing your operating costs and buying $7 packs of yamamoto senkos.

I was noticing that my frogs don't float once rigged with a hook. It takes a bit of umph while reeling to get the frog up to the surface and start kickin' after a cast. I've been pondering how to go about solving this dilemma.

A few bits of advice: Start local Viral marketing works wonders. A picture of a lure will attract attention. A video of the lure in action will spark interest. A video and multiple pictures of lunkers caught (pics preferably shown WITH LURE IN FISH MOUTH) will sell lures. If I was marketing lures on the internet, I'd invest in a hat cam.

And Prometheus took fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals. And for his compassion to those beneath, Zeus bound Prometheus to a rock, and set upon him a terrible eagle to eat his liver, only to have it regrow to be eaten again the next day. Thus he would spend eternity. This debate has been going on for millenia. On the topic of the particular bait in question, can I assume that the guy who makes them didn't come up with the idea of the through-line swimbait? Without standing on someone else's shoulders, there would be no innovation, just everyone coming up with new (and the same) solutions to the same problems over and over. Matt makes the most beautiful and realistic lures I've ever seen, no reason to call him a dbag just because he's not giving away trade secrets of his own company and those of his contemporaries. Everyone has their opinion about that sort of thing, but Matt is probably very correct that Jerry Rago's molds are quite complex. Personally I really love the attention to detail, everything from the scales and fins to the intricate nature of the face and gills. I think even if someone tried to copy either Matt's or Jerry's lures, they'd probably fail miserably at replicating those sorts of things. I don't think discussing full 3D laminates is going to, in any way, impact Jerry's business, and he is in no way the first person to do full 3D body laminates. To the OP: This is just me brainstorming to try to answer the problem of how to make full 3D body laminates. I pour 3D frogs as laminates. The 2 part mold is just a plain jane nose pour to a full 3D body. I take the belly half of the mold, and pour a bit of one color in there and let it cool enough so it doesn't run, put the two sides of the mold together and pour my second color through the nose. There isn't much of a seam if your second color is hot enough. Trying to do a 3 color laminate would be too difficult for that mold though. With a bigger bait, I could do more colors. If there was too much of a seam due to letting the plastic cool too much in between pours, you could always heat up the mold once you have all the plastic poured inside, remelting the plastic and removing seams. However, you MUST take into account that heating and cooling times would be extremely slow and gradual, so I'm pretty sure that's not how the production guys do it.

You know, I always imagined the hot plastic would moderate the glass temperature and keep it cooling down sloooowwwllyyy. I've seen pyrex baking dishes shatter when put under the sink while they were still hot. It's an easy thing to forget about. I hadn't ever really considered the possibility of my pyrex cups shattering on me while full of hot plastic. I'll be taking a few more safety precautions I think.

I'm probably about $500 in it, and I won't have to buy any soft plastics again ever. I'm actually quite happy with the molds I have and don't even feel the need to buy more (at the moment). All I'll need is maybe another 5 gallon bucket of plastisol and maybe a few colorants/additives every couple years.

All fish were returned to the water! No worries there. The lake itself is in fact a C&R only for LMB and northern pike, which is what I like most about it.

I got a chance today to pitch my homemade 5'' through line swimbait (mold from basstackle.com) this entire evening, and caught some nice fish! The end total was 4 pike and 3 bass. All the pike were 30'' class, and all the bass were ~17-20'' and ~3lb class. Also about 5 minutes before calling it quits as the sun was setting, I caught a CRAPPIE! A 9 inch crappie hit my 5'' chunky swimbait. Crazy. I'd post the pics here but the sizes are pretty non forum-friendly in size, so instead they went to the gallery. Does the gallery have any way to make uploaded pics friendly for posting in threads? Feel free to check 'em out! I want to thank Kevin at Basstackle.com for the awesome mold that made these great swimbaits. I'm glad I make my own because I destroyed three of them today. If I had to buy $10 through line swimbaits, I would not be able to use 'em for pike like this.

It's finally here! I'm bagging my home-poured soft plastics, packing up some last-minute tackle, tying fluorocarbon leaders, and doing a last-minute checklist on canoe equipment. This will be my first time fishing out of a canoe this season, and in fact my first time fishing out of THIS BRAND NEW canoe I got for my birthday I'm going to be chasing northern pike in a C&R only lake with a 10mph speed limit on it to stay away from the big-boat wavy and crazy mess of the bigger lakes. I've been planning all winter for this day and am super excited. Anyone else hitting the MN waters tomorrow?

I was wondering about if anybody pours two-sided molds in multiple colors. I've done laminates by pouring one side before putting both sides of the mold together and filling the cavity from the top, but I was wondering if anyone does anything that imitates two-color injection and swirls. Is there any such product as a pyrex cup with a divider than can hold two colors and pour out the same spout? I wonder if that'd be worth looking into.

So there are probably plenty of products and plenty of techniques for scenting soft plastics. I was just wondering what you guys do. I really only scent my stickbaits and craws. I've got lurecraft's crawfish scent, and I basically just add a few drops to each bag of baits, roll the baits around in it to get a coat, and call it good. Does anyone scent their more 'active' soft plastics, such as grubs, jerkbaits, and swimbaits? I've been pondering about how to go about scenting my baits with a more intensive soak, such as throwing them in a big jar of scent for an extended soak before bagging. The only drawback to this is the amount of scent required could get pricey, and since I don't do this for commercial purposes I might either have to find a way to make my own scent or just give up on this idea. Do any of you who fish your own baits fish both scented and non-scented versions, just to see if the scent actually does anything for your catch ratios? I'm going to give it a go this weekend for the northern pike opener and see if they care at all. My prediction is that the pike won't give a darn, but once bass opener rolls around I'll give them a test too, and I think that both the smallies and largies will have something different to say on the matter. I just wanted your thoughts

@VermontPhisher: For much of my fishing in the past for pike, I relied almost SOLELY on perch colored jointed rapala floaters, glad to know they still work I've been trying to expand my arsenal and tactics beyond one fantastic producer, and it has paid off, but I am very fond of perch colored jointed rapalas!