Aiden James Lures
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Posts posted by Aiden James Lures
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Hey Guys,
I want to make a darter version of our 5" walking bait. I've attached some pics
Here are the details on the current bait" It is carved from Poplar and hollowed out from the rear to the nose with a 5/16" bit and a 1/4" stainless ball is inserted. Then it's plugged with a 1/16 oz weight in the rear. There is another 1/16 oz weight near the middle of the belly, 2.25 inches from the rear. I would love some advice on how to change the weighting/shape to make a good topwater darter while retaining a similar look to the squirrel.
Much thanks in advance to you lure geniuses!!! I have learned so much from these forums over the years.
John
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Lately, I have been modifying a couple of mass produced baits, and a few (lots of) people have been asking to buy them from me. Is it legal to resell them on my website alongside my handmade baits without permission?
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What is your favorite P-Free plastic? Consider odor, smoke, pour-ability, clarity, remelting probs, cure time, price, bubbles, and whatever else.
I am new to soft plastics and all the acronyms, btw!
Thanks guys!!!
John
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It takes a while (1 week) for my lizards to stop smelling like plastic. Is there a solution you can dip/soak them in after they come out of the mold to speed up the off-gassing process? The bass don't seem to mind the smell, but I do! I'm not burning them or getting any smoke, and there is no color change on the clears and whites.
John
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I have always painted the eyes on my lures and am considering making the switch to glass eyes like these?
http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/BOSS_True_Vision_Fish_3D_Eyes_100pk/descpage-BOSSFEY.html
Any thoughts on eyes? I've caught lots of fish on swimbaits with missing eyes, so I wonder if the eyes are more for the fisherman than the fish?
John
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Our spaz the mouse is hollowed out with some ss balls that serve as weight transfer and rattles.
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John,
I have a mouse hanging in the garage. I made it, painted it, and coated it today. You gotta love PVC, Createx, and Solarez.
I'm going to take it out for a test swim tomorrow.
I didn't put in a bill, which I normally do with my mice, because I want to work it with the erratic twitching you had in your video.
We'll see how it works with a triple white hackle feather treble on the rear, and a treble on the belly, too.
I'll post the results.
Mark,
I think part of the action on that fly comes from the sagging of the fly line after it is stripped? When I fish tubes with the flyrod, I get a bounce when I strip and a bounce when the line falls. I am looking forward to your results. I have never made anything out of PVC. Interesting! The fly in the video is balsa and I use hollowed Poplar for my other mice. Where did you put the weight? Is the belly concave like a kwikfish?
John
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Lol...Yep...you can order it..no long hunting trip required.Not all fly shops carry Icelandic Sheep...Feather-craft.com out of St.Louis carries it...Great people to deal with.Let me know if you get some...Nathan
I checked out your website. Funny we both make mice/rats! Is that sheep fur on your rodent?
John
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Hey John,
Nice looking "Flure"....kind of a Frankenstein Dawlberg Diver.You may want to try Icelandic sheep fur instead of marabou.It offers the same great action but it is longer and a Lot tougher....Nathan
Thanks! I will check out that sheep fur. They sell it at the fly shop, I hope? Iceland is far from my house!
John
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I'm a great fan of topwater lures also sporting a diving action , ....here are my three favourites :
Also I've made a few of knock-offs of this one many years ago , floats on the surface at rest and features a hunting wiggle , when jerked below the surface , ....but the action depends much on the location of the tow eye :
T8ISvWV2jk=&docid=SULpFBjOT4j2EM&sa=X&ei=YV8jUY38FInntQacsoDADw&ved=0CEAQ9QEwAg&dur=4669
Here are some more homemade lures of mine , that might catch your interest :
http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/gallery/image/2693-spinner-plugs/
http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/gallery/image/2665-curiosity/
http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/gallery/image/2655-curiosity/
http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/gallery/image/2562-cuptails/
(there might be multiple pictures available displaying different views of the lures)
Can't quite figure out , whether it would be essential to tie feathers to your lures , .....in this case one might have to alter the lure's shapes , probably leave a little round extension to tie on the feathers ?
off to work , ..............cheers , diemai
I think the feathers acted like a rear down-curving tail rudder on the fly version which forced it down in a curving motion. Thanks for the tips.
John
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John,
I thought it looked like a mouse in the water, but I wasn't sure that was your intent, and I didn't want to open my mouth and put my foot in it!
Where do you get your marabou?
Mark
I use Waspi Woolly Bugger Marabou in White. The local fly shop stopped carrying it, so I buy it online. It is the fullest and softest by far.
John
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John and Ben,
That's exactly where I'm starting. Thanks for the inspiration!
When I saw your fly, my first thought was it was a hollow plastic frog.
I think a pointed, thinner head will be less buoyant, and the weight of the line tie will pull the nose down, too. A sloped head will get it started down on the pull.
I'm just wondering how to get that great erratic action.
Normally, I weight walking baits just behind the center of the bait, so they're slightly tail heavy.
The smaller the bait, the more tail down I want them to sit at rest.
But I want my AJLures fly lookalike to sit almost flat at rest, so the feathered tail has a chance to fan out.
Maybe I'll have to go to a single hook, too, or not even have a tail hook, just one in the belly.
Decisions, decisions......Hahaha
Have fun!!! Let me know how it works! I too, am going to head down this journey. I will keep the head shape the same, since I have a jig built to make it, for all my other mice, but I am going to make a convex belly shape for help with the dive and twist.
John
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Thanks Mark!! Good call on the marabou...I love that stuff and use it on all my topwaters. Its funny you mentioned the fluoro leader. If you couldn't tell from the casting in the video, I am a terrible flyfisherman, and definitely not a purist. I just use 10lb mono for my fly leader when bassin. I edited out the part when I hooked my ear and my sons lifevest!!! Yikes! So you see why I want one for my casting/spinning gear! I will hollow out some wood to help with buoyancy and add rattles. The little bill is a good idea too.
Here is a picture of the fly when dry. It looks much different in the water. The head is balsa, and the hook is a 3/0 saltwater Jig hook bent straight. http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/media/gallery/album_6/gallery_26043_6_15613.jpg
John
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Really nice fish!
I'm guessing your leader is fluorocarbon, so it is probably pulling the fly down on the twitch/pull.
I would probably make a semi-popper with the same marabou tied to the rear treble, and use a fluorocarbon leader instead of mono, so it lies horizontal at rest, and pulls under on the twitch/pause.
Play around with the shape of the nose to get it to have a similar action.
You can make a smaller lure out of PVC that will be heavy enough to cast and still be buoyant. With wood, it might be harder.
I've found that 5/16 ounce is about the limit of castability for a crank with a baitcaster for me.
You might even fool around with a small bill to get it to dive a little, like a small wake bait.
I think the marabou is the key. It looks alive at rest.
Thanks Mark!! Good call on the marabou...I love that stuff and use it on all my topwaters. Its funny you mentioned the fluoro leader. If you couldn't tell from the casting in the video, I am a terrible flyfisherman, and definitely not a purist. I just use 10lb mono for my fly leader when bassin. I edited out the part when I hooked my ear and my sons lifevest!!! Yikes! So you see why I want one for my casting/spinning gear! I will hollow out some wood to help with buoyancy and add rattles. The little bill is a good idea too.
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Hey guys,
I am trying to make a topwater bait that dives and darts like this fly I made last summer. Any tips? You can see the action I am going for in the youtube video below. I think it has something to do with the marabou tied to the down curving rear hook, but I can't seem to replicate it with a hardbait that is heavy enough to cast well with traditional bass gear.
Thanks in advance for your help!!
John
- These are not for sale, so please don't report me for advertising. -
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Does wildly erratic necessarily translate into more bites?Yes!?
I have noticed that bass will often strike a crankbait after it deflects off something like a rock or stump and changes direction. The hunters change direction without the structure and draw more strikes in open water????
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Pretty sure Bob is right. That's the whole purpose of the of the rear blade.
Seems too easy! Why not just throw a rear blade on all cranks?
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Has anyone tried one of these without the rear blade? I wonder if it would still hunt?
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If I didn't know better, I'd say that minnow was drunk.
Great action I would say!
Got any of that wine saoked lumber left? I know a bait I need to copy.
Good work!!!
Thank you for sharing!!
There is no shortage of wine staves around here, but any hardwood should work. I hollowed it out from the belly to the tail, installed some SS balls to act as a rattle and weight transfer system. Then I put (4) 1/16 weights in the belly (two in front, one in the center and one in the tail). It turns out to weigh exactly the same as a similar size rattletrap, but it suspends instead of sinking like a rock.
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Congratulations!
Sounds like a keeper. I look forward to seeing the video.
Here is the first teaser video with no fish, just the bait swimming. I am going to chase some lunkers with it in the next couple of days and then post another video. Thanks again for your help.
John
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I am going to make a duplicate just to see if it will "hunt" like this one.
Does anyone understand what makes a crank hunt left to right in addition to a wobble?
OK, I now see why nobody has replied regarding the hunting crank!
Here is the non-answer to my question. http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/25233-a-couple-questions-on-building-a-hunting-crank/page__hl__hunting
When I find the key to making a hunter, lipped or lipless, I will post it! Thanks for the challenge, guys!
As soon as it stops raining I will post a video of my lipless hunter, that I accidentally made.
John
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If I made that lure my only concern would be worrying if I could duplicate it.
Great job!
I am going to make a duplicate just to see if it will "hunt" like this one.
Does anyone understand what makes a crank hunt left to right in addition to a wobble?
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French Oak for American wine?? Sacrilige
Cool little lure, Steve! What part of the country are you in?
I've made up a few, but mine come from planks that go in stainless tanks rather than barrel staves. I work in a winery, so get freebies
Steve
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A crazy day of testing and mods! Three trips to the pond, 7 little bass, and a huge hawk!
SO, I initially put the line tie at the top of the beveled bill portion and it blew out right away. It wouldn't even try to swim. I then moved the line tie to the exact center of the oval that makes the bill, and it swam with a medium wobble and hunted side to side (2 feet in each direction) but wouldn't dive more than a couple of feet. So I added another 1/16 weight in the nose, so it now sinks at a VERY SLOW rate (1 foot every 5 seconds). On the third test the lure worked surprisingly well with many different presentations.
1. I started with a slow steady retrieve and it would hunt and swim at 5ft without blowing out. I got two fish like this.
2. Then I worked it like a suspending jerkbait in the 5-10 foot range, and picked up a couple more.
3. Since it sinks so slowly, I was able to work it like a dying fish in the top 6” of water with quick snaps of the line. This method only landed one small bass, but a huge hawk ambushed my lure out of nowhere and tried to fly away with it! Luckily it didn't get hooked and I was able to yank it free. I've been fishing this pond, almost daily, for years and have seen lots of hawks but never had one try to hit my lure.
4. I cast it to the middle of the pond and waited for a good minute and then started a slow retrieve along the bottom. I could feel some ticks from rocks or sticks all the way back, so I know it was hunting the bottom! This should work well when the water temp drops.
As you can see from the pics, I need more practice painting fish! It is much different that painting mice and rats!
I love that the bait “hunts” left to right, but I’m not sure why. Does anyone know? Is it on the verge or blowing out or off balance or not symmetric?
Thanks for your help, everyone! I will post videos soon.
5" Darter
in Hard Baits
Posted
I want it to float but dart left to right just under the surface with line twitches and have a slight swim/wobble with a steady retrieve. I found a youtube video of a lure with similar action. Thanks Mark!