JD_mudbug

Hi, Bruce County. I would also like to get one of the lures. I have sent you a PM with my address and some additional info. I agree with Dave's thoughts on a brand of lures. I know a company that make lures primarily for bass. They made an up-sized version of some of their lures for larger species. The labor costs were the same. The materials costs of the upsized lures was slightly higher, but not as much as you think. The price they charge for the upsized version is over twice that of the bass size resulting a higher profit margin item. They get additional sales they otherwise wouldn't get. You can also have similar size lures that fish at different depths. Just think of Mepps - all the spinner sizes from panfish to musky and saltwater plus they have the Deep Runner and Flying C series which are similar in size to their other spinners but run deeper. You should look into making it in different sizes and/or weights. You have the skill to make the lure. You might as well try it with different gauge wires and different size components. I hope you succeed. Jim

Welcome to the site. I use poplar a lot and like it. I use the round and square poplar dowels from the big box stores. The dowels are cheap, easy to carve, and kiln dried so you don't get too much expansion and contraction. My favorite wood to use is western red cedar. It is a bit harder to carve than poplar due the grain. The smell makes it great to work with. I use it mostly on bigger baits, 5" and up and 1+ ounces. It has nice combination of strength and action. As you will be harvesting the wood from your property, I would search Youtube for ways to dry your wood. Maybe you could setup a small solar wood drying kiln or a dehumidifier kiln. Try to harvest your wood in advance of making a lure to allow for drying. Otherwise, you will end up with a lot of cracked lures or cracked clear coats from expansion and contraction.

It looks like a Yum Mighty Bug which was discontinued a few years ago. I sometimes see them in the discount soft plastic boxes on the low shelf at Wal-mart. If you can't find any, how about a 3" Culprit Flutter Craw, Big Bite Baits Yo Daddy Craw, 13 Fishing Ninja Craw or SK Baby Rage bug as possible alternatives?

I have bought some from Cedar Run, wLure, Dinger, Predator, and Backwater Outfitting. The suppliers’ sites are listed in the pinned post at the top of the Hard Baits forum. I have also bought from random sellers on eBay for the ones I couldn’t find on the sites. Most of the suppliers have a couple of models of glide and/or swimbaits. No one seems to have a big variety in that category. The models they do have may be there one month and gone the next. Quality varies from batch to batch. Most are good. Make sure you clear any plastic flashing from the joints before painting. Some baits have small holes near the hook hangers and line tie that can leak. I seal those with superglue and a small brush.

Unfortunately, no. Dave spoke to him in November 2020. My lure making is all over the map much like Dieter's is, from trout inline spinners all the way to hard musky baits. I miss his insights. He had quite a variety of builds. He has inspired me build lures I never thought of trying to build. I still comb through his old videos looking for ideas. For anyone interested, here is a link to his videos on Youtube. If the link doesn't work, his channel name is 61diemai https://www.youtube.com/user/61diemai/videos Btw, I like your Speed Trap builds. The Speed Trap works well in the northeast on largies and smallies. The metallic perch color is deadly here. Luhr Jensen discontinued that color a while ago. I have a supply of them that I repaint but green gold chrome on the metallic perch is hard to duplicate. The all black Speed Trap is also very effective. Posted November 4, 2020 I have spoken to Diemai over the last few days, just to say hello and ask about his TU absence. Dieter admits that his enthusiasm for lure building has waned in recent years mostly due to family issues. He still experiments with fishing equipment in his workshop as the innovator that he is, but not so much on lures. European fishing is somewhat different than USA fishing, it is more about bait fishing than lures. Dieter says ‘Hi to y’all’ and hopes, as I certainly do, that he will be back on TU sharing his knowledge and skills in the not too distant future. Dave

I try to avoid pouring lead because of the health risks. I use LPO unpainted frames when I am not getting them from a local company. The LPO frames are good quality. The one in that pic is an LPO frame painted with nail polish in blue glitter on top of silver glitter polish. I clear coat them with either epoxy thinned with denatured alcohol or a few coats of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails clear nail polish. For hard baits made out of wood or PVC, I use the Bullet Weight lead coils for ballast. I just drill the ballast hole to the diameter size of the coil. I don’t have any sonic blades big enough for pike. I bet they would work. I have always had luck with the French blade. So, I mostly stick with those on inlines. The big thing for me is that the French blade starts immediately to spin on the retrieve. When you cast to a target like a log or weed edge, jerking the lure to get the blade spinning can take the lure out of the fish’s strike zone. I hate wasted casts where I can’t get a blade to spin. Yes, the length to width ratio of the blade will affect the thump. The amount of the depth in the cup of the blade will too. Most of my blades came from LPO. All my French blades in a given size have the same dimensions . The blades that I have found to have the most thump are flat Colorados like the one made by Hildebrandt. Hildebrandt Colorados have almost no cup. I have some nearly flat royals that are close to the flat Colorados in thump. I have not had much luck with the flat blades on inline spinners. They sit against the shaft and act like a sled. I have to pop them at the start of the retrieve to get them going. They work great on spinnerbaits. I have not had luck with 2 blades on a split ring either, with one exception. On a pike spinnerbait, I have some with a tiny orange blade on top off the rear blade for a bright flash of color. For example, the front blade on the spinnerbait is a copper size 4 on the clevis, the rear blade is a gold 5 with a small fluorescent orange blade on top of it on the split ring on the swivel. I don’t really know if the small orange blade makes a difference. Adding 2 small blades to a larger blade will hurt or stop the spin. Dardevle has 2 small blades on their Klicker spoons. Those spoons don't spin. They rock back and forth and the little blades make a clicking sound. I have had luck with mini spinnerbaits on browns and rainbows. I pattern mine after the Super Rooster tail. They would work on most fish. I have used up-sized beetle spins on bass with success. I have used some with paddletail swimbaits on them. For the mini buzz baits, you could try an inline design with the head on drop down bend like a Molix Super Squeaky buzz bait . You could also try one like Strike King’s Swinging Sugar buzz bait which can be made with a bullet weight. A couple of the buzz baits in the pic may not run right like the ones were the wire is bent up before the hook (diagonally above the wheat penny to the right and the one on the far right). They look like they would roll over. I would have the wire drop down the hook to have it act as a keel. After you make the line tie loop, bend the wire back to hook so it is parallel to the part of the wire going to the hook. Then bend the wire close to vertical after the loop, angled slightly back towards the hook. Then bend the wire at right angle to put the blade on. The LPO design in the link is a good one to copy. I usually start with a proven design and modify to fit whatever my needs are. https://www.lurepartsonline.com/Pro-Planer-Heads

If LPO's doesn't answer and superglue won't work, I would give Mend-It or Huddlebond a try. TW carries Mend-It.

You’re welcome. I don’t mind if info gets repeated. If someone is new to the site, it might be the first time they see it. Sometimes, I can’t find a post with either the search on the main screen or the one under the ‘Activity’ tab. The people on this site have been great in helping find the info. As I read more and more of the posts going back years, I frequently can guess who made the post I am looking for and can find it under their user name. Some of the posters are incredibly knowledgeable on certain lure making topics. Before I found about this site, the only way I learned was through failed lures. This site has dramatically increased my successful lure rate. The Bassdover article is a good one. I have not tried whiptail blades yet. I want to see those on an inline and a spinnerbait. I like the royal blades on a spinnerbait. Dieter has some interesting spinner designs. On some spinners, he uses a weight that looks like an inverted keel weight in front of the blade in an Eerie Dearie set up. You can see the weight at 3:20 in his video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZI6w-p7ISM&t=836s

Welcome to the site. I makes spinners with a total weight from 1/4 oz trout spinners to 3 oz bucktails (14g to 85g). I mostly use French blades. They are easy to get to spin. I prefer the stirrup clevis. I can't help much on those small spinners. The Roostertail blade is called a 'swing' blade. Worth makes them if you are looking for bulk. Barlows carries them in smaller quantities. You should be able to find them in a variety of finishes (painted, hammered, rippled, scaled, smooth) on eBay and elsewhere if you search for swing blades or swiss swing blades. https://barlowstackle.com/Swing-Blades-Nickel-Finish-P2530/ https://barlowstackle.com/Swing-Blades-Brass-Finish-P2531/ https://lurecomponents.worthco.com/products/spinner-blades/swing/smooth The angled clevis looks interesting. I have tried the plastic quick change clevis that are angled but they broke rather easily on the size spinners I make. I don't use the plastic ones anymore. I like that 2-tone gold-silver French blade. The spinner at the bottom is the Shyster (or a knockoff) made by Luhr-Jensen (now owned by Rapala). I mentioned in another post. It does help reduce line twist. http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/37973-inline-blade-thickness/ I have become a fan of using soft plastics with an inline. I use weighted swimbait hooks with a corkscrew. On those small baits, you would probably have to use lead wire wrapped around the hook. The weight on the hook acts a keel and reduces twist. It reminds of when I was a kid fishing with a Mepps comet minnow. Some of my smaller spinners have flies or streamers for the hook. I look for flies with a big hook eye that will take a small split ring. I also take the parts off Joe's spinner flies and put them on a new shaft with beads and a body for casting distance. I found some of those on clearance at Walmart.

LPO has solid beads down to 3/32" in brass, nickel, and black nickel. Jann's has them down to 1/8". The hole on the smaller beads are .039 which works well on the small spinners. Spinners with size 4-6 blades and .040 shaft wire, I use the 1/8" bead. Some of the beads in a given pack will have a slightly larger or smaller hole. https://www.lurepartsonline.com/Solid-Brass-Beads?quantity=1&custcol_beads_eyes_paint_size=40&custcol_beads_eyes_paint_color=14 I sometimes use hollow metal beads as bearing beads. Although hollow beads wear out eventually, I find that the wire shaft usually goes first from getting bent by fish or a snag and then bent back into shape. Fishing in northern pike waters with spinners with shaft wire of .040 or less, one fish can mangle the shaft. On .051 shaft spinners, I definitely use solid bearing beads because that wire should last a while. I use bullet shaped weights for bodies. I use brass, black nickel finished brass weights, colored tungsten weights, and lead weights I paint. Lead and brass weights are cheap. I also do use some actual spinner bodies. On some spinners, I use 2 bullet weights with the bases against each other with or without a bead in between. It gives a nice tapered shape. I thought I might get a clack using 2 brass weights base to base by giving a pause and snap on the retrieve. I don't know if it actually does this. I got the idea from those Carolina Short Cut rigs.

If you keep having line twist problems, you can try a line tie loop like a Shyster. This gives a keel type effect to a standard type body. You could also try a Super Rooster tail type setup which is more like a cross between a spinnerbait and in-line. These can made in small sizes and eliminate most line twist. After years of mainly targeting largemouth and smallmouth, I got more into fishing for other species. The last 5 years, I got more into spinners. In the spring, I target rainbows, browns, landlocked salmon, and stocked tiger trout with smaller spinners. I frequently catch bass doing this. When using bigger spinners for bass (blades sizes 4 to 6), I would catch pike and an occasional walleye. That led to building a lot of spinners to try to catch multiple species on a given trip. It's fun when you can catch multiple species on the same lure.

You can have a range of overall weight to blade spinners and still have the spinner perform. The weight range will give you the ability to have spinners that run higher or lower in the water column. I have some size 4 blade spinners with 1/4 to 3/4 oz weights. I sometimes troll spinners and spinnerbaits. I use the different body weights and blade sizes to get the bait to the depth I want. Generally, it looks like I use size 6 trebles on size 2 blade spinner. On size 3 and 4 blade spinners, I use a 4 treble. On a few size 3 blade spinners, I have a size 6 treble (mostly for trout). On some size 4 spinners, I upsize to a size 2 or short shank 2 treble on colors like red white and fire tiger that are just as likely to get a pike as well as bass. On size 5 spinners, I use a number 2 treble. You can downsize the hook for stream fishing. You can upsize when snags won’t be an issue and when big fish are possible. The chart from Jann’s can be useful. I wouldn’t just go with the standard spinner setups. Experimenting is the key to finding the most successful spinner. https://www.jannsnetcraft.com/content/make_fishing_lures.htm Just wait until you start using Siwash hooks or weighted swimbait hooks. That throws a lot more variables into the mix. I have made and purchased some double 4 and 5 French blade spinners. I have not any more luck with those compared to a single blade. The double blades do run shallower. You can get them to run just below the surface with the rod tip up. On a double bladed spinner, I like using 2 clevises that are overlapped as opposed to the one piece S shaped clevis. I like the look of the 2 overlapped clevises in the water. I catch more fish on the 2 clevis setup, but it could just be a confidence thing that causes me to fish those more. I have not built a ‘staggered’ double blade spinner yet, 2 different types of blades or different sizes of blades (ex. a size 4 French with a size 5 French, or a Indiana with a French blade). The staggered blades setup has become popular for muskies. I wonder if a downsized version will work for bass. If you have a stockpile of bronze, you can use those for undressed, tubing, and silicone strand dressed hooks. Use the bronze for the dressed hooks that will dry the quickest. Use the black nickel of the fur dressed hooks. I do have a spinner with a rivet. It don’t know if it squeaks. I never thought about the squeak. I was short on beads and used a rivet. I can’t hear it as it is under water. It doesn’t seem to be any more or less effective. In addition to properly drying spinners, I like to keep mine in a ze-rust or rustrictor plano type box. You can also buy the anti-rust tabs to put in any box. They do seem to help.

https://cart.saltwaterplugs.com/tail-weights.html Maybe you could use these tail weights with the cup washer. You could trim the weights to fit your lures. Maybe you can find a tail weight mold or someone who has one? I don't know if anyone on here has the mold that could make you some. I could not find the mold for sale anywhere. Maybe you could use a bullet nose or worm nose type mold instead with a piece of shaft wire to preserve the shaft hole. https://barlowstackle.com/Do-It-Bullet-Nose-Jig-Molds-P228/ https://www.lurepartsonline.com/Worm-Nose-Sinker-WNS-6-A The tail weight mold looks like this:

I have not seen a solid half sphere. Maybe the one in the bait above is a cup washer with a piece of lead inside. https://www.lurepartsonline.com/Cup-Washers_2?quantity=1&custcol13=157 You could make a wood mold with a pin in it to pour the lead. You could also just fill the cup washer with lead or tungsten putty or even JB weld which is pretty heavy. You may have to open up a bait to see what is on inside. I have some baits with ends finished with cup washers. The body ends are rounded to fit the cup. They just put epoxy in the cup to bond it and the end wrap smushes it onto the body.

I agree with Azsouth in looking at the total weight of the spinner compared to the blade size. I have a couple of size 4 and 5 French blade spinners with bodies that weigh over an ounce for fishing deeper water in reservoirs. These spinners would be useless in a stream and most rivers. I prefer the standard thickness blades. I want the blades spin as easily as possible. I find the thick blades can be tough to get start spinning. The thick ones can spin lazily and look unnatural. I use the LPO regal finish blades and painted blades. I mostly use French blades as they seem to spin the easiest on an inline spinner and start immediately. I have a few with swing blades and a couple of with Colorado blades. I only use the .040 thick blades on big bucktails for musky/pike, just for durability. I have not tried any .032 thick blades. Those might not have the lazy spinning of .040 blades. The LPO blades are .025" thick which I am happy with. I like the common stirrup clevis. Just personal preference. .030" shafts are fine for size 3 blades. For size 4 blades, I use .035. For size 5 and 6, I use .040" shafts. For bigger spinners and bucktails, I go to .051" shafts. I tend to favor the thicker wire shafts as I frequently fish waters with bass and pike. For dressings/trailer, I have used just about everything from undressed, colored tube on the shank, flies and streamers put on a split ring, feathers, squirrel tail, craft fur, flashabou, bucktail, silicone skirt strands passed through the hook eye and held on with a small piece of shrink tube, grubs/ menace grubs/ thin bodied craws on straight shank hooks, and paddletail swimbaits on swimbait hooks with a corkscrew. They all have their time and place depending on the conditions. On bluebird sky, clear water, calm no wind days, silver blade undressed hook may be the way to go. Clouds, slightly stained water, ripples on the surface, gold blade or copper blade with a subdued to moderate dressing. For rainbows and browns, I usually go with a undressed hook, a fly, or just a few silicone strands trimmed short for dressing. Typically, just 4-6 black strands to resemble a fly or bug. Heavy chop, chocolate milk water, low light, painted blades with a larger type hook dressing, grub or paddle tail swimbait. The better the chance the fish can get a real good look at the spinner the more I like a subdued presentation. I keep switching up until I find the right combo. I mostly use black nickel hooks. I think they look better in addition to lasting longer. Using any bait such as a inline spinner with a dressing, spinnerbait, buzzbait, jig, or anything that can trap water, the key is to let it dry before putting it away. I always try to carry an empty hydroflow plano 3505 box to hold baits like those while fishing. I keep an empty one in my boat. It's like a hanging dry rack. Never put wet baits back with dry gear until the baits are fully dry. Once I get back from fishing, I can dry them with a paper towel and lay them out to dry completely somewhere. I usually remove any soft plastic trailers (grubs, chunks, swimbaits) before putting the baits away. The salt in trailers can corrode hooks. If you have an unused plano box or want a smaller hanging dry box, just take your unused box or buy a cheap 3504 box and drill a bunch of holes in it. Remove any gear from the box before drilling. I only say this because an idiot friend of mine drilled the holes in his Plano box without removing the gear inside and ruined a crankbait he liked. Some more info in a past post: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/37610-blade-weight/

They are called solid beads. The Musky Shop carries them in brass and nickel plated brass. The largest size they carry is 3/8" diameter and have a .063" hole. https://www.muskyshop.com/products/components-lure-building-solid-brass-beads-per-10-pack?_pos=3&_sid=164c41d09&_ss=r You might be able to find some in stainless by looking for stainless steel beads for jewelry making. https://www.etsy.com/listing/659584710/stainless-steel-polished-beads-round?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=solid+stainless+steel+beads&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&organic_search_click=1&pro=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUd5zpGwA5Y The loudest rattling bait I have made was based on the above video. Drill a small pilot hole through the body being careful to avoid internal hardware. Then, I used a forstner bit on each side to drill out a disc on each side just a hair deeper than a dime. I think it was a ¾” bit, maybe 5/8”. A dime should sit being just a hair under flush. Once the disc holes are drilled, use a ½” (or 3/8”) bit to widen the pilot hole going through the bait. Seal the hole with superglue. Put one dime in place and glue/epoxy it in. Once dry, place that dime side face down and drop in the biggest diameter steel ball (or 2) that will fit in the hole going through the bait. Glue/epoxy in the dime on the other side to cap the hole being careful to only get glue on disc cut. Use epoxy, super glue & baking soda, or bondo to make the dime face flush to the surface of the body. It should just need a skim coat. The steel ball will whack against the dimes which are just at the edge of the body. On a wide body bait, this will be very loud. You can downsize this set up with smaller metal discs and a smaller balls if the dimes won’t fit in the body. My local hardware store sells assorted size stainless ball bearings in the pull out box racks. You can cut small discs out of sheet metal if you can’t find any. If you have to trash a defective or broken plastic bait, make sure to smash it open and take any steel balls for future use.

I like the idea of the Rapala. How about a jointed Rapala. Back in the day when I fished from a rowboat, I would drag a J11 jointed Rapala behind the boat when I was rowing from spot to spot. It's nice if you are on a new body of water you want to explore and keep a lure in the water. It caught lots of fish and I didn't have to worry about getting snagged. You can wake the J11 Rapala if you hold your rod tip up and slow the retrieve a bit. You can hit the same depths as a squarebill with the rod down. You can also deadstick twitch it on the surface. It find it versatile and productive. You may want to upsize it some if you will be for going pike/musky. I recently made my own version of a Deps MT wake bait. This lure also seems like it will be versatile. The bait make a lot of racket. It should be great for bass, pike and musky. It is jointed wake bait with a Colorado blade flaptail. You can switch out the blade for different sounds/colors. You could also take the blade off and replace it with a corkscrew and grub trailer. It sounds like silverware getting dropped down stairs with a size 5 or 6 Colorado on the back. You could make one with a different lip angle if you want more depth. The sketch looks like it could work. That is a big lip. You will get a nice arm workout. I would be worried the lip might separate from the bait. Maybe try to get the lip imbedded a bit more by going straight up with the belly hook screw or you could vertically cross-pin the lip.

I use .032 on 1/4 oz and some 3/8 oz compact frame spinnerbaits for bass. .035" wire on large frame 3/8 oz baits and most 1/2 oz spinnerbaits. .040" wire on 3/4 oz spinnerbaits and some 1/2 oz for targeting pike. .051" on 1 oz and heavier spinnerbaits. I only have a couple of .062 wire spinnerbaits for pike/musky because that wire is such a pain to bend. The longer the wire and/or the heavier the head, I lean to the thicker wire. The more compact the frame and lighter the head, I lean to the thinner wire. On a straight in-line spinner, you could get away with .032 on 1/2 oz bass bait. Less flexing of the wire on an in-line spinner. As an alternative to pouring lead, you could get some of the LPO unpainted spinnerbait heads. I like the minn-o-spin, the signature spin, and the hidden weight heads. Those heads have good hooks, Mustads and Gamies. https://www.lurepartsonline.com/Minn-O-Spin-Spinnerbaits?page=1 https://www.lurepartsonline.com/Lure-Making/Shop-By-Product-Category/Jigs-Spinnerbaits-Buzzbaits/Spinnerbait-Heads/Bass-Spinnerbait-Heads?page=1

There is a Roumba Wake and a Roumba crank. Both have similar bodies. The Roumba wake dives 0-1'. The Roumba crank goes 1-3'. The bait in your pic looks like a knockoff of the Roumba, not the actual Roumba. The knockoff runs deeper than both of the actual Roumbas. I have the knockoff which does run 3-4'. The knockoff is my bottom pic, sexy chrome color. The lip of the knockoff is steeper than the lip of the actual Roumbas which is why the knockoff dives deeper. The Roumba lip points down more whereas the knockoff lip is angled more towards the line tie. There is probably some variation in diving depth depending on which factory in China is making the knockoff. Some of the knockoffs have a smooth finish. Some have a molded in dimple scale pattern. Some have differences in the gill plate. Any lettering on the bait? What is the length and weight? There are many slightly different knockoffs of the Roumba on Aliexpress. They seem to mostly range from 50 to 75 mm in length.

It looks like a knockoff copy of an Ima Roumba. The lip is different from the Roumba and Ima prints a logo or Roumba on the back of the bait. Here is a link to the unpainted blank. It is out of stock. https://www.wlure.com/collections/blank-crankbait/products/fishing-lures-blank-crankbaits-upc677-br-2-inch-1-4-oz?variant=21056627277942 I have one of the painted knockoffs. Wlure no longer has the painted ones on their site. Here is one link for the painted knockoffs. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32950024121.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.19ba1e1bB8uckh&algo_pvid=699cb027-bf46-4497-80e2-16c3f998088c&algo_expid=699cb027-bf46-4497-80e2-16c3f998088c-40&btsid=0bb0623c16160955974795472e7e77&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

The only thing I can think off is with the traditional buzzbait (top lure) the frog will sit a bit lower in the water than the inline. This may get a few more strikes from fish hesitant to break the surface. Some people say inline buzzbaits get on plane faster but I haven't notice a difference with a frog on it. In pike and musky country, the inline is easier to fish with a leader. You will have to put surgical tubing over the R bend on a traditional bait or the leader snap could slide up or down the arm. I don't like to change blades on a traditional buzzbait. Before I put the rivet on, I scuff the top of the rivet with sandpaper. After I put the rivet on, I crush the tube part of the rivet with needle nose pliers so the rivet won't spin with blade. The blade spinning on the roughed up rivet top makes a good squeal.

Before you cut that wood master, you could mold it to make multiple masters. That way you can experiment on where to make the cut for the molding of the two halves. The original sketch looks like 60% resin front half and 40% paddle tail. The longer the paddle tail section the more it can flex and kick. If you mold 3 masters from the one uncut master, you could try a 50/50 or 40/60 ratio of front-to-back sections in addition to 60/40 sketch.