squarehead paint

Sorry for offending. I may be a new member here, but not to forums. I have owned a discussion community of over 30,000 users for also over 24 years. Spam is removed in minutes, if we get it at all. I won't report it again—if it doesn't bother you, I won't let it bother me. Tight lines, carry on.

i'm wondering if anyone is still at the helm or if this ship is drifting aimlessly. i reported the spam this weekend and it's still there... that would be unfortunate.

If I could make a recommendation... space heaters and heat guns get RED hot. They can set things on fire. Big, expensive things. I have had multiple heat guns end their lives by spitting out red hot metal chunks after years of use. They will all give up the ghost at some point, but whatever you decide on, at the very least least don't buy cheap tools. Get yourself a name brand that has a reputation and a warranty and wasn't assembled by 7-year old kids on the dirt floor of a hut somewhere. You don't need a $100 heat gun, but you don't need to be super cheap with a tool like this, either.

I've owned quite a few different brands over the years and the one I have now is my favorite. For $26 from Home Depot, you can't beat it... and don't bother with the multi-tmp version for twice the price, it's a pain to use. Wagner 2-temp heat gun

there is a small machine shop out of new york called Yag Machine that makes single and dual 4 and 6oz injectors that are VERY nice, and priced extremely reasonably. it's just justin making stuff and shipping stuff out in the evening, but he responds within a day. he also sells on eBay, but you can hit him up and get stuff through him on FB. i have a single and dual injector from him and i'm super happy with them both.

You need to airbrush color shift paints, there is no getting around that. You can't brush that type of paint (or pearls, fluorescents or anything that isn't a solid color), the effect will not work.

Check Epic Bait Molds for large open pour swim baits. Many designed by Marling Baits. Super high quality aluminum molds.

I managed to get in touch with Steve Corley, who is the nephew of the late Bobby Ditto, the creator of this bait and many others. Here's what I learned... These little snake-headed worms were indeed called the Ditto Verifier, named by the late Dr Loren Hill, because, "these baits will always verify if there are any bass down there or not." He had something to do with the development of the Snatrix, too, and the matter of which came first is up for argument. The Verifier was first molded in 1980. The funky caramel/purple one was called Chocolate Motor Oil, and the back and blue was called (you guessed it), Black and Blue Laminate. He said they were available in both 3" and 11" versions if you can believe that. And it's true that Terry Scroggins owns all of the old Ditto molds and produces them mostly for himself, but does give them away on his social accounts from time to time. Fun little fishing tackle archeology adventure. Can't wait to see how these work, once I figure out the best way to rig one up.

What size MF bottles, they have different caps on different size bottles? If you are referring to their 2oz LDPE "Boston" bottles, they use 20/410 lids or caps. You should be able to find those at a lot of different sources, including Amazon.

I have a few Epic Bait Molds and they are all VERY high quality. As the son of a boutique machinist and die mold maker, I'm looking at these for more than just the baits they produce, and Jason is making products to a very high standard. If you are contemplating EBM molds, just get them. They have just about everything in stock and on-hand, and ship almost immediately, no waiting.

Thanks, I will definitely do that...

depends on the size of the flake. small, fine flake can be sprayed through a large tip airbrush, but frankly it's messy and i try to avoid it. gets everywhere. and i mean EVERYWHERE. there are glitters, pearls and flakes for mixing in automotive paints, but you do usually need a larger tipped gun for stuff like that. i love the look but don't enjoy painting flakes of any kind. if you are talking about store bought flakes for soft baits and such, no, it's too large to shoot through normal methods.

Someone has mentioned these may have been called Ditto Verifier Worms, and the colors are all over the map. And just to put some minds at rest, I have no intention of melting these down. When I bought them, I had no idea these were anything other than ordinary Zoom finesse worms and brush hogs. It's been fun to try to track down the history of these Culprit and Ditto soft baits. Always interested in hearing more, there isn't a lot out there about Ditto Baits outside of the very popular Gator Tail.

Awesome info. These are definitely very closely connected. Funny thing, I also got a bunch of those old Culprit curly tail worms in this lot, too, man in black and a beautiful black grape.

Ok, new stuff... I decided to look back into some of these bags to see what I may have missed when I was separating it all and bagging it yesterday. Turns out, I missed some things in the bag of black baits—some Culprit black grape worms, and more DITTO eels (or whatever they are)! Found 6 more of these little 3" Ditto snake/eel things—they are split laminated, half opaque black and half SUPER dark transparent blue, which makes them look like a black grape when you hold them in your hand. Up to the light, it's definitely royal blue. Because of the rough molding on these, the edges get this weird blue halo, which is really cool. Still have no idea what these are, but this is fun. LOL

thanks guys, i reached out to both larry nixon and terry scroggins through instagram. hopefully one of them knows what this is and can shed some insight. fun find, regardless.

Looks like the Gator Tail has a serrated edge on the tail and the shortest one was 5.5". This one is something different, and I can't find it anywhere. From what I can gather, the founder of Ditto died in 2011 and the company was bought by Allen Lures, which then went out of business. At that point, pro angler Terry Scroggins acquired all of the old molds in Florida auction. I've been trying to reach out to him via social channels, but he has them all locked down pretty well from getting contacted by anyone. Regardless, this is a strange little worm with a little snake head and eyes. I kinda want to see how they work now.

Not sure about adhesives, but I do know that Elaztech will melt standard plastisol into a puddle of goo if they come in contact with each other for any length of time. Not sure if you really want to mix that chocolate with your peanut butter. I'm guessing this science experiment isn't going to work.

So this morning I took a drive to pick up a couple of tackle boxes of unbagged soft plastics that were listed as "gummy fishing worms." In total, it's about 6 pounds of stuff that I had really only acquired to melt down and re-shoot in my own molds. I figured the drive was worth the donor plastics. Turns out there are quite a few colors that look to be NLA or special production, mostly Zoom and Culprit. About 2 pounds of Zoom Junebug finesse worms and brush hogs alone. Lots of really interesting color combos. One worm is really stumping me. It's stamped DITTO and is the strangest combo of an earthworm or caramel color and a color shifting purple, depending on the light angle. It's about a 3" curly tail worm, eel or snake in molded form. I can find almost nothing online about DITTO baits, other than the "Gator Tail" seems to be a well-loved worm over the years. Looks like the namesake and former owner Bobby Ditto passed away a long time ago, and I don't see anything about a company still making any products still. Anyone have any info on this one? Like, what's the color called and what is the bait called? Don't think this one is getting melted down, it would just look like a blob of clay anyway. Doug