Finished up some lures

I worked hard last week to get the new lures ready for the fishing derby. I ended up completing all the pike baits and a few of the jerk baits. Here are some pics.

I had taped the lure lips while painting to mask them off but I forgot to change the tape before finishing, so the paint got stuck on all of the lures. That added some difficultly when unmasking and the paint ended up coming off one of the lures, as seen above. Oh well, next time I'll remember to take it off first.

I tried them all out on Friday and the action in the lures were awesome. Only one of the lures didn't work. The top water on the far right with the perch pattern doesn't seem to have enough weight in the belly so it just flops over on its side when in the water. I'll have to add some more weight and give it a shot.

Fished with them off and on in the derby, but came up empty handed with the new lures. Although, I did end up finishing tied for 9th, so that's alright considering it was really windy and raining all day long. A tough day of fishing.

New big pike baits

I have an upcoming fishing derby through work, so I thought I would make a few bigger 'grandma' lures to troll for some pike. I also made one slider to hopefully catch some pike on a top water. These ones have to be done by next weekend so I'll keep you guys updated

It's been a while

Hey guys, haven't posted in a while because I've been busy with fishing, golfing and work and haven't had a whole lot of time to work on lures. Here are a few pictures of my progress on the bigger batch of lures I had started at the beginning of May.

The jerk baits are all sealed and ready to paint and the walleye trolling lure and a couple square bills are all glued and sanded, just waiting to be sealed. Once everything is sealed then I will start to paint.

Updated Tutorials

I have added to the tutorial section of the blog. Now you should be able to mock up an entire lure if you follow along.

http://geclures.blogspot.ca/p/tutorials.html

More tutorials to come including gluing, sealing, painting and finishing!

Trout round two

Got out for some more trout this past weekend. Ended up catching a few nice brown and rainbow trout over the two days. Here are a few pics of the trout. 

I also got to water test my new crankbaits. They all work well! They are heavier than the plastic store bought lures but their action is still very similar. I'm excited to try out my next batch of more different lures. 

Pile Of Lures

I cut out a bunch of lures today. Made four different lure designs including the same shad I have made before, a different minnow design, a short and fat square bill and a minnow jerk bait. I will post my progress on all the new lures. I decided to make larger batches of lures because it will make painting easier. Constantly having to change colours while painting sucks so i might as well make more lures and paint them all at the same time. Let me know what kind of lures you guys want to see me try and make and I'll see what I can do!

Finished!

I finished off my first set of lures today. They look better than I expected. Going to try them out this weekend to see how they work!

Some new and some old

I worked on some of the other lures today. I sealed them up so that they will be ready for paint in a day and I also tested out sealing one lure after painting. To improve the dryer, I added a switch, so now it makes it a whole lot easier to add and remove lures.

First try at painting some lures

Tried out painting some lures with the airbrush today. It was pretty frustrating because the fluorescent yellow and green paints that I bought seem to be really gritty, even after shaking. This caused the airbrush to clog up numerous times and made painting a lot more difficult. I ended up with some decent results. I used a piece of window screen to make the scale effect in some of the lures. I'm wondering if I should have sealed the foul lure before painting? I'm worried that the paint will just come off when I go to seal the lure with a final coat of epoxy. We will soon see!

Primed and ready for paint!

I put a white base coat on all of the baits that I had sealed the other day. It was such a pain in the ass! I guess I hadn't cleaned out the airbrush well enough last time I used it so my white base coat started spraying out grey half way through painting. I ended up having to take the airbrush apart and soaking all the parts to get the old paint out. I guess I learned my lesson to always thoroughly clean the airbrush when I'm finished.

I also tried out foiling one of the lures to make it so that the lure has the chrome look for some added flash. I'll probably be painting all the lures tomorrow so I'll keep you all updated.

Homemade lure spinner/dryer

I built a lure dryer today. I used an old turntable motor from a microwave (6 rpm) and wired it up with a power cord and a 1A inline fuse. The drying motor is needed because the epoxy coating (Envirotex Lite) that I used to seal the lures will sag if they aren't in constant rotation while drying. 

I also sealed the first 5 lures that I have made over the last couple of weeks to try out the new dryer and the epoxy coating. The dryer seems to be working pretty good right now, a little out of balance because the lures are different sizes but it should be ok for now. Once these lures dry for the next 24 hours, then I will begin painting the lures! 

Dryer front view

The only thing I will end up changing on the lure dryer is adding a power switch. I found it pretty annoying to have to unplug the dryer every time I wanted to add another lure onto the dryer. Adding on a switch should be an easy fix. 

First Open Water Fish!

Got some early season trout fishing in over the weekend. Took the canoe out to some stocked lakes in the area to get in on some fishing action when the walleye, pike and smallmouth seasons are all closed.

Ended up catching 8 splake on one lake and 2 on another. My buddy managed 5 splake and 2 nice rainbows on the first lake and 2 splake on the second lake. Nothing big but it was fun watching the fish nail a worm under a slip bobber all day long.

I ended up taking a couple home and they tasted awesome.

Will definitely have to get out again for some more trout before the walleye season opens up in mid May.

Bought an air compressor!

I picked up an air compressor on sale the other day and started trying out the airbrush. It's pretty sweet! Not too difficult to use, but I definitely need some practice!

Next up I need to make a lure drier so that the epoxy coating won't sag when it's drying. I'll see what I can get thrown together this week and hopefully I'll be in business soon!

Circuit board lips

I picked up some circuit board material the other day for some lure lips. I thought I would build a few with the different lips to see how it changes the action of these lure. Here are a couple of the lures I have made so far. They are just glued up, waiting to be filled and sanded

I think the lip on the second lure might be a little bit to big. I may have to trim it down with the sander if it doesn't work out.

Airbrush has arrived!

Finally got my airbrush in the mail today. It looks pretty sweet, I just have to get a small compressor and some paint before I try it out. I can't wait!

Free Lure!!!

I heard about Matzuo America giving out a promo lure a while back, so I signed up and waited. Well, it arrived today! So sign up if you haven't yet, nothing to lose.

http://signup.biggameintl.com/Signup.aspx?id=ffb29513-9013-40e3-934d-952888f83eb0

Thanks for the tip Jim!

Started assembling some cranks

I have started some assembly of a few lures now that I have received all of my ordered lure parts. I glued in the lips on a couple of the shad raps and put the prop on the skitter prop. I also added an 1/8 oz egg sinker to the belly hook on the shad raps so that the lure won't float as much and so it will remain upright in the water. Glued everything together with 5 minute 2 part epoxy and filled all the holes and gaps up with some wood filler. Below are some pictures of the assembled lures.

Top: Shap Rap
Bottom: Skitter Prop

Assembling the kickin stick is a pain because I can't glue in all of the screw eyes yet since it will have to be assembled after it has been painted.

I also made a quick drying rack out of some scraps so that I could hang the lures while the epoxy was drying.

I ended up picking up a whole bunch of pieces of pine and cedar and some polycarbonate and circuit board material on friday so I'm all set to start making a lot lot of crankbaits.
Now I'm just waiting on my airbrush to arrive in the mail an for a suitable compressor to go on sale.

Lure parts arrived!

Finally got my order for lurepartsonline in the mail today. Time to start finishing up some crankbaits!

Some new top waters and the kickin' stick

Did a bit of work on some lures today. I shaped and sanded one of the two kickin' sticks and added some wood filler to smooth the whole blank out.

I also worked on two other top water blanks that I cut out the other day. Here are my versions of the skitter pop and skitter walk.

I probably won't make another skitter pop anytime soon, that one sucked to cut out and try and shape the mouth on it. Although, I'm happy with how it turned out.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

New Lure Blank Making Tutorial

Here is a brief tutorial on how to make a lure blank.

1. Trace out lure blank pattern from an existing lure, pictures or make your own design

  

2. Trace the side profile from the lure pattern onto a piece of wood, making sure the wood grain runs lengthwise

3. Cut out the side profile of the bait, remember to keep the cutouts, you will need them later

4. Using a compass, mark the centerline of the lure lengthwise and trace the top profile of the lure onto the blank

5. Here is where you will need the cutouts. Tape the cutout back onto the blank. This makes it easier to cut out the top profile because the piece will sit flatter on the table of the saw.

6. Cut out the top profile of the lure blank, you should end up with a piece that is the rough shape of the lure you desire. 

More Tutorials to come...

STORM Kickin' Stick Blanks

Decided to try making a new lure today. While I was at Canadian Tire the other week I saw a Storm Kickin' Stick that caught my eye so I took a couple pictures of the lure and went from there. 

STROM Kickin' Stick

I ended up scaling the measurements from the pictures so that a 5" lure would have the right proportions. From the measurements I sketched out a pattern, traced it on some wood and cut out the shapes. The scrap piece of wood that I had lying around ended up being thick enough to accomodate 2 of the same lure. So I cut out the side profile of the bait and then cut the piece in half lengthwise so that I ended up with two lure blanks. Then, I traced out the top pattern and cut it out. The lure blank I ended up with is shown below. 

They both need some sanding and shaping, but I'll leave that for another day.

Started shaping some lures

I started making some lure bodies the other day. I like to fish a Shap Rap a lot so I thought it would be a good lure to start with. I had some scrap wood lying around so I made a few bodies out of some scrap pine and some other type of wood. Below are some of the results

Lure bodies

Lure Close-up

I ordered some parts from lurepartsonline.com and am still waiting on them to be delivered. A duel airbrush from ebay is also on order. They should all be here in the next week or two hopefully.

Hit up the comments section below if you have any comments or questions. I'll be glad to help you out. I'll be adding to the tools and tutorial sections in the next couple of weeks with some tips and tricks I have learned when looking into crankbait making.