So I've been experimenting with making baits for about a year now. I was bored last winter so I thought I would mess around with the Make Lure stuff and see what I could come up with. The first thing I made was a crankbait mold that I could make resin cranks from. I liked the look and action of the lures but they would not hold up when tested. I decided to try expanding foams using a thru-wire design with the guidance of a friend of mine who makes his own stuff. I started again with a crankbait/twitchbait but the lure was too heavy for the application I was going for so I switched to a lighter foam that is more buoyant and gets good kick out on a twitch. I'm still very much in the testing/experimenting phase but I think I'm headed in the right direction with the bait. The bait is just over 9" long and utilizes a complete thru-wire set-up. I am also doing all my own painting which is incredibly fun but can be incredibly frustrating. I named it "The Professor" after my dad.
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So after messing with that for a couple of months I decided to fool around with making a topwater as they are one of my favorite lures to fish. I designed a pretty simple tail spinner that sounded pretty good right out of the starting block. I was noticing, however, that the metal tail was bending after a while of throwing it so I upgraded to a thicker blade that hasn't had any problems in the few days that I've fished them. Like the crankbait this is completely thru-wired with a 7/0 hook in front and a 5/0 hook in back. Right now I'm just doing a "topraider" bend in the blade but am toying around with different ways to bend/shape it. I'm calling this bait "The Wingman". Why? Because everyone needs a good Wingman! And because he gets all the fat girls!
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It's been a lot of fun making and testing them and I'm hoping they hold up after getting chewed on by some big girls!
As nick stated, I've got some new rubber baits being prototyped right now with very positive results so far. I'm also making molds this week for an 8" dive and rise, 15" crankbait and special secret project for Mr Chris Musselman. If anyone is interested in helping with prototyping, just let me know because with work these days I only make it out to the lake a handful of times.
I know Duke likes to tinker with lures, sometimes the customization results in a ruined lure and sometimes it results in gold. Here's a customization to a pro dawg that's been gold.
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