cadman

Very nice machine work. I see you said you made your own cad drawings. What cad software do you use? I am a machine and sheet metal designer by trade.

I totally agree with Ghoti. I use similar lines on similar reels just like he does. I am not a phenomenal fisherman, but I catch a lot of fish. I tried fluoro used it for a year, but it started to break on me in mid spool went back to mono. I tried Power Pro braid, I could not get used to it went back to mono. Now I'm back to my Trilene XL in 6-8 lb for my spinning and 10 lb for my baitcasters. I couldn't be happier. If it works for you don't try to fix it, you will get nuts listening to everybody's advice.

If you are referring to the pound at $33.25, that is bulk rubber not silicone tabs. Bulk rubber you usually have to cut it to length and then make your skirts. The number of skirts you get is based on how long you cut them. Two different animals. I buy tabs from fishingskirts.com. A 10 pack of living image skirt tabs is approx. $2.50 not $2.50 per tab. 100 tabs cost approx $20.00 plus $6.00 shipping. 100 tabs will make roughly 40 jigs if you use 2-1/2 tabs per jig. So you can figure from that. As far as the other stuff, I only wire tie my jig skirts and use nothing else to make them fuller other than tie them tighter.

As far as I remember, you just turn the tabs counterclockwise and the cartridge will come out.

Well, I'm impressed. Very nice coordinating paint job.

Yep me as well. As soon as the waters open up here. Rattle trap and a jig fished very slowly on the bottom. I have really good luck with a red or craw rattle trap also a red/black jig no weedguard. Let us know how you do. I still have ice on our lakes here. probably another couple of weeks.

I agree with smalljaw, however I would think you would be more in the 200 -300 dollar range. If you want to save money don't start up pouring, because there is the initial start-up cost, and then all the other things you will need. Also there is a big learning curve in pouring and a bigger learning curve in painting. All this depends on what your ultimate goal is. if you are going to pour for yourself and friends, it might be worth your while, but it is a never ending hobby that you always dump money into, because you always want to try something new, and new cost money. Your biggest concern would be to make sure you are careful and don't get burned. Good luck in your endeavor.

Ain't that the truth. 60 degrees Sunday and in the teens today. I have Spring fever now sooooo bad. Lakes by us in northern IL are still frozen. Maybe a couple more weeks and woohoo early Spring.

I had mine custom made to match my color boat as well. It is not block letters and similar to slonezp's text. I have had my boat with this text for 7 years and never had a problem with it. As long as the numbers and letters are clearly discernible, you shouldn't have a problem with it.

I don't have an answer for you, but smalljaw is the man that ties a lot of hair jigs for smallies. He will be on here shortly and give you solid advice, on what you need. I also believe he has some excellent tutorial on You Tube you can watch.

I live in northern IL, and more muskie caught on the Fox Chain these past couple of years. Never got one out of Bangs or Lake Zurich. My wife got one about 44" out of Lake Marie when we were walleye fishing. You fish some of the lakes I do, I mostly fish S.E. Wisconsin waters. Welcome.

That is a good deal. The best rebate I saw from RCBS was $50.00. I might look into getting another one for a spare. Thanks for the heads up.

What is the Do-It mold model # and cavity you are having issues with? I can check at home as well to see what size screwlocks are supposed to fit. BTW welcome, I see you are in northern IL. I live there as well. If you want I can help you via phone as well..

You can make your own baits on anything that's out there for your own personal use. However you cannot sell them.

Allen, I suppose so. I knew as soon as these hit the market, and Owner saw them there would be trouble and sure enough, a little short while later they were all pulled off the market. So now we all have to pay Owner what ever they charge

I use the Mustad 32886 hooks as well, along with a centerpin twistlok exactly like Owner's except the ones I have were taken off the market. Lucky for me at the time I bought 4000 pieces, so I will have enough for a lifetime. It puts me at approx. same price as Bluebasser86 with the hook and the centerpin.

I totally agree on your decision. I would never pour out in the open, to me it is a bad idea. In your basement, just vet out any fumes from the lead pot. If when you are pouring, you don't even need to close off an area, unless you have kids and pets, that may go around and touching thing or licking things. I sincerely believe that you will get better pours in the basement, and not thinking about weather issues and other things that may distract you. If you have more questions, feel free to ask. Also there is a ton of info on tacklemaking , plastics and jig pouring on tackleundergrund.com So stop on buy and introduce yourself, I'm there daily.

Up to this day, I have not had any problems so far. I make a jig head called Missouri craw. This head matches fishingskirts.com Missouri craw skirt. So If I get called on the name, I am sure that fishingskirts.com will get called as well. Also who is to say that your Missouri craw is the same as my Missori craw. To me it's just a generic term. If you put on your website Cadman's Missouri craw, I wouldn't call you on Missouri craw even though both are identical. I would call you out at using my name. I wouldn't sweat the small stuff.

As far as I know when it comes to making your own jigs, I believe that there is no concern for this. Eagle Claw, Mustad, Owner, Gamakatsu all make hooks for the biggest seller of lead molds and that is Do-It. Do-It as well talks to these companies to make sure that the hooks they specify for their molds will fit the molds. So there is no issue there. You are not buying Gamakatsu hook and re- packaging them and selling them as corn-on-the rob hooks. No-one would buy your repackaged hook, because there is no credible name behind it and it doesn't make sense to repackage a name brand hook. The same thing goes for skirts and so on. People that sell all these components know that it is going in to someones jig and being resold. Now what works in your favor is to state that you are using Gami's or Owners, because some guys will only buy jigs with those hooks. I state all kind of options in my catalog with different price points. The same goes true for fishing skirts.com. I list all the stock skirts I carry, along with a link to fishingskirts.com website. This way guys can go to their website and see the way the skirts look. Let's face it fishingskirts.com has the biggest selection in skirts, and there is no way that I could show a picture of every jig that can be made with every skirt color. So from my standpoint there is nothing to worry about.

Well, this is going to be a hard question to answer as there are sooooo many variables. The quick answer to your question is yes you can pour in the cold and in the heat, summer and winter, hot with humidity along with cold and dryness. I pour year around in my garage. My garage in the winter doesn't get any colder than 45 degrees and I live in Illinois. Believe it or not I get better pours in the winter than in summer. I strongly believe that humidity does play a big part in pouring in the summer and I have more problems in the summer. So going back to your question here are some comments and questions I have for you. ***Never ever pour lead out in the open good weather or bad. You must have some shelter over your head all the time. The reason for this is water, rain, rain drop or a splash of water from somewhere. Any kind of liquid near a hot lead pot is an accident waiting to happen. Water and lead even sweat do not mix. If you get water in a hot lead pot, lead will explode all over and burn you. **You mentioned pouring on the back porch. If you have room , build yourself a makeshift enclosed room out of ply wood, with a roof and walls.You have to keep splashing water away at all costs from the outside. **If you are going to pour outside, you will need to be sheltered from the wind in the winter, summer is not a problem. If you do not shelter yourself from the wind somehow, your pot will not keep the lead hot. **Finally you are going to have to have some type of heat source in the winter in your makeshift area. I mentioned earlier that my garage is about 45 degrees on the coldest days. Believe it or not that is cold outside. If it is colder than that, your molds will cool too fast, your pot will not keep up and you body along with your hands will be cold, all the tools you will use will be cold as well. This will cause you to lose focus and your mind will wander on trying to stay warm. Let's face it, you can't pour with insulated gloves and a insulated snowmobile suit dressed like you are going to the antarctic. You will have very little mobility that way. So in conclusion, you can do anything you want, but safety is #1, and you yourself must stay warm on the coldest of days. Keep water away, get a heat source and try it out. Just an FYI, but these are just my opinions, you can do what you want.

This is pretty simple. I sell jigs and this reply is not to promote my business, but to explain the process of how to go about getting permission to sell jigs. Most terms in the jig industry, have been around for a long time and are standard, there are very few innovations in the actual jigs themselves, more in how to use the jigs with a different presentation, and someone winning a tournament and coming up with a name and selling it. For example the "A" rig, nothing new about these, the saltwater industry has been using them for years called umbrella rigs. Another example is the "Randy Howell Herring Head, other that having his name associated to that type of jig, there were underspins and tail spinners made for years nothing new here. So going back to my situation, When I decided to sell jigs, all the molds that I would be using were made by Do-It molds or Hilts. I originally called up Do-It molds and spoke to the engineering person and the owner of the company and told them that I am going to use their molds to start selling jigs, and can I use the names they associated with their molds as the name on my website. The feedback I got from Do-It was that they had no problem with that. They are a very good company to work with, and I have never had any issues with them. So, one of Do-It's best selling mold at the time was the "Poison Tail". Everyone at the time the mold came out that was pouring lead bought that mold and was selling "Poison Tail "jigs. To this day I use that name in my catalog. So the to answer your question, if you are going to sell jigs and want to use a product to sell, get permission from the company to do so. Save dates, names and letters from people you talked to at the time, so if it would come up later, you have some documentation. Now just some common sense tells you that if you are going to and sell the underspin head from Do-It and put on your website Randy Howell's Underspins, well that is a no-no. You can't use someone else's name to promote your product unless you get his permission. Open discussion with staff and documentation from all approving parties is key if you don't want to get sued. This is just the way I started my process. If you have any more question I can help answer more questions off line.

I agree with you in a sense. The way I understand it, was that they are having a hard time getting the correct pork skins to make their product. To me that does not mean that it is not available anymore, just means to me that they might raise their prices, to get the product they need to re-sell. If I remember correctly, Uncle Josh also owns Kalins and a few other companies. So I don't think they are going out of business. Please post on your findings when you hear back from Uncle Josh. I as well can do without them. It's not an end all to bass fishing if we can't use pork. JMO.

If these are swinging jigs, you do not want the resin in the eyelet correct or am I missing something in your statement? Then why not take the resin out before you bake your jig heads?

I was going to explain it more in detail, but I figured someone else would chime in and I didn't have the links available. But the way I understand it is the way you stated it, you are correct. If I remember correctly you have to change your copied design by 30% to make it sellable ( is that a word) to the market.

Yes there are copyrights and patents. The best way to avoid problems is make your own unique design and come up with your own name. So if you make worms, you cannot call them Senkos, you have to use a different name. Will your baits sell as well as a Senko with your name, maybe yes and maybe no. But the brand Senko is about the creator's name and his process. It is similar in lead jigs, however it seems the people aren't as anal about using names. The Arky jig is a household name and has no patent ties. The Brush jig as well. Many of the jigs that we use are generic names and have been named by Do-It molds and Hilts molds back in the day. Now the Chatterbait is a no-no. When it came out several years ago, the original creator's fiercely protected the name and the blade design. So you will have to do your homework and see what names are out there.