Fishwhittler

Now that is cool! I'll bet that would look really good on a stickbait.

Beautiful baits Big M! Those patterns are awesome. 8-)

Thanks guys. I did pretty well with the swimbait yesterday; I got twelve bass on it in three hours. I would have caught more, but I had a lot of missed strikes. It's odd; I made this bait to try and target larger fish, but it seemed like most of the fish I was catching were in the 11"-13" range, which is smaller than I usually catch. I did get a couple fish that looked to be about 15", but nothing that was really decent sized. On the other hand, I've never caught any fish much larger than 16" at the pond I was fishing, so I can't say that this bait doesn't catch big fish. I'll have to do more testing for that, but in the meantime, I've got a much smaller version that I think will be absolutely deadly. Actually the small-fish-eating-large-baits scenario isn't really surprising to me. I'll probably catch a ton of dinks on it before I get one big one. :

Great looking baits there. The wounded tennessee shad is gorgeous.

Very nice! The tequila shad and the blueback herring are awesome. 8-)

Awesome baits Big M! Standard or not, they look great. 8-)

Here are some more baits. A couple cranks, a walking bait, and another swim/wake bait.

Very nice! 8-) I'll bet the fish will jump all over it. If I'm not mistaken that's a photo-finish, not paint. Photo-finishing involves taking an image of a real fish, printing it on paper, and then gluing the paper to the bait. It's probably the most realistic way to "paint" a bait.

This is a new swimbait design I just finished, loosely based on the Sebile Magic Swimmer. It has a nice, semi-hunting action when cranked, or it will wake on the surface when reeled slowly. I also included a pic of a small crank. Both of these are painted in a bluegill pattern, although it may be closer to a green sunfish with a blue gill. Pictures do not do these baits justice, the crankbait in particular. The topcoat is so shiny it's hard to get a decent pic (which is not a bad thing!). I'll try to get some better pics later. Let me know what you think. Ben

Six lures!?! I'll bet you were real happy about that. . . NOT! :-X Thanks for the tip! I cut the blob off and sanded it down smooth, so hopefully the next coat of epoxy will cover up the flaw. I was going to put two coats of epoxy on anyway, but that blob created extra work that I could do without.

The big blob of epoxy on the back of the lower bait is the mistake. Believe me, I didn't do that on purpose! :-X Apparently the epoxy hadn't set long enough before I turned off the drying motor. Next time I'll just leave it on overnight.

Here's my attempt at baby bass. I wasn't quite sure what color I wanted to paint this bait, so I decided to play it safe and go with a bass pattern. I think it turned out pretty well. The other bait. . . well, the other bait is the mistake. I just got a drying motor the other day and I was using these as a test run to make sure it worked. It did, as long as it was spinning, but I turned it off too soon. The result is what you see below. At least this only happened to one of my baits, not to some that I was making for someone else.

That's a real nice looking bait! 8-)

You might try red Krylon X-Metals paint. It's an anodizing spray, and it's pretty tough when fully cured. You will need nickel-finish hooks for this because X-Metals is transparent, and so if you have a dark finish (black nickel or bronze) under the X-Metals the red won't show up.

Nice video! That trout swimbait looks awesome. 8-)

I like making my own bills, and I basically have to because that's the only way I can get some of the shapes I need. For example, I use bent lexan bills on some of my lures, and making the bills by hand is the only way I can get them. @ Indiana Bass1, here's a step-by-step tutorial with pics: Twisted Wire Hinge Tutorial Note: I use vise-grips instead of a drill for twisting the wire. It works just as well, and it actually doesn't take as long.

I don't know about your question, but it's easy to make your own bills out of lexan. You just trace the pattern on the lexan, rough-cut it with tin snips, and then file or sand to final shape. This way you can make any size and shape of bill you want, and it's cheaper than buying prefabricated bills. I get my lexan from usplastic.com.

Thanks! I've got some yellow double and triple-jointed swimbaits... not fun. Flex Coat Ultra V does not yellow. I also got the old version of Flex Coat once, and it yellowed inside of a month. I switched to Ultra V after that, and I haven't had any problems since. I've got some baits coated with Ultra V that are over a year old and they still show no sign of yellowing. The only reason I would want to switch to U-40 is it's cheaper. I have zero problems with Flex Coat Ultra V and the price isn't bad at all, but if I can save a little using U-40 then I will. But if U-40 yellows, I'm going back to Ultra V. I haven't tried Threadmaster (yet!). I'm definitely interested in hearing how Threadmaster works for you! I'm always looking for a better topcoat. Ben

That is a gorgeous rod!

More pics.

Thanks all you guys! @ NateFollmer, this is my first airbrushed bait. I got a cheap airbrush/compressor combo from amazon.com and so far I'm very pleased with it. Trondak U-40 review part III: Fish Teeth Resistance I took this bait fishing today to test the durability of the U-40. I caught four fish in one hour, plus two other strikes that I missed. The U-40 held up well to the fish teeth, and it still looks very good. Scratching was about the same as Flex Coat, so if there aren't any issues with yellowing I think I'll switch completely to U-40. Below are some pics of the bait after I fished it. There is one small tear in the topcoat where the hook point stuck in and then tore free, but this could happen to any topcoat and so is simply not part of the equation.

Thanks! I didn't carve this bait; I'm not anywhere near good enough! It's a Lucky Craft RC 2.5 knockoff from predatorbassbaits.com. U-40 review part II: Hardness After more than 5 days of curing, U-40 is still not as hard as Flex Coat after the same period. In fact, Flex Coat is harder after eight to ten hours. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad, as the greater flexibility may be an advantage in resisting scratches. The difference in hardness is not much, but U-40 is slightly softer. Still to come: Yellowing and tooth marks

Very nice! I like the crappies and the bluegill Big M crank. 8-)

You can get scale mesh from jannsnetcraft.com. They also sell vinyl stencil making material, but I haven't used that. Another place that sells scale mesh is barlowstackle.com. I got some of my paint from chicagoairbrushsupply.com, and I also use some of the Wal-Mart craft paints. The Wal-Mart paints are cheaper, but need thinning before you can spray them through an airbrush. I'm using a .3 mm tip, and I find that paint sprays best if it's about the consistency of milk.

I got my first airbrushed lure completely finished, and I really like the way it turned out. What do you think? On this lure I used Trondak U-40 LS Supreme High Build as topcoat instead of Flex Coat Ultra V. I'm doing a review of U-40, and this is the first part. Trondak U-40 LS Supreme High Build review- Part I Note: I bought the High Build version of U-40, not the regular. Whenever I say "U-40" in the following report, I'm referring to U-40 LS Supreme High Build. The same thing for Flex Coat: when I say Flex Coat I'm talking about Flex Coat Ultra V High Build. I read somewhere that a lot of the epoxies out there are the same thing, only in different packaging. This cannot be said of U-40. The resin component is much thicker than the resin in Ultra V, while the catalyst is slightly thinner. While mixing, I also noticed that U-40 has a stronger smell than Flex Coat. Mixing: I did a little experimenting, and so far U-40 seems to mix best when I mix it the same way I mix Flex Coat. My technique is mix 1 minute, heat, and then keep mixing, heating at intervals of 45 seconds until you have mixed for a total of 4 minutes. Do not count the time heating as part of the four minutes. After mixing, heat the epoxy one final time and then cover it and let sit for ten minutes. Viscosity: U-40 is considerably thicker than Flex Coat, and so you can probably use fewer coats. For example, if you use three coats of Flex Coat, you can probably use only two coats of U-40. Bubbling: In my limited experience, U-40 appears to bubble more than Flex Coat. But on the package, it says to pour the mixed epoxy on a piece of foil, and I haven't been doing that. I will pour it out in the future to see if that fixes the bubbles. Heating: U-40 doesn't react to heat the same way Flex Coat does. Heating Flex Coat while mixing will pop a lot of the bubbles, and at the end of the ten minutes most of the bubbles are gone. When I heated U-40 a lot of the bubbles would pop, but I still had quite a few bubbles in the mixed epoxy. More of the bubbles popped when I was brushing the epoxy on, but it for me it hasn't been as bubble-free as Flex Coat. Also, heating U-40 after it's on the lure doesn't do much to remove bubbles; it will pop some of them but it will also generate more. Dry Time: U-40 sets up faster than Flex Coat, and is dry to touch in 4-6 hours. Flex Coat takes longer, usually 6-8 hours to dry. However, Flex Coat appears to cure faster than U-40, and after two days of cure time for each Flex Coat is a little harder than U-40 mixed on the same day. On the package it says that U-40 takes 5 days to fully cure, so I'll see how hard it is then. Appearance: U-40 gives a beautiful, glossy finish very similar to Flex Coat. Yellowing & Durability: I haven't had U-40 long enough to know how well it resists yellowing and teeth marks, but I'll try to post info in the next part of my review. That could take several weeks, so stay tuned.