basscatcher8

Haven't checked in here in awhile. Figured I'd drop some of the latest off my drying rack. Balsa squarebills. Copper Gill Pattern.

This is the time of year our river gets low and lazy as well and the smallies spread out. Illinois river is a bit bigger than what some of you are fishing though. That's when I go to the unconventional stuff to locate them. I pull crankbaits on leadcore down stream at 3.5 mph. You'll hit them eventually. I normally have the spinning rods ready so that when I do hit one. I'll go back up stream and drift a tube through there and normally pickup a couple more.

I've started using jig skirt bands to hold my guides on the tip. I get better tension without having to double them. If you cut them in half on your bench they are thin enough to hold the smallest guides and come off cleanly.

I fish the Illinois River for small mouth a lot. It's 20 feet maybe at it's deepest but cut out for barge traffic and all that. When the water drops and the current gets slow in the summer the fish most definitely spread out. To the point casting for them gets a bit much and I'll speed troll cranks on leadcore about 3-3.5 mph and locate fish that way. I've had other friends who have livescope on the boat at this time see fish that were actually suspended out in the channel only down a couple feet by themselves.

These only run about 2-4 foot deep. Great around shallow cover.

I just finished up some balsa squarebills for some customers. I'm very pleased with the final results. Looking forward to spring.

Wow I'm only a few months late lol I don't get to this site as much as I use to. I just think it looks cleaner. It still has the last coat of epoxy over top of it to seal it all in and everything. I also like painting without the bill in the way. But to your point there are plenty of guys who do it that way with the bill installed before painting. All of Marty's baits are like that and he turns out some real gems. I don't know if he posts much on here anymore or not. Well since these I added a little bit more weight with the same body and the added weight really made them come alive. They got a bit of a "hunt" action to them in that they make an erratic move every few turns of the reel handle.

Adding one I just finished up.

I've been tuning on these baits for awhile and finished up another set yesterday. I've been tinkering for about 2 years now trying to learn the process and get something I like. I'm happy with how they turned out but still more improvements to be made.

I bought a desktop cnc last year to mess with for building baits and built a few jig molds but my latest project has been doing a injection mold for soft plastic. Been quite the trial and error process but finally managed to get one done. It doesn't shoot perfect. Little bit of flashing but getting full baits at least. These are a swim body for Sauger on the river. Now that I've kind of got my head around how these go together time to sit down and come up with more lol the sickness continues.

I've thought about using an aero seat like that for a jerkbait rod before. Got tired of the trigger digging at my hand while working the bait and thought about doing exactly what you have in the picture. It fit well enough just never built it.

Dwight Are you using a pretty stout rod to be able to move the bait with that much lead out behind the boat? I've been learning a lot about this technique and just trying to soak up what I can.

Man I must run around in a different walleye circle than the rest of ya. All my buddies are walleye fisherman but none of them eat fish. They are all tournament fisherman. I agree a lot of guys chase em for dinner but there is a good group out there that is doing the same thing the bass guys do every weekend. Giving them a ride in the livewell to the scales and releasing them. I never understood the fight. I enjoy going after all of them and there are some walleye tactics I like to use to look for smallies and vice versa. But some folks gotta have something to hate.

Man I love that cactus cork. I need to get some for my xray build later this year.

What those guys said. I'll get on the floor myself and roll it and depending on how the blank is the tip will move in like an oval pattern as you roll it back and forth. I'll roll it slow until the tip as at the very tip of that oval and mark the top of the blank so I know where that is and build to it.