Tips and tricks you do to your lures

[delmuts]

I can't offer much other than a few things i deal with every spring.

First when sharpening lures.

Keep a few of the twist ties from loaves of bread(or where ever!)to tie around the skirt material on inline spinners.This will leave your hooks exposed, and the material out of the way.

Another thing i do with lures that have mutiple trebles, is to clamp it in a vice between pcs. of card board( so as not to damage the hook). Then you can file it with out the other two swinging around and sticking you.

One other thing i did was to take an older pair of side cutters, and grind/file one of the jaws flat. This is used to crimp down the barbs on hooks easily. The flat side on the back of the hook and the tapered side on the barb. Works great for me.

What other tricks/ tips do you people have?

[Esox_Magnum]

I'm sure most already do this but T the hooks on wider baits like Weagles, Wades even bulldawgs. Keep a bottle of Mend It or similar in the boat/bait box or a small torch to fix dawgs with while on the water. Change out any splitrings or hooks that you feel may not be quite right even on a brand new bait. Sharpen all hooks often even on new ones.

[urban cowboy]

Sharpen hooks religiously....

Always have a second set of side cutters....

Always teach your fishing partner how to use your camera before going out on the water.....

Dont zoom your photos to close and risk cutting off the fishes tail or your head, you can always crop a pic.....

[Scottie Thomas]

Good post idea... I'm interested to see what others say too

-On dbl 10s that we use a lot at night the hooks on the back treble are pinched or ground down with a dremmel tool. This has certainly saved fish

-On a 10 inch Lifelike Perch (by Dunwright)- comes standard with two smaller hooks tied together with wire. Found that fish tend to inhale the bait or that the back hook snags up sometimes when you twitch it... so... cut the wire, throw the back hook and the wire, place a small weight where the front hook attachment is, and then replace the front hook with a 7/0 treble.

- Mag dawgs- if we've trashed a pounder we've cut the tail off the pounder and then cut the tail of off a mag dawg and and then burnt the pounder tail to the mag dawg. Seems to work well and caught some fish on it. Also played around with adding bits of color/contrast to dawgs (ex. a white twister burnt to the tail/stomach of an all black dawg, or a bit of white plastic burnt to the nose of an all black dawg)

[HugoBox]

Other than the obvious, sharpening hooks and swapping out bad split rings I've found that a small zip tie on the hooks of a Top Buster keep them from fouling when you cast and seem to help them be more easily fished across thick cover. The other thing that works great is using solder on the hook shanks to add weight without messing up the action too badly.

Another one that I'm not totally sure about yet is adding glow in the dark paint (you can get it at any hardware store) to baits used at night. Partly as an attractant but mostly so you can see them coming in.

The final thing would be to add a key ring type thing to the handle of knipex or other tools so you can easily attach a string - nothing like watching $70 sink to the bottom after a fish thrashes when you're working on it.

[scsavre]

I dont do too many tricks to lures.

I add some weights to suicks, and some topwater baits, and gliders. I switch out hooks for better ones on a few baits. Add trailers to baits.

I tie my own bucktails and cowgirls, and one thing that really helped was to bring extra materials and pieces of baits out in the boat, or at least with on a trip. For example, if i bend up my favorite DC, all i do is cut the wire, put all the components on a new wire and i am good to go. Takes 5 mins. That saved a lot of space in my boxes, allowed me to not be without my favorite color and helped the checkbook by not having to buy 5 of the same color.

[Musky Buck]

The best tip I have is I run a 1660 Lund Classic tiller. What's that got to do with hooks well.... I measured the width where I wanted to put my tackle box minus an inch. I built it rectangular in shape, it also for height is exact same as the raised deck in the front of the boat,you can jump on it if you have to no worries and also added an inch of clearance on the bottom. I treated all wood components, used rust resistant screws and the bottom has a metal like screen. Did this in 1997 and haven't had a rusted hook or bait since, the drive home dries off all the lures as air can get under the box, however I usually open the lid when I get home as bucktails take a bit more to dry off sometimes depending on the humidity or if it rained etc. Then I'm just left with charging batteries for the next run.

[Musky Buck]

When you first get on this site that guy tying or down rigging on the right doesn't he look like Brett Favre ? Anyway, also I kept a section in my tackle box just for release tools, needle noses, cutters, jaw spreader,hook sharpeners, etc. because those babies were getting rusted here and there, not any more, had to modify the box a bit. Also have roughly 6 replacement hooks lazer sharp ready to go if needed in a section. About every 4 years I treat the wood again takes about 5 minutes. It also keeps me from having hooks/baits laying all over.

[scsavre]

I have thought that same thing about that guy, After a year i still double take and think it is Favre, too funny.

[Musky Buck]

No doubt [pleasebecomeasponsor], your name made me type it savre and favre rhyme I hope lol

[dudeness]

Favre's brother's name is Scott Favre. What does that do for ya? Not sure what he does to his baits though? -he could probably run a trotline though.

[scsavre]

I could just flash my id real fast and theyd think im Scott Favre Maybe i could sneak into a game or something. I think the day Favre signed with the Vikes it added about another 10 years to people pronouncing my name wrong.

[Brett Waldera]

Most people are complacent with stock hooks. On most baits stock hooks are not sized correctly for the bait. I upsize most hooks on the baits I purchase. You have to be careful on some baits such as gliders because it may impead the action if the hook is too large.

Here is the best advice I feel I can give in regards to baits.

All baits are not equal, when you get one that seems to have some magic... try and figure out what is different with that particular lure from the rest of the stock lures. You may find some interesting details that will allow you to tune other lures to perform the same.

Brett Waldera

[Esox_Magnum]

Brett good point about upsizing hooks, all my ERC baits get that done before they get thrown as well as a few other select baits.

[nater]

I started upsizing my hooks this year because some are awefully small (Kickn Minnow, and some cranks.) Made me really think about it last year when I heard Bob T. talk about how the gap of smaller hooks may not be wide enough to get around the jaw bone of a big fish. Tell you what, I'm not interested in loosing a big fish on smaller hooks!

Really the most modification I've done to store bought lures would be weighting some jerkbaits to get them to have a slow tail rise. I got one Suick (unweighted) that floated up head first out of the box. I've built some blades and buzzers which is always fun. I wish the buzzer had bigger blades to make more commotion, I'd probably throw it more for sure.

Couple things I'd like to do is replace the rattles in my believer with weights (idea from a magazine) and I'd like to experiment with shaving the lip of my Jake to get some more erratic action.

[brushhog80]

I usually add 1/2 to 3/4 weights to DCG's. They cast better and you can burn em better without blowing out of the water.

[Musky Buck]

Totally agree Brett, we have had the same deal with having 2 of the same bait, but 1 drastically outperforms the other, if I feel I should be seeing some fish or hooking up etc. and it's not happening, I'll put that bait in a select spot in the box and try the exact same lure and often times it does the trick. We had 1 topwater bait that had the magic, boated like 25 fish on it, same lure we couldn't get a strike on it.

[Muskiefool]

Some baits shine with a larger hook on the front and smaller on the rear or vise versa, take a min to play with the baits in May on a local pond.

[cbrooks]

one trick I learned from a musky video I watch last year was fixing a soft plastic thats been chewed up. You have the bait just hanging by a thread. You can use glue but this works better.

You take a butter knife heat it up w/a torchor or lighter till its hot. Then you put the hot part of the knife in the plastic where its hanging by a thread. It just kind of welds together at the seams. Easy to do, I've even got into modifying some of my baits by adding a soft tail using this technique.

[ole matty]

Not really a tip but a suggestion. When you buy 8 inches slammer crankbait replace spiltrings and hooks 4/0 on front and back and 3/0 in middle so it's perectly weighted

On selective 8 or 10" Jake twisted the hanger in opposite of what it supposeto be it will mostly be wide wobble in one direction almost like a glidebait at end of pull or twitching

[guideman]

If I told you all about all of my special bait modifications I'd have to kill you.

One thing that I have done to all of my rods, is to add a canoe paddle handle grip to the end of the handles. They are made of foam, so they will help your rods float if you happen to drop them in the water. They also give you a better grip when the weather is cold in the fall. Not to mention that they also look good and you can always quickly indentify your rods.

"Ace"

[Brett Waldera]

Not a lure tip exactly... but I am surprised how many guys I fish with that don't know how to throw a bulldawg. Thumb your spool at the end of your lob (cast) this will straighten the bulldawg before it hits the water and the "dawgball" will be virtually a thing of the past.

Also, if you are a reel palmer when throwing dawgs stop it and hold the foregrip!!. Tough to get used to at first but you will have better leverage on a hookset and have less fish cough your dawg out at you.

[Esox_Magnum]

A trick to unfoul a dawg, put both hands on the butt of the rod hold it high and shake it like your trying to get your walleye jig out of rocks. Works 85% of the time.

[dcmusky]

Best Bulldawg trick I know is not to throw them!

[Esox_Magnum]

Alot of locals here have that idea to but dawgs took 12 one weekend when their blades got 3. Seemed to see alot more dawg throwing after that weekend. Avg was 46" for those 12 to.