Anyone making/modifyin lures?

[Cooter]

I've been organizing my basement in preparation for another winter of lure making and modifications. Gonna stick with spinnerbaits and bucktails, got some cool ideas to play around with....want to continue combining silicone and tinsel/flashabou and am tinkering with ways to make keel weighted inlines so only the blade turns - I'll take any and all suggestions here! I'm interested in making some wire/blade/soft plastic lures, something along the lines of say the mepps killer with the shad body - lots of options with all the materials out there these days. You guys working with wood chime in, I'm not set up yet for that but would like to hear what you have going on. Thanks, later.

[buzzin for bass]

I've made a couple of bucktails, just as something to keep me sane through the long offseason. It certainly is fun mixing and matching not only colors, but materials to see what you can come up with. I have even repaired some bass spinners with my musky tackle making goods. I had several spinner baits where the rubber skirt was demolished so I replaced the skirts with marabou, hackle and deer hair.

Anyone make dressed hooks for cranks or jerkbaits like used on the smaller x-raps? I've tinkered with it a little and have a bucktail dressed trebble at the back of a stalker and am thinking about trying something similar with some jerkbaits...we'll have to see how much that affects the action.

If you don't mind I've got a couple questions for you. In making your bucks and spinners, do you buy coiled wire or pre-cut straight pieces? I had been using the pre-cut straight pieces but I just bought my first coil of .051 and am finding it to be a real pain to straighten out. Any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated. Also, do you have a "tackle maker" for bending the spinners, do you free hand it or have you made up your own jig. Recently I've been thinking about trying my hand at spinners and contemplated using nails strategically placed in a large chunk of wood at required bending points.

[Brad N]

For bucktails, I use the pre-cut, one end looped wire in .062" & .051". To make the loop on the other end I use a needle nose vise grip & a linesman pliers. I have made a jig with nails and a block of oak to bend wire for spinnerbaits. I also have a Hagens wire bender, but only use that for single strand leaders.

Brad

[50inchpig]

for the wire shaft, definitely buy pre-cut lengths. stamina has them, almost every supplier does. you should be tying on break cable coil, also widely available. (note: if you tie on cable and slide it on the the straight wire shaft, it'll solve alot of your keel problems, you won't have to mess around with keel weighting). don't use wire that's not perfectly straight for your bucktails.

your nail system to twist will work perfect, there's lots of expensive tools on the market for twisting and loop making but you don't need any of it.

[Muskiefool]

also McMaster and Carr has good wire and fast delivery I like the .059it's pretty much 1/16th so that makes things better for some applications I also tie onto Brass flared fittings they work great but $$$$$ best to use the stamina coils

[Cooter]

I use a round nose pliers along with a channel locks and vice grip for bending bucktail wire. I haven't tied any material onto trebles myself although I have taken trebles and material to Crazy D and had Ron tie them. What I have done that is easy is add a smaller bass sized silicone skirt to a treble. You get around tying, which I don't think would fit me well. Also, you can thread flashabou or whatever through the eye of a treble and then use either a rubber skirt collar or a small zip tie to lay the material down along the hook shank and keep it in place. For a visual, the storm chug bugs had rear trebles dressed like that.