Thread: Lure making

Cheers mate, sounds good. No need to buy huge quantities?

Just found a photo from a few years ago of my actual first homemade lure- exceptionally crude. About five minutes to make- cut the end off a toothbrush and rounded the ends, cut a slot and glued in a crudely twisted piece of wire. Took it down to a spot close to home and hooked a Kahawai on my first cast using my lightweight trout setup. It caught five Kahawai in about 20mins before I lost it to a big Kahawai.

Originally Posted by Pixie Z

Cheers mate, sounds good. No need to buy huge quantities?

Nah, its about $20 per metre - 100 x 50

Sweet, I’ll hit him up. With the pine I had at home my 210mm lures are ending up 130-160 grams depending on weighting and shaping, but I’d like to get a few that size that are round the 100 gram mark.

Originally Posted by Pixie Z

Sweet, I’ll hit him up. With the pine I had at home my 210mm lures are ending up 130-160 grams depending on weighting and shaping, but I’d like to get a few that size that are round the 100 gram mark.

Yip thats about right, roughly 180mm = 70-90grams, 220mm = 100-120grams

These are my lures … I make them myself.. soft spinners for salmon.. a different LURE for sure ,but they work,they take time and effort … but I’m into it !!

@A330driver those are cool. You using them for freshwater or for the sea run salmon run down south? What’s the action like on those bottom two? Similar sorta curve on them to a Tassie but no wings.

Originally Posted by Pixie Z

@A330driver those are cool. You using them for freshwater or for the sea run salmon run down south? What’s the action like on those bottom two? Similar sorta curve on them to a Tassie but no wings.

Top ones with the blades for fresh water ,the spin quite fast,at this stage the salmon are not really feeding ,this is designed (with a dodger )to piss them off ,they mostly just snap at it

The bottom 2 a cut-plug and a spin fish,… ocean fishing for salmon as we load them up with tuna,anchovies mix,leaves a great scent ….thry spin in the water like a wounded fish

You can just about buy this stuff all made up ready to go … but I buy all the parts and put together what I think will work with colours and shapes… presentation is everything ,time of day,amount of sunlight ,…. It all makes a difference …… so far we a batting pretty good this season

Finished a couple of bigger lures - cheated a bit with some old foils that a mate gifted us, but they turned out to be a bit painful with edges lifting and difficult to stretch any bubbles out (turns out he has changed materials and has much better foils now on his own lures). First time doing resin coats on the lure turner, and they are far from perfect...but I'm pretty sure the fish will notice this less than the fishermen! The cup-faced lure came out a bit heavier than planned - around 155g including all the hardware shown in the bottom pic - may drop back to individual singles to save a few grams and probably get it closer to 140g (was tempted by the dual singles as we saw that on numerous vids of topwater yellowfin action)

Tip when applying the epoxy on the rotisserie, once resin is applied give the lure some quick passes with the gas torch, will get all the bubbles out. Dont hold too long or the epoxy will drip off, just a fast pass

@nzspearo they look good regardless mate. I did one lure using a cheap scale pattern holographic foil that was a nightmare to work with. I had the same issue with peeling round the edges, although I was applying mine before painting so was able to hide most of the bad bits. It didn’t peel til the first coat of epoxy started curing either. Some just had shitty adhesive. I’m just using hand cut aluminium builders foil and liking the results so far, but it is labour intensive hand cutting and etching the patterning. I’ve heard very good things about the Teckwrap brand foil too, and you can run that through a Cricut or whatever.

With your epoxy the improvements will come as you do a few. The epoxy doesn’t like adhering to grease or oils from fingers, so as much as possible try not to handle them with bare hands before epoxying, or else wash with dish liquid or wipe down with isopropyl alcohol first. If the epoxy is ‘fish-eyeing’ it’s likely due to an oily surface. If that happens though you can always hide it with another coat. As Gibo says, a gas torch is good for removing tiny bubbles once it’s spinning. You can also use a hair dryer, or even blow on it. I also let my epoxy sit for 10mins or so after mixing before applying and that removes a lot of bubbles from the mix.

Finished these two up a couple weeks ago, but the green one was a birthday present for my brother, and he’s a member on here so I didn’t want him to see it here before I gave it to him.

My first two ‘Surf n Turf’ lures. The pink one is a wee 30g 110mm floating. The green one is 70g 150mm floating. Very happy with how these have turned out. I reckon the green one is my best lure yet, and if it wasn’t for the fact I’d etched my brothers name into the foil I probably would’ve kept it for myself

Very nice indeed mate!!

…when you get the hooks on,post….. also what is the action like ????……great presentation indeed!!

Not anything like the beauty that you boys are crafting but it’s a fine line between attention to detail and giving a rip when a couta bite one off. 21-35g