flaswimbaiter

I use it for hardware like lips and screw eyes. For lead holes I use SG and BS, but if it’s one of my one off baits I finish off with UV resin after filling the hole most of the way with SG/BS.

Nice stencil work. I don’t have that kind of patience.

It’s been a long road with a lot of frustration, but I finally finished it. The paint itself felt like it took forever. What do you guys think of it? 20240312_140316_1.mov

Took three tries, but I think I finally got it right. It could be better of course. I am going to field test it and if it works as well as I hope. I will strip and mold it. 20240310_181714.mov

I use the Devcon 5 minute but after it sets I try gently to twist it, if it moves I glue it again with the 2 ton. I am just impatient because the 2 ton takes a while to set. I think I learned this from you over on tackle underground. Haven’t had a lip fall out since. TY!

Chunky

Can’t remember the guys name, he made swimbaits for stripers I believe, he lived in the north west. The top two are 3:16.

I line tie is as close as I can get it to the lip. tried putting it on the lip but it killed the action. I took the bait to a deeper clear lake to test it and it gets down more than I expected, prob 8’ on a long cast. One real positive is that this thing vibrates like a MF. Will try to make a vid.

Congrats

One of the first Baits I made was a three-piece deep diver. It was very basic and only got down about 5 feet. Once I got better at carving and design, I decided to remake it, add some scales, streamline the body a little, change the angle, but still only got about 5 feet on a cast. Still not happy, I did some research of other diving baits and decided to reduce a lot of the mass, change the angle of the lip again, change the tail to silicone, and also streamline it a little more. Because it’s a lighter bait with a large lip it was really hard to tune. Unfortunately, I’m only getting about one more foot of depth than I did from the last version. It’s not exactly what I wanted but considering our lakes are not deep here I’m gonna stop right here and move onto something else. One bonus is that one of the first I poured was too heavy, so I converted it into a three-piece twitch bait, which has some amazing action. It sinks very slowly and can be waked, ripped and twitched, or dead sticked.

Did I mention that I HATE carving and painting eyes. It’s finally done and louder than I expected. I put a wash in it to appear dirty. 20240106_154920.mov

Nice. Nothing wrong with simple and basic. They still catch fish. Less details, fins, etc, less problems

I tried to make one a while back before I knew about ballast and wood not being evenly balanced. Needless to say it was a fail. I did repaint one, which was not fun, that paint was hard to get off

Good action

I thought the carving came out well, but the action is not that good. It has a really odd shape which made it really hard to get it to swim. I spent a lot of time experimenting with different lips and balancing. It’s not practical, but it was a cool project. I’m very happy with the outcome. 20231204_143529.mov

I hate carving eyes. I like just drilling a hole and plopping a plastic eye in it.

Engineered Angler on YouTube

Makes the others look like bait. LOL

So cool, would love to catch one of those

I had a bait someone else made that came with a stiff plastic tail, it glided well, but on the faster retrieve it would wobble and roll. I changed it out to a softer silicone tail and it stabilized on faster retrieves. The tightness or looseness of the joint can also cause issues. Glides are a pain.

Making some progress

Made some mods of a blank and made a redtail catfish. 20230905_120444.mov

Is that a lexan tail? If so, you might want to go with a soft tail, that would help some. Weight should be evenly distributed, you want it to sit level. It actually doesn’t look that bad when you retrieve it fast.

A wake bait I have been putting off for a while cause it’s a pain to carve. I made a pig when I first started out which looks like crap and I also made a wild boar, which was a complete failure. So instead of giving up, I just tired again. I just hope it swims well.

Yes, the first color on the bait. White is for bright colored baits like shad. Some silver baits actually do better with a black base, but I never had good luck with that. If you are trying to overlay a light coat make sure it has been thinned down and you keep your airbrush away from the bait. I find with airbrushing it better to do multiple light coats and heat set in between.