Nufo

Quick wood. You can shape and carve an entire bait from the stuff

A few more details and fine tuning

A little more progress

Making some fins

This isn’t the first softbait I’ve done but is certainly the most detailed. Slowly building it up. It’s designed around the 10/0 3/4oz beast hook specifically. I wanted to do something bigger but this is a good start and will be used to target spotted bass.

The fish in my lake would crush that thing!

Go 25Lb Izor XXX and don't look back. For the big baits like the hinkle its good to have stretch and forgiveness. If I was going to fish the hinkle on braid, I would go 100#. For 8" Hudds I really like 20l Izor XXX but can get by on 25. Honestly for the 908 Id pick up a few bigger soft baits like the 10" Hudd

^ What he said! Makes a huge difference. Also find a practitioner who does "Manual Therapy" These are typically chiropractors but they will have you feeling a lot better and back to fishing. Other Names for manual therapy include "ART" & "Graston" But those are specific branding and not necessary. As for fishing topwater baits try an 8:1 reel and use the reel to walk the bait rather than the rod. This takes the stress of your body.

Cool. I used to make bait out of pvc. Probably still would if it wasn’t so messy. For some reason my pvc stuff out fishes the wood

Body work is coming along. A little more fine sanding then it’s time to prime this puppy FullSizeRender.mov

Haven’t been in SOL in years. Last time I tried to get on, Couldn’t log in

Thanks guys. Here’s a little more progress tonight. Almost ready to start the body work IMG_3016.MP4

Here’s a wake I’ve been wanting to do for a while. The final version will have facial details and fully finned out. We’ll see how it progresses. Thanks for looking IMG_3011.MP4 IMG_3012.MOV

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Epic fish! Congrats!

I had the shrapnel, Got it thinking it old be the answer to the calcuta d. While cosmetically it is pretty awesome, Performance wise, its not up to the hype. I ended up selling pretty quick and the conquest. If I were purchasing a reel right now it would be the new conquest with synched level wind. For me the issues with the shrapnel were as follows: Casting performance was ok not great. It took tuning of the breaks to keep it from getting loose coils on the cast. For the price o the reel this was a deal breaker form me because Im hooking into big stripers when my bait hits the water and loose coils means missed fish. I also hated the short handle and square knobs. I bought a fancy studio composite handle and it sucked too (handle bent) and me being a meat head stripped the screw that retains the lock nut. As for the conquest, It is the top of the line reel i regards to refinement , smoothness etc. However, I don't recommend it for stripers and really big baits. They don't hold up like the old calcutta TE. But for baits 4-8 oz and green bass, its the deal. I broke my first conquest about 3 month in fishing for stripers with 10oz and up baits. As the reels keep getting smaller something has to give and the durability to hold up to that kind of stress is lost. Wit that said, I have my second one and only use it for green bass and baits up to 10" and 8 oz max and its held up for about 3 years so far.

resin works well. Carves easy with micro ballons. Be sure to wear a proper respirator though

easy fix. Take a punch and push the pin out. Order up 0.92 screw eyes that are 1.5" long. Pull out the one good one. Put the longer one in. (measure how long it is first so you can get it back to the same length). Get some quick wood from the hard ware store. Fill the hole in the broken one with it. Use a piece of wire to push in and make the existing hole. Once cured, then you can put the new screw eye in that one too and put the pin in and fish the wheels off it.

if your fishing a 250 for largies only (no stripers) then I would recommend 20lb mono or floro. A sleeper reel for this set up is the Daiwa coastal which is 7.3:1 and is perfect for glides and can be picked up pretty cheap on eBay. Super smooth reel and cast really well with the T wing set up. I like 7:1 and up gear ratios for glides and walking (topwater) baits but don't fish anything else with that ratio. If you want an all around reel for wakes and softbaits too, then id recommend a 6.3:1

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20lb line go with the 300. 25 or 30 400

the kind from the hardware store is fine. I like the tap plastics stuff but shouldn't matter either way. no noticeable effect on swim.

If it does take on water just drill a hole and pour in some expanding foam and your solid.

Nice! I may need to book a trip

have you test swam yet? My though is it will nose up with the weight centered like that.