My First 2 Builds

[DoomDiver]

On 5/9/2020 at 10:22 AM, MaineBassin said:

Thanks. Hope so. Just occured to me, now that I have epoxied the joint hardware, how am I supposed to paint the insides? Brush?

Leave the wood bare and add some eyes! Or paint just the belly and back and have the sides bare wood. It's only your first go at it so I wouldn't bother painting them in my opinion. The rat will get smashed regardless of paint. 

Typically I'll follow what everyone else above here does but I won't epoxy the connecting hardware in right away. You can do a bathtub test without it coming apart this way. Leave it unglued so you can unscrew or unpin the joint which makes it much easier to paint and more importantly, easier to put the top coat of epoxy on without gluing the to halves to each other! The last step then would be to glue the connecting wire and glue the lip in if you didn't already do that.

[MaineBassin]

30 minutes ago, DoomDiver said:

Leave the wood bare and add some eyes! Or paint just the belly and back and have the sides bare wood. It's only your first go at it so I wouldn't bother painting them in my opinion. The rat will get smashed regardless of paint. 

Typically I'll follow what everyone else above here does but I won't epoxy the connecting hardware in right away. You can do a bathtub test without it coming apart this way. Leave it unglued so you can unscrew or unpin the joint which makes it much easier to paint and more importantly, easier to put the top coat of epoxy on without gluing the to halves to each other! The last step then would be to glue the connecting wire and glue the lip in if you didn't already do that.

I think I'll rattlecan the rat white (don't have an airbrush yet), do the middle the best I can, nail polish the ear holes pink, one more thin coat over that of epoxy and be done.

Lips are in both baits. I may have to move line tie on rat to down by the lip as many people suggest in other rat builds. But I'll see how it swims. I'm sure with a good airbrush you could paint the insides anyway. With the hinge, you have good access to the insides. 

[BrierBob]

Paint it because that it's part of the bait making process so you might as well practice. Especially on a rat/wake that will get eaten without paint like mentioned above.  Maybe install your hardware permanent after you put a finish on the bait.  Excited to see how they turn out. 

[MaineBassin]

I have all the hardware installed. Was able to find a worm fat enough to fit on the screw lock. Will def go with a smaller one in the future. I wanted to find a soft rubbery type material for the wake tail. Was hoping to find a soft silicone mat or similar. No luck so I will go with paint brush bristles for this one. 

[MaineBassin]

I finally got to swim test my baits. The wnc style had awesome action when cranked down. But it wouldn't do much at a slow crank, trying to wake. It would dive down nearly two feet. Floating it had awesome action as well. 

The rat didn't do much for action. It basically bulldozed with a huge wake. Barely wobbled. I need to relocate the line tie down to near the lip, below the nose. Hopefully that helps.

Is there anything in particular that makes a bait wake with hardly any reeling? Like how the slammer wobbles with very little retrieve. Lip angle? Lip size? Both lips are big as I figured it's easier to cut down vs replacing. 

 

[JCswimbaits]

Both look really high floating, you may need to add more weight to get a wake at slower speeds. I’ve had that problem before, glue some lead on the bottom in different areas and test them first, doesn’t look like you need to cut the bill down in my opinion. That joint may have too much play on the rat, the head is using all the vortices or energy swirling from the water being displaced and the tail section is being dragged behind, in other words reducing the joint play may force the back section to move more. 

[MaineBassin]

3 hours ago, JCswimbaits said:

Both look really high floating, you may need to add more weight to get a wake at slower speeds. I’ve had that problem before, glue some lead on the bottom in different areas and test them first, doesn’t look like you need to cut the bill down in my opinion. That joint may have too much play on the rat, the head is using all the vortices or energy swirling from the water being displaced and the tail section is being dragged behind, in other words reducing the joint play may force the back section to move more. 

They did float high. I'll try that. All they have for weight added are 5 gram plug belly weight inserts. I added a line tie below the nose on the rat. I'm gonna see what that does. I'm new to lure building, but I'm not convinced (yet) that the joint is too big or loose. I used pretty small connections as I did not want big wide joints like many other baits I've seen. There really isn't much room to go smaller or tighter here. Any tighter and I feel the back section won't be able to rotate and contact the front to create some knock. 

Thanks for the feedback

[MaineBassin]

Little more progress. I've added more weight to both baits and added a line tie down by the lip on the rat. Painted the rat rattle can gray (had it kicking around at work) and one coat of epoxy. 

Have not done a final swim test. Hoping to today. It's hard for me to get time to hit the water. I also left the higher line tie. Wasn't sure how to safely remove it. 

I'm the mean time I have started on new baits. Lunker punker style. These were made out of yellow pine vs cedar for the wnc and rat. This wood def carved better. Still had some chunks that would cut out. But I used wood putty to fill in low spots and sanded. Worked awesome. These came out much better. Not perfect but better. I again guessed on weight. Swim testing today. One is thicker and more boxy. Other is slimmer and more rounded, if that makes sense. I did a lip on the skinnier one. 2.26oz for skinnier one. 2.86oz for bulkier one.

[danthefisherman]

Good progress! I think you'll find the two line ties will come in handy if you want to change up the action on the fly.

[MaineBassin]

I was able to get out and swim them all. I'm happy with the wnc. It has good movement at light wake and cranks down really good. Probably 2 feet, maybe a little more. Using the lower line tie on the rat gives awesome action. It wobbles side to side alot. Can wake it really slow. If I crank it faster it really gets clacking and wobbling. I'm very happy with it. I had one fish hit it. No hook up tho. It is a big bulky bait that's for sure. The sound of wood knocking is so cool.

That brings me to the lunker punker type baits. They need some more tuning. The skinnier one has too much weight. Is under water sitting still. The bulkier one seems to be weighted pretty good. When working it, it was very inconsistent. Sometimes would glide out 8 or so inches then straight or back a bit, sometimes twice to the same side. Not sure if this is due to weight placement...or....

[Rogervang]

On the punker, it can be weight placements or if you haven't worked a top water glider, it can be tricky at first. I wasnt impress with my OG punker at first and was going to sell it but when I found the magic sauce, it swam pretty damn good. 

[MaineBassin]

4 hours ago, Rogervang said:

On the punker, it can be weight placements or if you haven't worked a top water glider, it can be tricky at first. I wasnt impress with my OG punker at first and was going to sell it but when I found the magic sauce, it swam pretty damn good. 

I watched a few of engineered angler (pretty sure that's his name) on YT. He did a video on weight placement for topwater. I tried to go with that. He said you want to be a little front heavy. 

As for experience with topwater glides, minimal. I've fished spooks where you walk it back and forth. I tried that retrieve but also tried to get it to glide out, stop, glide again etc. I read somewhere about when fishing the punker to let it finish each glide before working again. So slow with long glides each way. It's hard to explain these things, I just want able to get a video. 

[Rogervang]

I've made a front heavy top water glide a long time ago and it didn't work so well or at all. It would want to dive on every twitch So I junked it. Heres a picture of my punker I took about a decade ago. Sits flat on the surface tail heavy. Just some thought for you.  

[MaineBassin]

1 hour ago, Rogervang said:

I've made a front heavy top water glide a long time ago and it didn't work so well or at all. It would want to dive on every twitch So I junked it. Heres a picture of my punker I took about a decade ago. Sits flat on the surface tail heavy. Just some thought for you.  

Thanks Roger. I'm not giving up. I love fishing top water and really want one of these baits. Just need to experiment and see how things are affected with each change. Did you fish the punker much? 

[Rogervang]

I use to fish it a lot back when I use to fish during the day. It's a cool bait for sure. I haven't fished the new style but I'm sure it still have the same weighting system.