zbass

Great to see you back at it John! Baits look great! Missed seeing your stuff on here and is good to see them again.

Well that leaves a lot of gray areas. What you will be making the "master" model from will dictate what you can make the mold with. If you will be using wood, you will have to seal the wood and then your best bet would be RTV silicon. If you are using wax, then you can go with plaster or Durhams water putty. Or fibergalss resin. Each material has it's plus and minus.

Looks good Marty. How bout some hot pink scales with a gold stripe?

Sounds like you have a plan in place. I agree with the other posts. One place that can hook you up with supplies is www.bearsbaits.com. He has great products and excellent customer service. Another is lurecraft. Good luck and welcome to the sickness!

You may try Dick Blick art supplies on line. They will have the paint, but maybe not the clear.

Not bad for a first try with a paint brush. Years ago I did one with a paint brush and a sharpie. Told the guy I was fishing with that I would kiss his butt if I caught one with it. I won't finish the whole atory but I did catch one. Stay with it and show us some more.

You are a bait makin/paintin machine! Great work as usual!

They are all top notch stuff!

Good job man! Nice work.

Great work Marty! All those look really good!

Thanks guys.

I came home today and had a whole shad family here. The Royals, complete with grandpa, mom and dad, and the five kids. They also invited the Sexys over. Mom, dad and the 2 kids. (One of them is adopted.)

Great job Marty! And I agree, they are beautiful!

Thank you for the kind words.

That dude is SAWEET! Nice job.

Thanks guys. Havin a blast painting these.

These are all Big M bodies. He is a great bait maker. I had the privilage of painting these baits. Before After Hope I did them justice Marty.

Here are some more baits. I know, "more hard baits? JEEEZ!"

You can also check out www.bearsbaits.com. He has a section for recipies in the forum. He is also working on getting the cookbook gallery back up. It has pictures along with the recipies. TU does not have that.

Sweet line up! Awesome top coat and great baits! nice job.

Busy, busy man! Great job on all of them Marty!

If you are brushing on epoxy then you dont want to use vaseline. I would think that all it would take is one slip of the brush and get into the Vaseline and then go back and brush the bait. I think you would have a blurb or something. I just clean them off as best I can. Once it is cured, you can generally get it off without too much problem. I thought of covering the hook rings prior to painting. Tried modeling clay, tape, Vaseline, etc. The problem was when I would do netting or stencils, some of it would transfer to that material and the next bait I did with it, guess what. Bad spot! Maybe somebody else with more experience than me will chime in. I think it is a necessary evil.

Great job Thad!

Looks good to me Gman! What shape bills are u thinking?

The advantage that I like is that you don't have to worry about tieing your line in the "split". With a round ring you have the opportunity to tie where the split ring splits. That may pinch your line and weaken it. If you tie on the opposite side, then the split is in the eye of the lure, IMO affecting the action. This is just my opinion.