SENKOSAM

Injection molds that are automated will usually produce particular designs not possible with one or two part molds. Many designs, can only be poured with a one part mold, resulting in a flat side. Flat sided baits do work, but are not as pleasing to the eye. I takes a bit of practice to get certain baits just right, Senkos especially, but it can be done. Similar to the sport/hobby of fishing, how much time and money you spend getting into the lure crafting hobby, determines how much you'll save years down the road. But the primary reason people get into the hobby is for the satisfaction of seeing the lure they created catch fish, regardless by who. There are many handpoured baits that are a slam dunk and which you would never have to buy again if you made them yourself. A friend of mine got into it at the same time. He started his own business and this last Sat. sold over $300 worth at a fishing seminar we went to. He has spent over $2000 in equipment and does a pretty good business on-line, but it requires commitment.

Good deal! Locally, it's about 10 times the cost of regular salt.

What UpNoth said! For best results, use a fine salt or grind it yourself with a cheap coffee grinder.

Aluminum molds are the ultimate! Silicone molds have few advantages and the finish of the lure will be dull unless you always brush some oil into the cavity. Some aluminum molds are only available in certain lure designs, whereas silicone or plaster molds may work. But even they have their limitations. Is the price x9 worth it for aluminum. For lure appearance yes, for lure catchability - no.

The time and cost to make a plaster mold is minimal. Even a two part mold takes no more than 2 hours tops, but what you have is a mold that will be ready for pouring dozens of baits in less than a few minutes without having to worry if they're in stock someplace or in colors you like. Just the s/h, tax, gas mileage and order screw ups saves you time and money. I like the short Shadow and fish it like a Reaper, so I've made one-part molds successfully. To git a plumper head end, I tilt the mold towards the head, thus ensuring a nice thin tail and a thicker head. If the body and head need a little more thickness towards the end cooling stage, I pour some more to cause a hump to form. I do the same for Zoom Chunk copies and Beavers. Good to see you used the aluminum/vaseline trick for two-part molds I wrote about in the tutorial. It really aids in getting the two halves apart. I'd like to see a pic of you baits if it's not too much trouble. For a nice shiny lure finish, I hope you coated the cavities with a sealer and also brush some oil into them before pouring. (I use Original Fish Formula or Walmart's Bait Mait, but any pure oil does fine.) (Tip: make them in clear or light smoke with .015 silver hologram. Fan-tas-tic when rigged flat (like a Reaper) on a 1/16 oz. ballhead jig. Smallies clobber this lure and forget about the live forage nearby!)

Beavers and trailers are the easiest to make:

If it doesn't catch anything, make sure you give it back to your kid :'( . LOL

Like jig making, once you get hooked, YOUR HOOKED! Try the flame and scissors trick to simply make a worm shorter: cut a piece out, hold both ends over the flame until they turn a little molten and then hold the ends together for 6 seconds. You can roll the area over the flame to reduce excess drips near the seam and to strengthen it. You've just worked with plastisol and created something new and maybe improved a lure by just making it unique. I melt old plastic down all the time in the microwave for handpouring, but most of my tinkering are lure modifications done over the stove or candle flame. Please try it and don't wait 20 years like I did to see how useful it is.

It depends. If you post some pictures, most of us can tell you if it's even possible to make a handpour mold. Remember, most molds made by hand pourers are one-part, meaning always having one flat side when poured. Not that flat sided sticks don't work, (they do!) but that they aren't as pleasing to the eye for resale. If the lure has fine appendages and thin tails, injection molds are the only way to go and one would cost over 10 grand. Even an aluminum mold lazer cut by Bob or Del, would not produce the same quality bait. To have an aluminum mold custom made would cost over $150 and only in one size, plus it might take over four months to get back. Some have taken a year. The creature grubs on the left can not be duplicated with one-part mold handpouring: Mold material determines what kind of lure can be reproduced. Silicone, resin, plaster or aluminum all have their specialized uses (the last three overlap). The least used mold material for the lures I pour is silicone. If you want me to try and duplicate a lure, send me one and I'll see how close I can come or post a picture.

I saw the diamond pattern blades at Gander Mountain. You like them better than hammered nickel? Nice sb's BTW. Here are some other winter creations. http://morecabinfevercreations.blogspot.com/ http://2005effectivehybrids.blogspot.com/ http://senkosamsothercreations.blogspot.com/ http://senkosam.blogspot.com/ http://zipperworm.blogspot.com/

Figured it wasn't an LC mold - to professional looking. I wish Poor Boys all the luck with their takeover of Lurecraft, but I'd still rather make molds from plaster or resin than waste money on silicone. Again, real nice laminates! Gloomis and WCCT - you got some mighty nice lookin jigs! The watermelon trailer looks familiar.

The schools of smallmouth or largemouth that I've gotten into, have never yielded fish above 2 lbs. and many that have been in the 12-14" range. My best numbers school yielded 20 largemouth for smallies, 18 smallies. All my school fish have been either in shallow water (rivers) or near the surface over deep water (lakes). Panfish schools are considerably bigger, with catch rates of around 100 in an anchored spot, not uncommon in spring or fall. These fish also usually run by size, but lunker pannies mixed in are also common. Also common is to catch bass and pickerel near the school, every fish hitting the prevailing forage and not each other! Schools can ruin a guy!

BW was also fined for using walky talkies to track and kill game. Houston made a show in NY during closed season and wasn't caught by the DEC because the tip came too late. Fishing shows are simple to edit and truth in advertising doesn't apply to ad men like Grigsby or Dance. He**, these guy were never up for sainthood, so why the surprise?

Very nice! Whose gobi mold?

From what I've seen of the Ika and spider grub skirts, they have a bit of a flair from the body. The mold is different, being injector poured, which creates a skirt that is at an angle to the body. Tube skirts are even with the tube body and of no value when it comes to attaching that kind of skirt to the head of a lure. I tried it a few years ago and all I created was a worm with a tube skirt. Good luck!

I keep seeing this correlation of IQ or smarts, to age. I know quite a few adults that got dumber as they got older or stayed dumb regardless of age. Just because a fish ages and experiences many negatives in it's life, doesn't mean it grows a few more brain cells to accomodate the memories or that it can refer to a long term memory to avoid specific negative stimuli for more than a few months. Animals with brains are born with a finite number of brain cells. Using more of those cells in one's lifetime is relevant to higher forms of mammal intelligence, not fish's. At best, a bird can mimic-learn via positive reinforcement, but not solve complex problems and neither can bass. Probably the perfect test of a fish's memory (which is 99% of an animal's primary intelligence) would be to cast the most attractive of all baits-(soft plastics), to a 5-10 year old bass that has been caught multiple times. Repeat this for the next four years and see how many times it strikes that lure. Older large bass that strike lures, are perfect examples of a bass's stupidity, regardless of age. Hannon has stated many times that his large fish record was due to stealth and finesse. I don't know if I buy the 400 fish over 10lbs claim, but wouldn't be surprised if many of the fish were the same fish caught different times during their life times, from the same private waters. Genetic-learning was brought up. It doesn't exist for humans, so why would one think it exists in cold blooded animals? Does the theory of evolution explain how intelligent animals evolved or does it only imply that the smarter animals outlived the dumber or less physically evolved ones. In the case of the evolution of fish, fish haven't come a long ways in a thousand years. The oldest bass are probably those that stay in locations that see the fewest lures or no bait of any kind. Expose that fish to a few finesse,soft plastics or deplete it's forage base and I guarentee you I strike at any age (not necessarily a catch, but a strike.)

Couldn't agree more. And the striped bass is even more of a fighter due to it's shape and an anatomy built to live in current.

That pretty much says it all. If older and bigger bass are so smart, how come 15-20 lb. monsters get caught in southern California lakes every year? How come many 3-4 lb bass have been recaught? How come bass of all ages actually swallow rubber worms. (ick!) Maybe the biggest bass in a lake feed at night and get no pressure from daytime anglers. Maybe their home territory is at 40 feet and see no lures from the majortiy of shallow water anglers. Fish are stupid - (def.- tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes), but have super senses that give them an edge over creatures just as stupid as they are. Some of those creatures are human.

In comparison to the field size of yesteryear, it did get larger, as skill levels improved. The point being, that the best of the best always knew how to adapt to different waters, weather conditions, physical discomfort, family and financial stress, equipment malfunction, the competition and bad luck. All of that exists as much today as it did 30 years ago, the difference being that many of the old concepts have been blown away. Even the unwritten rules of tournament etiqutte have changed. Roland and Clunn might not have been able to adapt to finesse techniques, such as dropshotting or using much smaller lures to catch bigger and more neutral fish, as KVD and Ike have done when needed. All the angler information that we have available to us weren't just from tournament anlgers. In fact, before I even got my first Bassmaster magazine, Homer Circle, Ken Shultz, Zaleski, Buck Perry, Lindner and a bunch of other sports writers introduced me to sonar (flashers), soft plastics, crankbaits, jerk minnows and topwaters and structure fishing. I'm talking about the 60's, long before Roland even had a tv show! One thing (supposedly) not available to present day BASS anglers, is prior knowledge of a water before they get to it or the means to prefish. Did Roland send out scouts to find out info weeks before he got to a location? Did Clunn, Dance or Houston? I know that the practice existed and made the playing field less even, resulting in top finishes. If any of the greats had prior knowledge and depended on it to any degree, than the new rule may have taken some wind out of thier sails. Consider too, the fisheries were different - some better, some worse than they are today, but they all had structure and cover and lures available to catch fish from specific areas. The tackle might not have been as good as it is today, but adequate reels, rods, hooks, line, sonar and well made lures have always been available. Same for the basics of finding, catching and boating fish. Roland was good in his time, but so were many that fished the circuit. Were they just more fortunate than others that never got to prove how good they were against the most prominent and promoted bass anglers? (Ike's antics are no bigger a turnoff than Roland's use of the word 'son' or the scowl on his face when he's not winning.)

Go to the articles on this site for good how-to's. Tacklemaking.com or tackleunderground.com has good info and the latter has forums. Do a google search on hobby sites and air brushes and check out e-bay. Hobby stores in your area have airbrushes and paint.

Check the link ever so often. I add pictures of new modifications and successful copies once a week. They are there as an archive (in case my pc blows up, :'( ) and for anyone to get ideas.

Pouring and mold making are in the article section of bassresource.com and I am polishing the tutorials on my site: http://senkosam.tripod.com/. I need to add the same pictures, but the instructions are clear enough.

Nice hybrids!! I have quite a few Brush Hogs lying around. I'll cut off the double tail and fuse it to a straight worm. I did the same thing with a lizard last year to copy the Zellamander lizard and never thought to use the dt on a straight worm or cut off the paddles and arms of the Brush Hog, leaving the tails. Here are a few others I came up with, using zipper worm and Beaver copies: http://zipperworm.blogspot.com/ The lure with the shad tails is a Gambler Otter copy. The Beaver body with skirt, is something BPS listed in their 2006 cat. (The lizard and shad are just modifications and displayed as personal reminders.)

The only Tenn shad color I am familiar with is from some crankbaits I own. Pearl belly/ olive green/chartreuse sides with black on top. It would require a three-part pour. What would be easier is pouring a solid-pearl stick and use Spike-It or Colorite* for the sides and top. The dye is permanent and creates nice color combos. This is a two-pour laminate: Instead of pearl powder (very expensive), I use sugar flakes (very inexpensive). *(Colorite can be ordered direct and is cheaper than from BPS.)

My other neighbor's S-10 aged 15 years pulling my boat up a mountain. It gave up the ghost 6 mos. later. Probably didn't have the ratio you speak of. There's not too many 8's that will get better than 17 mpg even on flat road, so if I want the power, the truck I buy won't be used for the commute to work. How about SUVs. Any out there that could do the job and get decent mileage? I looking at a 2000 Acura with only 55k on the odom.