Stringjam

Little bit of experimentation tonight.

I'm always amazed at how consistently you can carve round baits, Marty - - super job.

I like the gold/green combo - very nice.

Looks very good, Toledo - - man, those baits underneath are HUGE!!

Actually, I pretty much just "picked up an airbrush yesterday." I am used to spraying paint, in a sense, as it's what I do for a living - except it's spraying cabinets, woodwork, walls, etc......much larger scale. It really doesn't have much in common with airbrushing, except that it gave me a basic understanding of things like spray pattern, the importance of pressure and distance, and overspray. I think classes would be cool, but you certainly wouldn't need them to paint anything like I have. Trigger control is a real biggie - - I spent a good bit of time before I started just painting on a big white posterboard. Paying attention to distance and brush angle and how it affects overspray. Practicing consistent blending from dark to light, etc.... Also paying close attention to how those things are effected by air pressure and how thick/thin your paint is. I don't know why I'm giving advice because I'm a complete airbrush newbie....but so far, those are the things I've worked on, and that seem to be important for basic lure painting.

Not at all....my airbrushes are an Iwata HP-SB (.2mm) and an Iwata Revolution CR (.5mm). Paint is all House of Kolor acrylic urethanes. The clear I'm *testing* is Matrix MS-42 automotive urethane.

looks great, Dave - nice color selection!

Dad called me up yesterday and asked me to paint him up a dark green craw Speed Trap. Pretty close to the color of our crawfish around here....various shades of green with bright orange accents all over them.

It's a Storm something or other I had laying around. I just kind of grab practice plugs at random. I don't think I've ever even fished it before. ;D

In my experience, VMC makes good hooks - Owner makes great ones. And if you want the best - get some Gamakatsu EWG trebles.

Very cool - let us know how it turns out!

I'm going to take quite a bit of time to thoroughly test and evaluate my paint / prep system for durability before actually considering selling or offering any repaints. Thanks for the kind words, though!

I haven't really had enough time to evaluate durability yet....I've only really been fishing once since I started painting... I was pretty hard on my first bait that day, and I'm happy with the way it held up.........I've finished some wooden baits and that will be a big test for the stuff.

I believe color is very important - at some times more than others. Even if it weren't important - I would still believe it was.....it's just more fun that way.

I decided to try and work up an Ayu pattern, so I did a Google image search for "Ayu"......after being forced to search through dozens of pics of cute Japanese chicks with the name, I found some nice photos of some Ayu. The coloration really seems to vary a lot, but I like the fish with blueish hues (lower). Here's my initial take on it..... Lots of shine if you bend it into the sun.... Here's another Ayu.....

Yes Whether or not it's just the combination of greens and blacks that are in so many other fish, or that bass like to eat little bass, it's a pretty consistent color. It's just not popular because it's been around forever (like firetiger) and it doesn't have the "latest greatest" kind of hype behind it.

It's just a Canon PowerShot A560 The macro-mode does a pretty decent job on these shots, though.

I really don't like these Bagley vibes much.....I'm just using it as a paint-practice plug. It'll probably be a different color by tomorrow.

Those look killer! I really like the hues on the "faded dolphin." That's one of my favorite all-around colors. Are the bottom right baits B2 clones?

I think you'll dig it, Bob. It seems to do everything very well. They also achieved a good balance on the buoyancy - which I would rate as moderate - adequate for cover. The one thing I don't like about the Poe's is that it is weighted too much - almost suspends. It also casts extremely well. Using a line counter, I marked my braid at certain intervals to help me determine how far some of these deep divers cast (since castability is one of the most important attributes of a deep diving crank). The best casting baits I can get into the 140 ft. range....occasionally I can swing it just right and get to nearly 150. The DT is among them - both the 16 and the 20.

To answer the depth question, the 30+ is really only good for low 20's. A 3/4 oz. Luhr-Jensen Hot Lips will get a little deeper than the Manns....still pulls like an anchor. You can get a Poe's Comp Cedars 4500 LR or a Rapala DT-20 to get you into the 20' range much more easily. I've only had the DT-20 for about a month, but it is already putting fish in the boat quite well. I think they did an excellent job on the design.

My first try at a pumpkinseed/sunfish type of thing.

A couple of baits Marty carved up for me sans paint. I think in the future I'm going to drill out a recess for the eye, though.....I don't care for the eye-sticking-out look. This one was very hard to photograph....I wanted something with a lot of flash and iridescence for clear water. If you hold it at an angle, the whole lure flashes lavender, and also a subtle shade of green (I mixed a tiny bit of green paint in with the dry pearl carrier).

I started both of the new little flatsides tonight.

This was a request from my father.....he wanted something dark and shiny, so this is what I came up with.