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I've never thrown a pencil bait either, and don't really understand why I might need one over something like a Heddon Chug'n Spook. Is there something a pencil bait does that it can't do, or does it walk or spit better? Or maybe that weird shape just offers a little different action?

From Tackle Warehouse:

Clear looks a lot like white in the water. Even more when it's sanded or filed and roughed up. With some baits you can put a hairdryer to it to heat it up and the paint will flake. It's still a pain to get the little bits off, but you can end up with a smooth clear surface if you're lucky. You have to be careful though - you can easily warp a jerkbait.

I guess that used to be their site. Looks like nothing has been updated for the past 6 years and there's nothing really there. Funny that didn't turn up in my search results, I tried Google, DDG and Bing.

Which site is that? The worms I got were not soft, but I wouldn't call them stiff. They're a lot more durable than most worms because of that, so that's not all bad. I like some of the colors - they have one that looks just like a live worm in the water. Yeah, I've got some of their jerkbaits and squarebills in some nice colors. No complaints. They have some stuff, not much. I'm not like desperately trying to find anything, I was just wondering if I'm missing something obvious, it seems like they would sell all their stuff somewhere. I see they have a facebook page, but I don't do facebook.

I’m just going to throw this out there. They seem like a strange company. They have been around forever. They have a weird distribution system. If they have a central website, I can’t find it. They make some pretty nice stuff, but also make cheap stuff for walmart. They seem to make a lot of different products, but some are only sold in combination with other baits. For example, someone gave me the 128-piece worm kit, and it has just a few worms that I really like, but the only way to get anymore would be to buy another kit. Maybe they have more stuff for sale somewhere else? It seems like they would have high manufacturing costs due to the wide variety of products, and small return based on limited distribution. Maybe they’re just waiting to be gobbled up like all the old lure companies? Am I missing something? Anybody know more about them?

I’ve considered making some giant baits by soaking them in a mixture of water and bait attractant. Never got around to it though. I don’t know which plastics would work, and no idea how long it would have to soak. I've seen lizards that look like baby alligators ?

I have used hot-melt glue to test experimental lures before I switch to epoxy for a permanent seal. Rubber cement might work, but it might peel off, which it has a tendency to do.

This thread was a wake-up call for me too. I thought it was just marketing hype, I didn’t know it referred to wire thickness. I recently got some cheap Eagle Claw trebles for replacement on old found lures, and they were 3X. That’s all they stocked at Walmart and Academy. I’ve had some missed bites, but I’ve caught a lot more on them than missed. So they will work for bass, but now that I know, I will definitely look harder for lighter wire the next time I get some.

I can get the Frittside to do a horizontal flip thing the Rapala won't do. I like the Rapala, I like the Frittside more.

There’s nothing wrong with a realistic shape. Looking realistic is not bad. If you could make a bait look exactly like a crawfish, AND make it crawl along the bottom like a crawfish, the fish would eat it up. When the person making the bait decides that a realistic shape is more important than the way it moves, that’s a mistake, in my opinion.

A few weeks back I found a Sexy Dawg floating along the bank that I had lost last summer. A few days later I found a jerk bait floating along the bank I had lost last summer as well. The week before that I had lost a different jerk bait, and then a week later one of my fishing buddies caught the fish that had broke me off, with my jerk bait still stuck to his face. So that’s three lures I got back in the same week. I’m pretty good about not losing lures, and when I do lose them, it’s rare that I find them again. The odds of me getting three back in one week have got to be a million to one. All of mine were lost when I got broke off, and I felt bad about each one. I would love to know what happened to those fish.

It’s not so hard to make something look like a crawfish, it’s making it look like a moving crawfish that is hard. The realistic ones look like a crawfish statue being dragged through the water. A Beaver doesn’t look very realistic sitting still, but in motion it looks much more realistic. Fish react more to motion than stationary appearance, in my experience. I would expect this Sleeper Craw to catch fish when it’s falling or just after hitting the bottom. Not so much while being worked along the bottom. Looks more like a Yum Crawbug to me.

Just bend the wire.

That's what I did eventually. It was fun trying to fix it, but it was hopeless.

That's pretty cool that you get free leader material with it.

My time is cheap ? You're right though. I expect the ball is coated in rust, and just knocking it free is not going to stop it from getting stuck again as the ball rotates.

I don't that would exert as much force as I have already applied. I have banged on it to the point I thought I might crack the plastic. I think I chipped a little bit of the paint off. I'm considering drilling a 1/32" hole around the end and inserting an old broken drill bit, then tapping on it to free it up and then resealing the hole with epoxy.

I think if you let any hollow lure float in a lake for long enough for the hooks to rust off, it's going to get some condensation inside. I guess even stainless will rust in a situation like that. ?

So that explains my problem. One of the ball bearings is stuck in the tail. I didn't know they both were supposed to roll. I have other jerk baits that have a stationary ball in the tail, so I thought it was designed that way. I had tried tapping on the ball to break it loose, but it's stuck good. That's tempting, but seeing how I found it, I wouldn't feel right about doing that. It might get some kind of bad karma curse on it ?

Where's the magnet? What size? Yeah, I know some things on some baits are critical like that. Some stuff isn't as simple as it seems.

So AlabamaSpothunter is saying it should sit nose down. JediAmoeba is saying it should sit nose up? Maybe I should have done a poll... Yeah, I have several jerkbaits that work like that. This 110 works like that for a second after you twitch it, but then the ball rolls back to the back.

I found a Vision 110 floating in the lake with the hooks rusted off. I’ve been trying to replace the hooks and get it balanced to suspend horizontal, but when I get it to suspend or float, it usually sits heads-up, tail sunk. When jerked it will level off horizontal for a second, then the tail will usually sink. When I adjust the hardware to get it to sit horizontal, it slowly sinks. Is it just supposed to sit like that? Maybe this one is damaged from being in the lake too long. It’s transparent, so I can see there’s no condensation in there, but there is a little rust along the tracks the ball bearing rolls on. The ball rolls smoothly.

Their EWGs are all heavy gauge wire. At least that's all I've ever seen in stock. I prefer thinner wire myself, but other than that, they're good hooks.

I wore one pair over the other once when I had my pupils dilated and had to drive. It helped a lot. Clip-ons are a good idea. Yep. Fishing from bank.