WaterOtter

I'm playing around with ideas for displaying my most favoritist lures, so I put my "minor triumph" Hula Popper in a shadow box. I can't find many good ideas online or on bassresource, so I started a new thread asking for display ideas.

I recently moved north, so I've been retiring and setting aside my old favorite lures as I shift to match the new conditions, and I've started playing around with rails on the wall and shadow boxes to figure out the best ways to display them. Here's the first shadow box I've used. I bent baling wire to support the Hula Popper and its skirt. Anybody have good ideas and tips on what works best? Pictures would be especially appreciated.

A minor triumph yesterday. I've been watching this Hula Popper for over a year and a half, dangling from the tip of a cottonwood bough waay up over the lake. There was no way I could reach it from shore or from my kayak, so I patiently turned over the challenge in my mind... I went by two weeks ago with my 24' window-washing extension pole, and standing on my tippy toes on the ice I could just barely touch it with the tip but I couldn't knock it loose. (I can touch an 8' ceiling, and the pole is 24', so it was 32' up there.) So, I went home and tied a garden claw to the end of my pole, and with some trying I got it down. I'll replace the skirt and display it in a place of honor.

The Bronco Sport has awesome styling, but you might consider the height of the roofline and lifting the kayak up that high. Its roofline is 70", Outback's roofline is 4" lower (which can be a lot), and my Mazda's roofline is 13" lower. Of course there are other tradeoffs, such as it's easier (and more manly) getting into cars with higher rooflines. Follow your heart, but keep in mind that it's your back that gets you around so you can do the fun stuff.

Hey, I found one just like that last year in Michigan. That's cool!

Found first lure of the year yesterday. Stopped by the lakes to watch the ice skaters and fishermen, and when I stepped into the woods for a nature break, this was in the bush right in front of me. No idea how it got there, ~30' from the lake shore. Sometimes it seems like I'm living a charmed life. ?

Mounting these tie-downs on top of your car is very clever, I love it! It's one of those ideas I wish I had thought of

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I've been using a perfect solution so I never have to lift the whole kayak at once and it never touches my car. One of the criteria that led me to buy my Mazda3 was the low roof line to facilitate kayaking. It also has weld nuts in the roof, which I screw M6 stainless steel studs into (these are really screws with the heads cut off). Then I put my $125 craigslist roof racks onto those studs and I secure them with wing nuts. (I drilled holes in the roof rack's feet) On the roof racks I have Malone Sea Wings, the version with the Stinger tail ($150 on sale). When I load the kayak, the stinger pivots with the weight of the boat and puts a support on the roof for sliding the kayak on and off without the kayak touching the car. The real key, and the one that took the longest to discover, was to use a suction cup thing with a foam roller on the back window. I can lift up the front end of my kayak and put it onto the roller, then slide the kayak up across that and the stinger and onto the sea wings without ever lifting the entire boat at once. I store the kayak on a hoist in my garage, and I can have the kayak on the car in less than 5 minutes, including roof rack install, and then at the lake I can have it off the car in two minutes, and vice versa. And I haven't hurt my back once since I started using this system in early 2020.

I've thought about getting this 110 whopper plopper mounted. I'll never forget it - on May 1st I pulled it out of a tree, and a few hours later a nice medical lady cut it out of my calf. The sticky sharp hooks kept grabbing onto my pants leg in the kayak because the lure was too big to stay in the cupholder where I pile found lures, and when I stepped out of the boat it was on my jeans again, coming with me, but it was also hooked onto some line from trash that was staying with the boat, and the hook got driven in past the barb. Now when I have an unruly pile of lures I put them in a plastic container before I exit the boat.

There wasn't anybody on the water this afternoon, probably because of the snow on the ground, but I was. lol

That's an awesome picture, Fin. I don't have any trees quite that loaded up in my area. I usually pull down everything I can, just to reduce the litter and to prevent people snagging lures on them, but I admit there are a few trees at high-traffic spots that I leave plastic bobbers on because I daydream of them as Christmas tree decorations. But they don't have that many bobbers, that's crazy ?

The challenging ones are the most fun. In all my time there is only one that is still eluding me, a Hula Popper with its hook stuck in a cottonwood branch at least 30' above the water. I see its friendly smile every time I go to the lake.

Hopefully it was just someone taking a little kid fishing and they didn't want to get bit by the lure. This year I've pulled down 3 of the little plastic fish that come in Shakespeare's little kid starter sets, all hung up in trees by exuberant little kids (I hope it was the kids!)

Spinnerbaits look so silly that it used to be I wouldn't even try one, until I lived in Alabama and a friend who fishes lots of tournaments recommended a specific brand/size/color to me, so I bought it (actually, he must have misstated the color because I hunted and hunted and it didn't actually exist, so I bought one which I imagined was close ? ). I had to fish it more than 2 hours without catching nuthin, trying different locations, depths, speeds, pulses, etc. before I finally caught one, but after that it's pulled in LMB's one after another and it's one of my go-to lures for a wide variety of conditions. Now I've gone through several copies of it and I keep a small stockpile and carry a backup so I'll never be without it. The key was my friend's credibility, because otherwise I wouldn't have stuck with it long enough to learn how to rock it. You may still learn to use them too. BTW jigs never worked for me either and I don't even bother to carry them anymore. ?

I'm new here, but I'm thoroughly enjoying reading y'all's posts and gaining perspective. I've learned there is a community of bass fishermen who are obsessed but reasonable, witty and entertaining. Oh, and I've learned to see the bait monkey coming ...

The lakes around me have quit producing lures too, or at least the trees and bushes have. It was a very weedy summer, which blocked most bank fishing spots, and when the weeds finally cleared it coincided with a large and sudden drop in temperature, so not many people are stopping by to cast a line. So, I've been poking along the shores looking for pop up lures. Today was an exceptionally beautiful day, and I had a really exciting find - a Heddon Meadow Mouse!

Me too usually, that's why I'm curious about the two without hooks. One of my favorite rattle trap finds ... I once saw a white curly thing on the bottom of the lake next to a chunk of wood in 20" of water, and I reached in and grabbed it. When I looked in my hand I said to myself "cool, a rattle trap." Then I did a double take - this wasn't white or curly! I looked down and the thing was still there, so I reached back in and pulled up a white curly tail on a lead head.

Very nice! Do you have good stories on how you found and retrieved the two rattle trap lures without hooks? They must have been submerged.

I appreciate the concern for my wellbeing! Like I said, I like to mull these ideas over during dull moments. (I went back and confirmed the low wires with the lures are communication wires, and I found they are chopped off below the anchor on the pole, but it's still a terrible idea to muck around near power wires and people should not. From the number of lures on the line (20+), some barely hanging on, it's clear that a lot of people agree that we should avoid messing around near power lines.)

So one of the things I love about lure hunting is the problem solving. (Almost) every lure poses a challenge of some sort - how do I get that Yo-Zuri crystal minnow down from way up there - it must be 40' up in that tree??! How do I get that Rapala jointed minnow out of that tangle of vines in this current? How do I get that Super Spook from that far into that tangle of vines, bushes and thorns? How do I get that Googan Squad zinger unstuck from that log that far beneath the surface without it dropping into the depths?! I've watched some lures for weeks while I slowly turn the problem over in my head. (answers: 24' extension pole with custom tip while climbing a low tree and finally pulling the tangle of line below the lure; pruners with lively, acrobatic kayaking; kayak and pruners and an 18' extension pole held about 30 degrees while threading the pole carefully in and out of the morass; by holding the lure with a 36" magnetic pickup tool while carefully working at it from the side with my paddle blade) But now I'm mulling a new challenge... I'm on a business trip to Ohio and I was scouting for local hole-in-the-wall fishing spots when I spied a telephone line going across a river which has 3 different tangles of lures, each with at least 6 lures, including crankbaits, poppers and whopper ploppers. Now, I have always just said no to lures on power lines, but I know the top set of wires are 3-phase electric and dangerous, the next ones are probably lesser electric and dangerous, and then the two bundles of loosely slung wires further down the pole have got to be telephone and cable or data wires, and it's the lowest bundle of 3 wires, about 10' above the water, which has all the lures. And they are a little too far over the river to get without going into or onto the river ... Hmmmm, how best to discretely get them while ensuring my safety? ...

Last weekend I went to a park with a very large lake and poked along several miles of shoreline that I've never searched before. I spent most of 5 hours in the shoreline pockets that weeds and trash blow into. I picked up 31 lures (and plenty of trash), but most of the lures were "pop-ups" that were originally trapped underwater and had to rust off their hooks to free themselves up, and most of them had been in the crud for months. Anyway, hardly any shiny lures, but lots of jack-pot thrills nonetheless as I pulled in one lure after another (I guess I averaged one every twelve minutes, but it felt like one after another!). Here are two unusual lures that I would love to have someone identify. I haven't done much cleaning on them yet. The red one hasn't lost its second hook mount, it never had one. And the eyes are definitely looking up, like it was looking for someone to pick it up.

And while we're at it, I haven't been able to identify this frog. It has an old vibe to the paint, and the large gap to the tail suggest lower end ... but it looks like a a fun lure. That's a good thought, but I don't think this is thick enough, and it conforms to the shape better than I would think lead or adhesive metal would do ...

Another question since folks have been so great about answering questions ... What's up with this lure I found a few weeks ago? It's a G-Ratt Pistol Pete in green perch, a beautiful lure. But this one has an orange streak on the head (I think it's a sticker, but it might be extremely precise and thick paint) and circular stickers that seem to be on it to protect it from the hooks. Both are perfectly placed and adhered. I don't see these features on lures online. So is it a customized lure, an previous model year, a prototype ... ?

I just realized that in the pile of lures found yesterday, I found a Rebel Frog-R, a Rebel Crank-R, and a Rebel Pop-R. What are the odds of that!

You nailed it! Thanks