Aside of the paint job are there any differences in say a Megabass jerkbait or SCrank versus those you see for sale as custom painted blanks?  And what’s the difference compared to those you see from Academy Sports and other national chains that sell the same looking baits at a cheaper price?

 

Besides the hooks.

There's some differences for sure. A 110 KO blank does not perform like a MB 110. Not to say they don't work. A friend of mine paints them and I've had a couple that have caught me hundreds of fish. He also does wiggle wart blanks and since they came out with a one knocker blank, that's what I fish most of the time I fish a wart and they work excellent. Small differences effect the way they move during the retrieve and at rest, their sound, paint schemes effect their reflective abilities and even their balance if they have too much or too little paint.

 

Good painters can make a good blank into a good bait, but don't expect it to be like the real thing.

19 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

There's some differences for sure. A 110 KO blank does not perform like a MB 110. Not to say they don't work. A friend of mine paints them and I've had a couple that have caught me hundreds of fish. He also does wiggle wart blanks and since they came out with a one knocker blank, that's what I fish most of the time I fish a wart and they work excellent. Small differences effect the way they move during the retrieve and at rest, their sound, paint schemes effect their reflective abilities and even their balance if they have too much or too little paint.

 

Good painters can make a good blank into a good bait, but don't expect it to be like the real thing.

Thanks.  Is this true for most all popular lures like this? Is this basically what Academy and BPS are selling?  The same blanks as guys online but I guess not quite as good of a paint job?  And is this true for any lure that is t sold by the original maker?

3 hours ago, mheichelbech said:

Thanks.  Is this true for most all popular lures like this? Is this basically what Academy and BPS are selling?  The same blanks as guys online but I guess not quite as good of a paint job?  And is this true for any lure that is t sold by the original maker?

I'm sure there's different quality of blanks out there. You can find some for extremely cheap and some that are quite a bit more expensive. I doubt you can buy a real deal blank for a lot of baits (like an actual MB 110 blank), they're likely only made and sold to the company or made and painted in the same factory.

Knock off lures are just that...knock off’s of the original.

There any free lunch’s.

Tom

On 2/15/2021 at 11:47 PM, WRB said:

Knock off lures are just that...knock off’s of the original.

There any free lunch’s.

Tom

So are all of these custom painted baits that look so good and meticulously well done knockoffs and to be avoided.  You probably know there are many people with websites selling custom painted lures.  Some seem to be very successful with it.  I’m just trying to square the popularity of the custom painted “knock offs” versus the actual manufacturer/original designers.  
 

Btw, I’m not meaning to be disagreeable.  Just trying to figure out how these guys can be successful selling lipstick on a pig which is basically what is going on if I understand everything correctly.  Something is out of kilter...either they are fooling a lot of people or they are getting really good blanks.  Now, I know also there are painters out there who are taking originals and repainting them and this is usually reflected in the price of the lure but I’d guess that these are the minority.

If anyone knows what the deal is on this I’d love to know more about it.

On 2/15/2021 at 10:47 PM, WRB said:

Knock off lures are just that...knock off’s of the original.

I won some custom painted baits. I chose a squarebill blank in phantom gill, a DT6 blank in sexy shad, a choppo blank in rat and a red patterned jerkbait. The paint job and hooks on all of them were great. The squarebill was really really good. The DT6 is really really bad. I tried the plopper for a few minutes and it seemed to run well so it should catch fish. I haven't tried the jerkbait yet. So my experience is that it's a mixed bag. Unfortunately the guy is no longer painting small squarebills anymore. He's concentrating on the larger baits.

Pros go through dozens of original lures to find those that catch more bass then others. These fish catch lures become pets they rely on regardless of how they look.

Having proven lures custom painted is different then having unknown fish catching knock offs.

I had and still have custom painted name brand fish catching pet lures custom painted.

Tom

I’ve caught plenty of fish on knockoff 110s and at 6 bucks a pop I’ll keep using them. 

It really is hit or miss. I've had quite a few of different KO baits. Best advice, buy someone who does it a lot because if they were selling baits that didn't work, they wouldn't be able to continue selling them.

A lot of the guys that are successful do a lot of repaints for people, yeah they sell there painted baits on their websites, and I am sure most of them are fish catchers.  My buddy just sent in a bunch of DT series baits and other cranks he had bought for cheap prices on sale and had a guy paint a certain Strike King paint scheme on all them that works good for him in our lakes around here.  This is how most of the guys doing the painting for a living make it I think from what I have heard.  

12 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

It really is hit or miss. I've had quite a few of different KO baits. Best advice, buy someone who does it a lot because if they were selling baits that didn't work, they wouldn't be able to continue selling them.

This has been my thinking as well.  Although I do think that given the hit and miss nature of bass fishing it can be very difficult if your not catching fish due to the lure.  I know I have like 13 Mann’s Baby Minus Ones in the Ghost Minnow color...6 are still in my box and the other 7 are stuck away in my hall of shame lure box.  Some just don’t catch fish and some just don’t run right.  I should have returned them but for $5-$6 it’s not worth the trouble.  Point being even from manufacturers you can get losers.  Maybe the more expensive brands are more consistent...I dunno.  
 

Obviously some lures you can just tell they aren’t running right.  Others it’s more subtle...very hard to tell sometimes.

Don't get too wrapped up in custom colors.  Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place for everything, but some my most productive baits look like they have been through a belt sander.   

On 2/18/2021 at 2:21 PM, GetFishorDieTryin said:

Don't get too wrapped up in custom colors.  Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place for everything, but some my most productive baits look like they have been through a belt sander.   

I agree... I probably didn't word my topic very well.  It was as much about the lure blanks that custom painters use versus what the manufacturer actually uses.  I guess another good example would be Lucky Craft lures...are the $8 LC baits as good as the $15 LC baits?  I really don't know because I don't spend enough time or really have enough time to compare.  I think this is something that can be really hard to determine except through visually watching the action.  Some lakes I fish, it definitely doesn't matter....fish will bite practically anything moving most days...other lakes I fish are really tough.  Another example is last year I was fishing in March and caught 3 bass over 5 pounds on 3 different jerk baits but those were the only fish I caught.  The guy I was fishing with caught 0 although he was fishing similar jerkbaits.  Was it me and the way I was fishing the jerkbait?  Was it line difference?  Or as it just luck that my bait happened to be in the right place at the right time?  Hard to say it is.