10 hours ago, Rockhopper said:

First bait I've ever painted in my life. Used an old cheap lure I had to practice. I should order some blanks. 

 

 

And this was number two. Same deal. Old crap lure just practicing on. 

 

That’s looking real good! REAL good. 

5 hours ago, Smirak said:

That’s looking real good! REAL good. 

Thanks man. It's fun to play around with it. The goal is to make my own glides start to finish at some point. 

4 minutes ago, Rockhopper said:

Thanks man. It's fun to play around with it. The goal is to make my own glides start to finish at some point. 

That’s a great goal to have. I’m also a hobby woodworker, and I’ve made a few in my day, but nothing worthy of showing. 

Here’s the eye(s) I painted up for them…

 

 

That’s coming out bomb.com @Smirak!

On 11/30/2025 at 7:27 PM, Smirak said:

Here’s the eye(s) I painted up for them…

 

 

Wow! That’s amazing work 

Some I’ve been working on. 3/16 sniper heads and hand tied skirts. Really gonna stick with more natural and bottom matching colors this year 

I'll preface this and say I think there are a lot of others in this thread and channel that have more talent than me and this is actually my first attempt at making anything. It's also not something I fully made on my own just a bait I saw and wasn't quite sure what to do with when I got it so figured I'd tinker with it a bit and see what I could do to improve it and make it useful for me. That said I give you my version of a reaction big dipper:

 

If you are curious that's a 5/0 vmc drop dead in it with some eyes I got at bass pro. The dipper series is one of my favorite swimbaits out there and figured I'd give this one a try since I love the colors they've got. They are also not all that expensive and are usually around $6 each for four of them. The hooks are also about the same price and come in a 4 pack. So not counting the eyes or the 3 dabs of superglue that's about $12 for 4 6" swimbaits and if you are like me and completely blew your budget on a couple of high end rods this year the idea of $3 swimbaits can be a bit of a relief. 

I originally picked these up to be weedless swimbaits but after getting them I didn't really find a weedless hook that I like. Most of the ones I looked at didn't go far back enough and were too close to the head. The ones that did manage to get back far enough were too tall, weighed too much and just didn't look right to me and I worried they would look off to the bass as well. The 5/0 drop dead could probably be used in a pinch but I didn't like the clearance on it although it seemed to fit perfectly in terms of getting into the middle of the bait. Eventually figured I'd try threading one on this way and it looked good once I managed to get it on, so I picked up some eyes at bass pro and here we are. To rig it I took off the screwlock and then put it back on so it's pointing down the shaft of the hook then screwed the head of the bait on. Bit tricky to do that but once you do it's on there and probably not going anywhere for a while. Other than that just a drop of crazy glue for each eye and I also added one where the hook went into the plastic and bent the hook up just a tad to give it a little extra exposure.

 

I'm very interested to see how this does vs something like a Magdraft or a Daingerous...if it can hold it's own I may end up throwing it into my rotation when I want a larger lure with an exposed hook as their lab rat and sexy shad colors are two of my all time favorites...going to give it a go next week even though it's not the ideal time for one and we shall see how she does.

@Brian11719 I’m looking forward to hearing how it works out.

Shad bait that I foiled up while my lakes were frozen. I was going for that faded look they get in the winter around here.

Fishmas out…

 

 

Granddaughter wanted a purple fish (she’s a little over 2). I painted this up. Clearcoat tonight. I’m going to call it the alpine shad because she lives at Alpine Hollow Farms in TN (their farm name)

Here’s the alpine glitz shad (my made up name) with clearcoat. 

On 12/13/2025 at 12:25 PM, Eric 26 said:

@Brian11719 I’m looking forward to hearing how it works out.

@Eric 26 I finally got a chance to try it and it was a dud. Not enough weight on that hook so it was rolling over unless you burned it and that's the heaviest one they've got for that hook sadly. Probably not the first swimbait out there (or the last) that looked great but didn't live up to expectations...I still think there's potential w/ that one but will need to rethink the hook and for today I ended up switching to a Scottsboro Tackle Swimbait.

I don’t mean to one up you guys, but check out this lure that I fired up on my daughters 3d printer 

I've been making some big inline spinners for musky fishing and experimenting with skirts made from acrylic yarn.

 

 

 

On 12/30/2025 at 8:37 PM, stk44 said:

I don’t mean to one up you guys, but check out this lure that I fired up on my daughters 3d printer 

Pretty neat. Did you model that yourself, or did you download it somewhere. I print all kinds of stuff with mine, but have not printed a lure yet. 

3 minutes ago, Smirak said:

Pretty neat. Did you model that yourself, or did you download it somewhere. I print all kinds of stuff with mine, but have not printed a lure yet. 

No it was a design that my wife found. I wish I was that creative lol. I found some chicken wire to make the hook holders and then just threw some snaps and hooks on. I added a little rattle as well.

 

Now I have to wait until the pond unfreezes to try it out. The only thing I really don’t like is the plastic bill. It’s made if the same PLA filament as the body, so I’m not sure how well it will dive. 

The pla on the bill may be an issue. If you have the ability to print ABS, try one in ABS?

4 hours ago, Smirak said:

The pla on the bill may be an issue. If you have the ability to print ABS, try one in ABS?

I’ll see if I can figure it out to use ABS just for that section 

On 12/30/2025 at 9:37 PM, stk44 said:

don’t mean to one up you guys, but check out this lure that I fired up on my daughters 3d printer

How'd you get the hook holder inside? 

Could you do some dead lifting strength tests with this thing, might put me over the edge to get one. 

22 hours ago, Elkins45 said:

big inline spinners for musky fishing and experimenting with skirts made from acrylic yarn.

How's the yarn performing? 

@Banned User the 3d printer spits them out into two halves. It’s still a pain, but you have to bed the wire just right so that both halves close. It definitely does not require much strength but a lot of finessing. 

First rainbow trout. Looked much better prior to the glitter. Asked the wife to add an “touch” of glitter to the clearcoat. Her touch and line are different I suppose…

@Smirak how'd you do the spots?

 

Definitely dope bro, your wife did good by you, bag a 5#er with it and apologize with a kiss haha

8 hours ago, Banned User said:

@Smirak how'd you do the spots?

 

Definitely dope bro, your wife did good by you, bag a 5#er with it and apologize with a kiss haha

I have some stencils that I 3d printed. This was from one of those stencils…(ignore the yellow post it - that’s there to show the contrast)