zach

did you see your name on it? one of these has 2 tow eyes just to mess around w/ just like a plow but i use even better and heavier wire. this is that other style.

Nitro-if you look in the first picture, your name's on the one on the right, i write everyones name on them if i know them or if its for a gift. hooks? who needs stinking hooks? no, i add the best hooks i have ever found for muskies. VMC conecuts, the same ones that went through my pinky finger w/ no effort at all. i will post some more pics when i get the others done. i have also been working on a bigger more streamlined deep diver to try to get down where legend perchbaits go. i will post a pic of those later also. its 7.5" and a huge lip and a perch profile. i am making some just for the tourney for myself but have around 25 blanks cut to do at a later time. take care and thanks guys, i mean it!

that x-ray if horrible to look at. i can remember back in the day at chautauqua, my dad and i were fishing and his black lab stepped on a suick and had hooks through his paws. those poor dogs. i had to show the ole lady this one. crazy picture. looks like a big old salmon hook.

foils/ black perch's glittered niagara river walleye w/ pearl scale white tiger/ orange belly night shiner black perch tonight i think i need to do some firetigers (green and orange), some green perch's and solgrande is gonna have me do some gold foiled niagara river walleyes. i am also doing a green foiled perch for myself. getting ready for next weekend tournament! anyone else getting excited? i am starting @ 12:01am friday night and pulling another all nighter/ all dayer again just trying to beat solgranded at all means necessary. lol . take care and good fishing. zach baker p.s. oh i almost forgot- go catch a fattie as long as its smaller than mine. lol. anyone else getting excited?

nitro- i was just asking bob about you last week. i haven't seen you since tiger fishing in july. i hope you get more fish in those 4 days than you caught all last year! good to see you back in the swing of things. i will do anything you want. later today i should post some black perch's, niagara river walleyes, white tiger and some foils that people ordered. the foils are looking better each one i do. where are you fishing for those 4 days?

i have a friend who spent friday and saturday at chautauqua and did 6 while losing 3 more. a "pb" 51.5" SLOB, a 47" and some more nice ones. all of these fish were caught on the same color and size lure amazingly. its crazy how picky they can be some times. whats the size and color???????? lol. It's not a firetiger perchbait! it was a 5" niagara river walleye color crankbait.

come on--- on the way home from the musky opener i had my bearing go and it did damage the axle slightly. i fixed it myself but finding bearings and seals was fun. sorry about the bummer bearing. didn't you here it grinding? i can recommend brads trailer world. it was the only place that could help me. good job on the northerns. Brads Trailer 1950 Lyell Ave Rochester, NY 14606-2384 (585) 458-4498 not sure if they are open on sundays or not. i have a game on monday night if you want me to get them for you. i can also do repairs if you want to drag my butt up to the trailer in the islands. i have done bearings and seals many times and can almost do it blind folded. you know my ph # if you need any help. take care bob.

Awesome! I have wanted to go for a couple of years now also. Its a chance to talk to bait makers and get some stuff not sold anywhere else. Custom colors are always a bonus of going to shows. I may even "buck up" and talk to Bill Looney and get an Amma Bamma. I hope to see lots of familiar faces and i personally plan on buying some stuff from Legend Lures and Dale Wiley. Anyone on this site make banners? I could use one.

http://www.butlerfishingshow.com/

I just talked to Howard Wagner and signed up for a booth at the fishing show. If anyone has time come down 2/12 and 2/13 for a neat show. Dale Wiley, Mr. Toothy and lots of other good bait makers will be there offering all sorts of custom colors. I am really excited to do this and hope it turns out well. I know Larry Jones makes it down every year to look at all the new stuff. Take care and thanks for following me on this adventure I am wrapped up in. Thanks for everyones support, honestly, thanks to everyone who has helped me out so far! there are many of you guys. I spoke w/ marc thorpe and gregg thomas and they both have baits coming their way. Once again I thank everyone for their support!

would it help to cover them in epoxy after they are painted or how about powder coating them? you can powder coat many different ways.

hey jax- from my old job i know lots of painters that use urethanes and could spray for you. i have a compressor but no big gun to do it or i would just paint it for you. call me @ 585-414-0138 and i can give you some ph #'s but it may not be too cheap. i have thought about doing it for some time also. i need to use some gluvit for a small rivet leak also.

I would like to thank everyone here that has picked up a lure off me. My first batch of 45 lures is already gone and I just want to take a second to say thanks very much to you guys! I don't know how else to say it. Thanks for giving me and my lures a chance and i hope you get a 50" on them just like i did on monday! Next batch should be done next week except for and special order i have to do by this weekend for Bill. Good fishing to everyone and Blueye and haven't forgotten about you either, I promise. Any problems or comments please give me a call @ 585-414-0138.

that right there is what its all about! i hope you all had a great time b/c those memories will hopefully last a lifetime.

the only problem when fishing alone w/o a tripod is getting a decent pic. she would have looked nice if i was holding her. anyways i was thrilled! she went 50" when i pinched the tail slightly on the new bumpboard my old man just made for me. neat way to break that in also! short video of the fish in the net. nice day out and only one other musky fisherman. fishing was good!

waneta getting pressure? waneta is arguably the most pressured water in all of new york for muskies. those fish have seen everything but a rubber chicken. some decent fisherman fish that lake and know what they are doing. you said that you had a problem w/ weeds, were your rod tips in the water when you were trolling? check out page 5 of lure painting if you have a second. i did a decent one today.

that is freaking awesome! why cast anymore? is he looking to get more?

just did 3 at waneta this morning from 7-11am. a 29,32 and a 50! orange tiger is what the smaller fish wanted 2x and the 50" was on that foiled black perch. fish hit 45' back over 15 fow. i thought i was snagged up for a while before i realized it was a fish. will post pics and short video in a little bit. took my last sick day at work and went fishing and it was worth it. the first fish i ever caught on a plug i made was cool. catching this 50" at 10:30am was even cooler. 50" tested and approved!

i just listened to it again and i was wrong. it took the 10" jake and believer was 10% correct. sorry about that again. here i am telling bob the wrong things.

the only advice i have is to hire rich clark. that guy seems to always get the biggest fish in the state every year. that guy is money on the larry. if i had any sort of cash flow i would hire him in a minute. i red an article by him on the st lawrence and he said he runs really really long lines. like 300-400 foot back b/c of the water clarity. long, long lines and he uses light mono instead of heavy braid like most of us. i want to say he is landing these 50lb muskies on 17lb test line. he runs lots of radke's and believers most on downriggers targeting suspended fish 25-30 feet down over anywhere from 30 to 50 fow. the dale mcnair musky was caught on a 8" black perch jake. the guys from red october jig the eddies and current areas. good luck but i here you can put some time in and not get much on the #'s side but a chance at some of the largest fish in all of north america. wishing you the fatty of all fatties but i hope your relative catches it just to make you jealous. have a nice trip and i always here 40 acre shoal and grindstone are good spots to try.

Take a look to see the action of them. It was rougher and windier than what i wanted but at least i have a short video showing what they do. Sorry about the wind and waves and i will try to get a better one up asap. I started making my first wood lures 3 years ago (have tied bucktails since i was young) and have something good, in my opinion, after doing around 2 dozen prototypes and most not working how I wanted. Well I finally got it I believe, and these guys have a wandering action new to the deeper diving plugs. These will run 6-8" from side to side instead of a straight line which was my goal. You can see some of that in the video. I fished from sun up to 11am and went 1 for 2 w/ a 39" taking the orange tiger around 20 down. The happy hooker has about 20 of them and will get more before spring and Hogan's Hut placed an order for 40 by spring time also! These dive deeper and have more action than the original Tuffs that I am such a fan of. These are also made with better, thicker stainless hardware, lips, hooks and have a more protective clear coat. My goal is to make each one the exact same from everything from lips to hole placement to weighing out 6.5 grams of lead to weight them with. Still have yet to have one blow out while trolling no matter what speed I go. Guide Mike Sperry will be testing these out and i want to have Cpt Larry run them also. After leaving Chautauqua i stopped by Cassadaga lake as I have thought about trying it out for years, since I haven't been there in almost 10 years. As I was getting the boat ready I start talking to this guy and ask him if thats a Newman Jerkbait. He says yes and that he makes them. Well I just shook hands with Rich Newman (one of Ellwood PA's finest) and start talking about baits and this and that. He invites me out to show me Cassadaga and we go out throwing his Newman Jerks. He told me he averages 5-6 for each 1/2 day he puts in there. We went out for 3 hours and did 4 and saw many other follows and Cassadaga is the place to go for numbers. You can contact him @ 724-944-8123. He was a really cool person and he even took 2 plugs off me to try and get my name out there, since he liked the action of the lures. Thanks for following me on this bait-making adventure that I have started on. Good fishing, and I am happy with my product. I hope that if you try one you will be also. Thanks for your time! Zach Baker.

old man- gustofson and solgrande have been doing that for at least 2 years that i know about. they tried to bring me to the dark side. they call it the "berger king" rig after 1000 island guide dave berger. big believer w/ a big flutter spoon 18"-24" behind the lure. they have been doing that up there for years and there was an article in muskyhunter maybe 3-4 years ago about it.

well i have been learning the trials and tribulations of lure making and finally came up with something good enough to share. these are handmade out of cedar like the old tuff shads were but are made even tougher imo. i used .061 wire for the lips instead of the small .045 wire which seemed to go out of tune pretty easily. i used the absolute best hooks i can buy (vmc conecuts) and wolverine triple split rings. double thick epoxy clear coat and lots of pearls that don't really show up in the pics. i did these colors they way they are a request from brian at the happy hooker. these babies wouldn't blow out no matter what i did ( went up to 7mph doing turns and they hold dead nuts) when testing them. i use a very low horizontal ballast to make them run like that at such speeds. it took a lot of experimenting with weighting and lots of cedar for firewood but i finally got it correct. deeper diving then a tuff shad that seem to not go any deeper than 15 feet, i can get these babies to 25 feet deep w/ around 130 feet of line out. lost my best lure so far at waneta snagged on the bottom in 25 fow and i broke 100lb power pro trying to get it out. i wrapped my line around a boat cleat and drifted off to see what was stronger, my plug or 100lb powerpro braid. well the line broke first. 5 coats of sealer make sure that these won't split or crack on you for years to come. if anyone ever has a problem w/ them i will do what ever i can to make it right. custom colors are always an option and i will do anything you want with in reason. so far in the last 4 times out i have caught 5 and lost 4 on my lures. i have around 150 more bodies of this style and around 25 of a larger slimmed out size similar to a perch bait. if anyone is interested in them please contact me here or at 585-414-0138. one reason for me doing these other than having what i consider a good plug is the shop i have wrenched cars at for 6 years is closing in less than a month and i wouldn't mind taking a break from getting banged up and greasy working on cars. thanks for your time and here are some pics of what i am bringing to chautauqua to go up in the shop. if anyone buys even just one thanks very much it will help my family out.

lips- you like hook stories? heres one, last week when i was organizing my lures to take out fishing the night before i was hanging up lures in the basement on this big peg board i have on the wall. i put up a bunch and grabbed a lure that had some nasty vmc conecuts on it. as i was hanging it up, little colton come over and gives me a superman hug pushing me off balance and i ended up with a 3/0 almost all the way through my right pinky. the tip of the point was coming right through the tip of my finger w/ it in my finger past the barb. trying not to freak out w/ my 2 yr old there i held the lure trying to decide what to do. i couldn't pull it back out, didn't want to go to the doctors either so i had to pass it all the way through until the barb came through and since this was in my right hand i couldn't cut the hook w/ my left hand so i had to roll the barb over and pull it back through. fun times! amazingly it healed up perfect but i was lucky and didn't have a fish connected to the other hooks. take care. zach

well, since we have hijacked larry's thread all ready i will add some fishing p*rn from last night. spent half of my 3 hours out there tuning cranks but this little guy thought that foiled perch was for dinner but this one had hooks and most likely didn't taste the way he wanted it to. lost one other on that same lure that i had on for 4-5 seconds and my so called "perfect storm" never really happened. i was expecting way higher winds and some nasty rain but it never happened. oh well at least i didn't get soaked. floating weed were as bad as i have seen them all year. shallows were pretty much off limits last night b/c of the 20lb globs of floating junk weeds all around it. P.S. chad- how deep are those "mud-sharks" you are catching? gonna give it a try sooner or later, i have downriggers in the garage but have never put them on the boat yet and i don't know what i am waiting for but eventually. P.S.S. thanks joe esox- i have been playing around alot w/ lures and i finally think i have the best lip/ weight/ length combo figured out for my style of fishing. these babies are as good as any deep diving shad style lure i have used IMO and the fish seem to hitting them also which doesn't hurt.