lure painting

[THE TRADESMEN]

Thanks for the card Capitain.

Nice job on the paint Zack, I may need a couple of Believers redone. I will get in touch when the time comes.

Lil Musky man makes me smile thanks for the pic's.

[zach]

been paiting some, but have spent most of my time learning the wood lathe to make some sort of wiley copies. got cool eyes now and have switched over to automotive paint only.

[woodwacker]

zach. as an old school st clair painter. red dots under the throat and butt are norm. as for dots on baits. special perch red dots, and frog patterns. good luck on your adventure.

george

woodie baits

[zach]

well thanks for the encouragement. have gotten somewhat better only by doing alot more. i am a big fan of the woodies and hopefully one day i will be up to your level. u can paint wonderful and make great plugs which i do own 5 of!

[woodwacker]

keep at it. we all learn from our mistakes. thru the years i could heat a house with my screw-ups.dont be afraid to experiment.you have a great start.

[zach]

heat the house huh? i could probally make some chairs or coffee tables but not heat the house. funny. these are two black perch tuff shads i have started for gustofson. the clear coat cracked on both of his lures when they were new from hamerick and this let water into it and made the crack open up ruining the paint and the rest of the clear coat. it even discolored some of the wood but i used wood hardener over the body to stop any more problems. i stripped them down to bare wood, sealed them so hopefully they are water resistant now if my clear ever gets punctured. i need to finish painting the top, bottom, add so gills and eyes. then its the clear and back to gustofson with the problem fixed.

this last one is a blend of a wiley lip/ head, the body of a thinned out loch ness and a flat bottom tail like a loke. these are the eyes that will go on gustofsons tuff shad when they are done and a clear coat on his like this one. i have made some other lures that blend a few styles together and think its a fun little hobby.

[zach]

should be finished by this weekend gustofson.

[THE TRADESMEN]

How freakin nice do those look guys. Cant wait to get em in the water at 5mph and see what will chomp on em.

Very nice work Zach!!

[zach]

hopefully the tourney winner will hit it and leave a big tooth in it (i have made muskies leave teeth in my lures before, its really neat i think) but why troll so slow lee? solgrande makes fun of me all the time b/c i troll so fast and hate slowing down (its so boring). some times it costs me and sometimes it works really well and am able to get fish when others aren't doing anything. to me slow is anything under 4.5mph. i found that i can troll sledges at almost 9mph along w/ a few perfectly tuned tuff shads that i have but most good lures top out around 6mph i find. i think 4.5-6mph w/ lots of turns is my perferred trolling speed for warm water temps during the daytime and then the dreaded 2.5-3.5mph at night if i dont fall asleep from the hum of the engine. sometimes i use special 4.5oz spinnerbaits w/ 8 oz of weight on the leader just to keep them in the water when going over high weedtops during the middle of the day fast. love it, love it, love it and am getting so excited for musky season!

[NitroMusky]

hopefully NOT the tourney winner but i hope they catch a fattie just about as big as mine. those do look great. nice going zach

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[zach]

didn't want to get too crazy on lures that weren't mine so i did a simple black perch on these and hope they turned out okay for you lee. i believe i solved the problems you had w/ these tuff shads and hopefully u hand them back to me next winter to do again after having teeth marks all over them all chewed up, that would be cool! good luck w/ these and i hope it was worth me redoing for you. just dont beat me at the tourney w/ these or i'll be hot and you'll owe me alot of beer . take care and i hope u are somewhat happy with these.

[NitroMusky]

wow I gotta say those turned out awesome. nice job zach

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[JOE ESOX]

Wow, those are beautiful!

[BlueEye]

Those REALLY came out nice Zach!

Have you ever painted up any Plow's? I might have one that I need redone....

[THE TRADESMEN]

I'll be happy to serve up those beers Zach. They look great, Thanks for all the work you put into them.

[tcon]

Nice looking job Zach...my hands aren't steady enough to take the picture without it being blurry let alone that design ...they look great!

[Nalod]

Zach,

They look amazing. From watching other sites for lure builders, it always seems to be the most difficult to do the paint job...yours are as good if not better as any lure on the market!

--Joe

[mostlymuskies]

Zach, They look like Toothycritter Crunch Time! I'm kicking myself for not sending you lures to paint yet!

Capt. Larry

[zach]

i know the sites you are talking about and i am a complete amatuer compaired to all them but these were fun for me to do for gustofson as i am a tuff shad fan and his 2 had seen better days. i wish i could have taken a before pic since when they were new the clear had cracked pretty bad in a short summer of fishing and were taking on water and even discolored the wood of the lure. since these lures weren't mine i did a very simple pattern that lee talked about and didn't want to screw it up for him by getting in over my head. i think i solved his problem with the wood for good and hope he fishes these this summer! this clear coat is way thicker than any i have ever seen on a commercial lure and i hope it holds up very well for him. the screw all have all been epoxied in also for that added strength. to test out how strong an expoxied in screw eyes was i once this winter hung my fat a** from a screw eye in the basement. held 175 lbs so i think it may be okay to chase muskies w/. some things i have made came out okay and some horrible. i have a crankbait that almost does circles when you retrieve it and some that have no action at all no matter how fast you crank and a few that actually run okay. i have tried 3 jerkbaits so far and one is good and the other 2 are over weighted and suck. no action, right at you and then dies, i will get back to drilling out some of the lead some time eventually. this year i have also tied up about a dozen bucktails and about the same in spinnerbaits to my specs. also made 3 topwater that actually work along w/ some in-line buzz baits that i copied after grim reapers that look like they will raise a ruckus. all-in-all it is a fun little hobby that i am glad i started this winter but i have no time for it (remember i have a 2 yr old lil guy take i am happy to give all my time to) and now that summer is almost here i dont see much if any time for it cause if i get any free time i am off to waneta. i remember asking larry about a year ago what sort of action and design he would make in a crank if he could- he replied that only people w/ alot of time and $ should even think about making plugs. after doing this for a short time i fully agree with him. if you got paid by the hour it just wouldn't work out but if you do it for yourself you can justify the time spent and you really dont save all that much $ doing them yourself. i am starting a new one today and i will post pics of the process if you want. i am gonna make a jointed squirrley tail wiley/gotcha/stalker hybred that would be like a cool hard pounding curly tailed stalker if things work out and make it good size for night trolling. big curly tailed ugly thing, i am thinking. got the body and lip together now but have to cut the joint and decide how big i want it. i also want 3 hooks on it. all the squirrley tailed cranks i see seem only have 2 sets of trebles and i want 3 (i need all the help i can get). last one before the season starts and i want it done for 6/19 at midnight! thanks for the comments guys but i am by far my worst critic and i will tell you i have a long way go. eventually i may make one where i won't be able to point out any mistakes, wouldn't that be nice.... but then would i even fished it? anyways thanks and take care!

[Nalod]

Definitely keep us updated with the process. It will be fun to see start to finish of your lure creations!

Thanks,

--Joe

[zach]

lathe cut, lexan lip, ready to be cut for the joint (white cedar). nine inches right now. angled top of head and flat front. max diameter is about 1/3 of the way back to the tail (something i have learned). i have also learned it is best for me to add the lip before i primer or paint since i have had paint get in the lip groove and i dont want to epoxy in a lip and have it connect to the primer i want it right to the wood. thinking about pinning the lip also. it does get in the way painting it but its what i am doing as of now. i also need to learn how to cut lips better b/c it always take me more than one to get it right. need to work on this soon b/c i want it for 6/19.

[zach]

cut in half, took out about 3/4 inch of wood and hope for the best. next sand, even up joint and get ready to prime.

[solgrande]

hey zach...that solid body looks a gotcha.I just got done with coating some lures.A couple of 7"fat body gotchas and some others.Gett`n ready!!!Got a few more slappers and smaller gotchas.That epoxy works great...thanks

Bob

[zach]

bob- thanks, if it looks like a lapper than i think i am doing good! if you ever have any small bubbles in that clear coat take a heat gun (or a lighter for those w/o a heat gun like me) and hit the clear while its drying and they will pop leaving you w/ a crystal clear finish. yeah, the body is like a bigger gotcha i guess, all the gotchas i have are small 6" ones and this has more "meat" to it than those and is longer. same head as a gotcha/wiley though. all new lures are, are copies of another w/ some sort of improvement made and it has always been that way. happy that stuff is working for you and you should think about not storing them in a clear case this year but i dont think you'll make that mistake again. i am sure bob will agree that these lures we finish have a much more durable protective finish than any commercial made plug. bob- since you and i have the same taste in lures check out muskietrains diesel. wanteta killers for sure! just dont order the cobra perch and we are cool.

[zach]

well i have everyone at work mad at me b/c i primered this at there and it stinks horribly. oh well, they never really liked me that much anyway. wait until i basecoat it white in about an hour!