Splish Splash: Scale Painting Tricks

I learnt some new tricks from this video that make a lot of sense.

A Little Bit Of Lure Painting

We did a bit more experimenting with this video aiming for a bit of cinema look rather than a straight how to video, it was also great to show some of the details without doing the whole talking thing. I have also made some changes to the Patreon page which is a way you can support future videos, thanks Link to Patreon https://www.patreon.com/user?u=661130

How to Airbrush a Lure! Pike lure!

Some great tips, and I think I could use them as I am doing some airbrushing of my own. Also check out the rest his Youtube channel for more painting and fishing in Colorado

Fire Tiger with Mr Craft and Mad Lures

This is a paint tutorial showing Mr Craft's very own take on the popular fire tiger lure pattern. Mr Craft of Mad Lures has a truly unique style, it is almost a little like grunge mixed with modern graffiti  and graphics. Check out his Facebook page if you looking for some lures you wont get off the peg or to see some inspirational paint work. Viva La france    link to Mr Craft website 

Painting lures with Steve Vandemon

Steve Vandemon, what a cool name sounds like the alter ego of a super hero but does know a thing or two about airbrushing lures.

How To Make A Balsa Crankbait Part 2

I took my little crankbaits for a testing session at one of my favorite lakes, what I hadn’t figured was that while I have been away from fishing the rain has also managed to hold off and the lake had shrunk a little. Not being a very deep lake to start with its shallow margins which reach a way out into the lake had become very shallow; down to inches in places. The cold had also kept the weed growth down leaving any would be pike practically naked if it had chosen to leave deeper water.

Well it was water and water is a good place to test lures. The crankbaits surprised me casting cleanly with only the occasional tumble and reaching distances I had not expected. Even as the wind began gusting enough to push up some waves I had no problems cutting in. The retrieve really threw up some god vibrations although the waves made it a little hard to check out the action and once again they ran straight out of the box without any tuning.  Despite the obvious lack of fish I was happy, well who wouldn't be stood in water holding a fishing rod and casting homemade lures. I hung around for stupidly long period of time before realizing I could safely walk out in my wellington boots and nearly reach the distance of casts. 

How to make a Balsa Crankbait

Well it is a start……………………

   I finally edited together my balsa crankbait video. It feels like an age since I started messing around with this little lure and hopefully later this week I will after a long recuperation from my recent illness get a chance to throw it back in some water.  Maybe I will remember how to catch some fish but that is never guaranteed. Part two will be along soon.

  Balsa Crankbait Design and Templates

  Balsa Crankbait Tools and Materials lists

The Oldest Trout Parr

Image Above: Trout Parr Casting Spoon, experimenting with colours

Sometimes I avoid things and build them up until when I finally get round to them it is all a bit fraught. So I finally sat down with a trout parr, lure blank and began experimenting with colour and pattern. Working free hand without stencils is like riding a bike with your hands tied behind your back, you can do it but when it goes wrong it goes very wrong although the thrill is quite cool. I still have a way to go with this lure even though I have been messing around with its shape for over a year, it isn't perfect but it is starting to look like the thing I imagined. 

Part 6 the end is a bit nearer but not yet

The penultimate video, I feel like Cecil B Demille but maybe a little poorer. While I am prating round with wooden fish my little brother is providing animation instillations for the Victoria and Albert Museum,  obviously when he grows up he too will film wooden fish.  Tomorrow I will fish not film and do some other work I have been putting off. 

The Wrong Side of the Tracks

Image Above: Sefton park lake drained for repairs

I knew he was a fisherman; his eyes like mine were focused on the water, I had the pram and kids and he had a dog. I walked scanning the lake as far out as the reflections would allow and back in toward the shore and the path. As he passed three large carp of least ten pounds zoomed over a patch of low weed. I pointed them out and he stopped and told me the local anglers had been doing a bit of restocking on the quiet. I asked him about pike and he winked and said a few may have made it back in. The lake the largest of Liverpool’s park lakes was drained a little over four years ago for bit of a restoration project. Officially the fish were temporarily re-homed in other local park lakes by the council. I don’t know a fisherman who shares this view of what became of out fishy friends, what is certain is that what came out never went back in. So a lake that for most of childhood and teenage years was a mecca for anglers and kept more than a couple of local tackle shops in business is free of fishermen until the brave venture back, maybe I might be a bit braver.

Finding a bit of time in the afternoon I headed up to the north end of the city to a leg of the Leeds Liverpool canal. This had also been somewhat restored, but it was still the wrong part of town and I was conscious that I was spending an equal amount of time sizing up the locals as fishing. Having little success with the lures I took the bait caster off and replaced it with a small fixed spool spinning real loaded with three pound line,  tied on a homemade jig weighing a little over a gram and dressed with whip tail cut from washing up gloves.

Passing under a bridge to a more neglected stretch I spotted some movement at the surface and began working the opposite bank. Popping the jig just short of stone edge to the canal brought a bite and I was in, I landed a small bream as the water further up the stretch erupted. A group of lads playing football on the opposite bank had decide to launch a bottle attack on guy who had just walked past be on the tow path. Bottles gave way to bits of brick and rocks which lucky all missed him before they ran for it. I packed up and headed back south wondering if I will fish this water again. The fish was hastily returned without the customary photograph.

I spent the evening with the airbrush and some lures.

Image Below: Airbrushed lures

Messing with paints

I got the paint pots out and did bit of messing around trying to come up with some colour combinations, some I love, some I hate.

Below is Pedro, a very little lure I made as a prototype he weighed 3grams. I made him yesterday from fimo (polymerclay) it took me about ten minutes and then another twenty to airbrush him. I gave him a couple of coats of acrylic varnish and left him to dry overnight. This morning early I took him along with some other lures to the local lake for test run. What a lure he swam beautifully and then I lost him to snag, why oh why oh why.  Poor Pedro you are now like an ex-girlfriend, it was beautiful but it is over.   

A little bit of airbrushing

So I am a little bit further along with my fishing lures, hopefully they will be for sale this year.

Christmas Decorations

Image Above: Home made lures shaped from polymer clay

Three weeks without holding a fishing rod, I feel like a recovering addict. Anyway it has not all been wasted I have finally got to grips with making some prototypes out of polymer clay. After buying a cheap set of wax shaping tools my sculpting abilities seem to have come on a bit. The main lures above are attempts to capture the look of salmon parr, the white is the original and the others cast out of latex mould of the same. These are far from finished, at the moment I am just working on the shape and the swimming action. The final finish will be airbrush and epoxy with a natural look.

Image above: Drying Floats

I got back to bit of sliding float making using balsa wood that I had bought to make lures. It is a bit easier to work with than cork but still needs a lot of finishing with sand paper. The centres are once again of hollow cane and the heads have been airbrushed and then silver foil added. The foil really helps locating the float when the tide takes it some some distance especially in large waves.