Making a Musky Creeper Lure with Sam Larsen

One day I hope to meet a musky and introduce him to a lure like this

Making a Bulletproof Glide Bait

I am starting to feel at home with my camera and to be honest it has been I long time since I have felt like that. I used to love stills photography I mean really love it, but to get there I had to get past the camera. It wasn’t that I had to understand how it worked as a machine; I had to know it almost as if it was just another limb.  Video is a little different, the image doesn’t stand alone it is part of a narrative something to hold the viewers’ attention or transport them through the story.  

An old picture of the River Mersey a long way from the sea

Making a Beetle Fishing Lure From Plastic Spoons

I am not sure this lure project really made sense until I added water and then when a pair of eyes swam towards the camera I knew it had that spark.  The plastic spoon lure was an idea I had, had a long while ago and never got to building; mainly because I knew I could make the beetle part but I had no clue how to turn it into a lure. In the end I made the beetle last week and after working over the weekend in the city at the river festival, I came back to it with a plan. Rather just create another wobbler I thought about a drop shot rig which I have been using for pike in the winter when they tend to sit in the mud. As always I am a few seasons behind with my lure making but when weed dies back I should be able to bounce this baby a foot or so off the bottom without the constant fear of losing it. 

How To Make A Simple Wooden Lure

I padded off down to the lake this afternoon to try out the paint brush handle before the water had a chance to freeze up again. I briefly had the place to myself and threw the new lure without my usual restraint, it flew like a rocket. The hardwood and rear weights kept it on course enabling me to place it rather than hurl it and hope for the best. With the rod tip lowered and a steady jerk on the retrieve I could keep it subsurface gliding and bucking with its silver sides flashing.  I slowed my retrieve and added long pauses so it sank to the bottom and kept some depth. In among the jerks I felt the rumble of a fish but it had gone after putting a couple of bends in the rod. I cast again and again while trying to remember the sequence of tugs and pauses that had triggered the attack. In the end I contented myself with the thought that it would have all been too much to catch a pike on the lure’s first outing, especially in the middle of winter: it didn't stop me vainly casting along the same stretch of water.

When the Essex boys turned up I switched to a lighter drop shot rig and a soft plastic fearing the water would quickly be covered by a web of carp lines.  Moving out of the way while they set up I threw jellies along the reeds. One of the lads asked if I had any old lures going spare so he could do a bit of spinning while waiting on his bait alarm.  I fished out a jig head with a soft plastic lure, but he didn’t seem that impressed so I gave him a Phox Minnow that I had managed to spray up in the style of a multi coloured sock. Although I give away lures a little too regularly I still get that nervous feeling that comes from handing over my work to be judged by someone else.

I moved a little further round the lake and continued my campaign to either catch a fish of freeze to death in the process. Back over the lake my Phox Minnow had claimed its first victim a small pike and I headed over while they waited for me. I waded into the shallows and unhooked it claiming it as my own as I had made the lure and was having no luck myself. I wandered back to the reeds and gave a few half-hearted casts before deciding that despite Christmas winter on the whole is crap, so I packed up and headed home. 

Foiled Again

Image Above: Phox Minnow meets Aluminium Foil, waiting for some coats of Epoxy

I had spent the morning playing around with finishes on the weight shifting minnows, starting with foil and epoxy resin. Having finally come to the end of messing with their guts I thought it was about time I looked at some alternatives to my standard paint job. I have a love hate relationship with foil and fishing lures, I love the results but I hate the finicky nature of the material; I have suffered too many bad foil days. With the lures turning on the drying rack while the epoxy cured I set off for the lake knowing full well that almost all of its surface was covered with a thin sheet of ice.

The small patch of water that remained open was basking in the long rays of winter sunlight.  I felt warm in that superficial way that allows the coldness to creep into your bones un-detected until the only remedy is whisky and a roaring fire.

I flicked jig heads and threw lures into the stillness of the afternoon as dog walkers eyed me suspiciously judging me for my addiction as they would the alcoholics and drug users who also frequent the place.  Sometimes I understand that to be happy I need only a fishing rod and bucket of water to aim at.

After half an hour another fisherman ventured down the path towards the lake sporting a collection of plastic bags, a net and a handful of rods. He asked if he could set up next to me and being that the ice had reduced the options of where to fish down to a choice between which side of me and that I have never laid claim to any section of back I said yes.

So I threw some more lures and we talked about fishing here and in Australia from where he had escaped. He tossed a dead bait out and then set up a float rod to pick off any roach that were brave enough to head out from under the ice. He offered me mackerel as bait so I made up a trace and sent it out past the reeds.

It was hard waiting as the sun began to drop taking the temperature with it, a passing lady asked if we had seen her missing dog, a small grey terrier. My new fishing partner asked for the dog’s name and she replied “Woolfy”, without acknowledging the irony. When the wait got a little too long I decided to have a go at twitching the mackerel on a slow retrieve. After a few casts my retrieve was ended by a large swirl in the water; the bait bore the marks of a pike a little beyond the hooks. We speculated that the pike was probably full after snaffling Woofly down.

On the edge of darkness the ice began to set up on the clear water and I found I was now casting onto fishmonger’s slabs that had drifted from the main sheet; it was time to look for whiskey and fire. 

Image Below: Fishing on the edge of ice

A long cast into the soup

Image Above: The Prototype, magnetic weight shift balsa minnow lure

I knew I should I have stayed at home before I set off. It had been raining hard for almost a day and a half before the weather broke and a weak sun managed to hollow a disc in the clouds. The lake water had turned the colour of strong milky tea, the kind of tea you would accept only in politeness while looking for a plant pot to tip it in. Normally when the lake colours some visibility remains even if it is reduced to a few feet but today I could have been dropping my lures into molten lead.

I had come to test a new lure which in fairness is not the same thing as fishing although catching a fish while not pursuing them is always a bonus. The lure was a Phox Minnow with a new magnetic weight shifting system. I wasn’t looking for distance particularly but to reduce or even eliminate the tumbling that normally plagues lightweight lures on the cast.

                I don’t have a great record with prototype lures I have a tendency to test them to their limits and then a little beyond so there is always a little trepidation when tying on a new crash test dummy. Rigged and ready I found a nice open area of bank and swung the rod, there was a sharp click as the internal weights shifted and then the lure sailed out over the lake. There was no tumbled or spin just a long arcing flight with the line pealing out like a vapour trail, I half expected a thud and then the rumble of a distant explosion as the lure touched down.

I am not used to early success so I casted again and again, and then some more, and then a bit more and again and then after I had decide to leave I stayed and casted some more. The lure worked again and again and despite the water being a slightly wetter variety of mud and the chances of catching a fish being slim to nothing I was enjoying myself.

I eventually left the lake and made the short walk up the embankment to the canal. By comparison the water looked almost pristine but in reality visibility was only a little over eighteen inches. There was another problem to contend with; the wind had stripped the last of the autumn leaves from the bankside trees and they hung in the slow moving water suspend like mines. I wasted too long collecting flora.

Later I clipped on a spinner bait in the hopes of avoiding the leaves and maybe luring out a pike by vibration rather than sight. Instead I moved from flora to collecting the kind things that canals are more famous for holding. A brief but not exhaustive list of my haul follows: A complete open golf umbrella, a hood from a jacket, a pair of trousers, part of a pair of jeans, an Asda plastic bag, a Tesco plastic bag, a cloth draw string P.E. bag (haven’t seen one for years), part of a rod case, a long piece of what looked like video tape. Eventually a pike made a feeble strike as the spinner passed  but it missed and rolled at the surface before returning into the murk.

Shifting a bit of weight

Image Above: Phox Minnow with internal magnetic weight shift tube.

Some bits and bobs of pipe finally turned up with this afternoon’s post and I got to mess around trying to put together a weight shifting tube for the Phox Minnow. Like most lightweight balsa lures the Phox suffers from a bit of tumble on the cast, so I decided a while ago to design a magnetic weight shift. At the first opportunity after dinner I quickly bent up a new wire configuration to incorporate the tube and then carved out a balsa body. Externally the lure will look exactly the same it is only internally that things have changed. There are four balls, one external to the tube then a magnet, plastic spacer and another three balls which will hopefully pull away from the magnet with the force of the cast and then roll back when the lure dives to be held in place until the next cast.

This is all untried as far as this lure goes but fingers crossed I should get to try it out in water  in a couple of days. 

Thank You Mr Bettell

Image Above: Pike on a homemade jig head

Image Below Right: Polyurethane jig heads and spinner bait (note the missing point on the last jig)

Image Bottom: Bungee sacrificed in the pursuit of pike 

Blanking once is bad enough but to blank twice in a row is a bit of a confidence breaker and when it’s your own lures on the end of the line, well it doesn’t get any worse. I have a list of familiar doubts for these occasions but with pike I take comfort in the fact that I have only been fishing for this species since February this year a little less than tenth months. My previous pike experience was a couple of fishing trips to a gravel pit about five years ago; even then I was fishing with homemade lures and enjoyed some success.  I still have a lot to learn and winter is proving to be a harder master than I anticipated.  

                

I suppose things have slowed down and I have still been fishing as if the sun was still cracking the flags. Pike like most fish get a bit lethargic in the cold and without that extra kick of solar energy heating things up chasing down every plug that rattles past them can not only be costly but just plain impossible.  Most of my lures require some speed to create action or in the case of floating/diving lures to dive down to the fish. Slowing things down requires something else; a lure that has action, depth and moves slowly enough to annoy the pike for a little longer. Looking for a bit of inspiration I turned to the late Charlie Bettell’s book entitled, ‘The Art of Lure Fishing’. Amongst the anecdotes and fisherman’s tales he gives some sound advice on using lures that run a little slower and deeper like spoons trailed behind weights, spinner baits and jig heads (my current favourite).

So last night I got the polyurethane resin out again and cast half a dozen jig heads from some recent moulds I had made. Taking Mr Bettell’s advice I knocked up my first spinner bait with a blade cut from a scrap copper fire surround. To dress the jigs I got the feathers and flash out, added some brass jingle bells (nearly Christmas) before butchering a bungee elastic to make rubber skirts. Finishing touches came by way of my sister who is helping to sort out a friend’s fashion design studio by getting rid of off-cuts. I managed to retrieve to pieces of stretchy fabric one with a glow in the dark coating and another with fine silver scales, these had come from an outfit she made for a guest on ‘Top Of The Pops’ ; a television program I watched almost religiously until its demise.

It was a cold start at the lake but the spinner bait was a revelation the blade turned even on the slowest of retrieves and as it pulsed the feathered tail gave a mesmeric wiggle. Following Mr Bettell’s instruction I bounced it off the bottom and as if by magic its design kept it almost snag free. I worked the lake but nothing was in the mood and not having  brought my wellingtons I didn't fancy dampening my feet to get over to the island and the sunlit shallows to see if anything had come to warm up. I went through all my jig heads giving each a try and retrieving them in slow bounces until I had an almost mental picture of the bottom of the lake. Finally I pulled out my bungee corded friend and sent it across the lake. Within a few casts I had hooked a jack and despite the cold it set off at a pace for a patch of shallow water a little further down the lake.  I was just about to jump into the shallows when I remembered my lack of boots and quickly walked the fish to a place I where the bank was low enough for me to unhook it while it was still in the water.  As if to pour scorn on my lethargic pike theory it bolted like a torpedo.

I moved further up the lake and within five minutes was into something a little larger that set my drag ticking like a bomb. On my knees at the bank I reached down to turn the hook again and release the fish without lifting her but the barb wasn't going to come back through so  I got the snips out closed my eyes and let the point and barb ping over my head. I felt a momentary pang of disappointment realising that was the end of my jig but feeling the pike surge out from my gentle tail pulls more than made up for it. 

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. 

Montana John Revisted

Image Above: A Pike With A Mouth Full Off Montana

I went to the lake this morning to test some new jigs heads I have been experimenting with and more importantly to avoid filming wooden minnows. The jig heads had an obvious fault, that is to say the fault was obvious when I put them in water. I had positioned the eye of the hook too far back from the front of the head which completely unbalanced them to the point where they wandered off on their sides, never mind.  The jig heads had been made with the idea of fishing the bottom of the lake where I suspected the pike had gone to hide out for the winter. The water isn’t deep about five to a  maximum of six foot but it is a snag ridden hole and lipped lures tend to pick a lot of lost fishing tackle when they bounce along the bottom; on my last session here I managed to take home three more lures than I had arrived with.   Soft plastics would be an obvious solution to this problem as they often come with single upturned hooks and faces that don’t mind bouncing over things, but having spent too long making hard baits I don’t fancy a change.  

With the intention of doing a bit of testing I had left my collection of lures at home and found myself with a very limited selection of alternatives to my wonky jig heads. I soldiered on for too long with the jig heads before I reached into the bag and pulled out a Montana John a lure designed to run just below the surface rather than at depth. On the far side of the lake the sun was at least throwing some warmth into the shallow water around the island and hoping a pike may have come to look for a basking spot I wandered over.   There was movement at the surface but it looked to be a carp chasing windblown feathers.

The Montana John was inspired by an American angler who suggested a single hook was all that was needed for a pike lure rather than a collection of trebles. To large extent he was right, my first outing with this lure as a prototype brought home a pike within a few casts and also as a bonus unhooking the toothy critter was an easy affair. But today it was winter and I needed every extra bit of help so I swapped the single hook for a treble and sent the lure across the lake. At first I didn't really notice the difference in the lure but when I moved back to deeper water I realised the extra weight of the hook had turned the lure into a slow sinker. 

Rather than sink in a horizontal position the heavier hook at the rear end meant it sank in a vertical position until the hook touched down.  As best I could make out when retrieved it ran hugging the bottom and when paused it went back to sinking to a standing position.  I quickly realised the advantage of this, the hook despite landing on the bottom seldom came into contact with it unless I paused to let it sink back and with a bent back lip I was no longer picking up stray lines. So I twitched it along the bottom like a walk the dog bait until my first bite came which I automatically assumed was a hook up with a plastic bag so I let the line go slack, the fish took up the slack running into the shade of a tree and was gone before I had chance to strike.

I moved along to one of the deeper swims where I had float fished in the summer and began bouncing and twitching the lure slowly over the bottom. It worked again and quickly I had another bite this time I kept the tension on and the pike came bounding out into the shallows a little pissed off with the sudden change in temperature. With only one treble to remove from the fish I released him without letting him leave the water and he swam to edge of the shallow water to recuperate.    

I left the lake with the same amount of lures as I had brought with me but one of them was at least a little different. 

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. 

Making Balsa Lures the saga continues

Will it ever end, is it 'Gone with Wind' for lures?

On a lighter note autumn is with us and I find myself staring into golden pools instead of watching my line. This morning a juvenile crested grebe followed my lure beneath the surface to my feet and then exploded when it realised its mistake. 

Building A Balsa Fishing Lure Part 3

After spending a little too long messing with videos I needed to get out and get some fresh air. So this morning I headed off to the local pond while the weather was bad enough to deter less fool hardy anglers.  Building lures can be great but fishing with them is in a whole different league. I wasn't expecting much from the pond it had rained for the whole of the previous day which had raised the water level a little but surprising not coloured it much beyond its normal noodle soup hue.  

There was one carp angler who was packing up his tent after what looked to have been a heavy night. I clipped on a Phox Minnow and sent it the short distance across the lake. With the summer weed almost gone the lure bounced off the bottom on fast retrieves only bringing home the occasional autumn leaf.  I worked along the reeds and covered both shores at the tail of the water. When the Carp man had gone I moved to a deeper stretch and took a jack almost on the first cast. The hook was looped around a gill raker but luckily it had not pierced any flesh and there was no blood. I slipped the hook out gently and the raker flopped back into position undamaged. Back in the water the pike bolted and I move along the bank a little.  Five or so minutes later I was in a again and then as I struggled to find my camera the fight came to an end as the pike broke the surface and threw the hook.  I took a few casts over the same spot hoping for a replay and surprising I hit into something a little larger once again I let the line fall slack as I pissed around with my camera and then the pike was gone.

I put the camera away and headed over to a small stand of reeds on the other side of the lake where I had often seen movement. This had all the looks of classic pike hold up,  a sunken tree trunk, reeds, shoals of juvenile fish and almost impossible to fish with a lure. I managed a few casts and something rumbled under the surface on the edge of the reeds. In the excitement I buried the lure into the submerge tree and after a harsh tug on the line there it stayed and will probably always stay. I tied on a new trace and clipped on my larger pine minnow casting it way out beyond the snags, it wobbled its way up to the reed bed and the rumble came out to meet it.  This was a much bigger fish and I kept the camera safe inside my jacket until I had it on the bank. 

I need a go-pro or a cameraman

Jack Pike On A Phox Minnow

How to Make a Balsa Lure Part One

Here goes building the Phox Minnow

Link to PDF Fig.1 Wire Template Layout

Link  to PDF Tools and Materials for Through Wire

Hopefully this is a pretty straightforward start.

How To Make Spinners From Scrap

I started making my own fishing lures for a number of reasons one of which was losing lures while teaching my oldest son to fish with spinners. Spinners while great at attracting fish are also amazing at attracting snags, I suspect there isn’t a pond, river or lake in the northern hemisphere which isn’t playing host to its little collection of orphaned spinners; no wonder Mepps claim to produce the world’s bestselling lure.

Having found the remnants of copper fireplace hood that somehow had managed to survive a few decades past its style by date I thought I would see if I could start with raw materials and make a decent spinner.

Another Handful

Image Above: A morning’s work carving balsa wobblers

The coarse fishing season officially opens tomorrow; I may just have to go fishing despite the weather and the need to make lures. I spent the morning carving more balsa wobblers. I can’t say I am getting any faster despite the practice but it is beginning to feel rather natural.

Carving Balsa Lures

Image Above: A Roach Fishing Lure Prototype

After all the recent float fishing for natural prey subjects to turn into lures I have started on my Roach prototype. I began with a drawing taken from a photograph of a fish I caught but once I began carving the balsa the experience of handling real fish took over.  Again it is made in two halves with the wire and weights hidden in the centre.  Still in the early stages but I cannot wait to catch my first pike on this.

Wagglers

Image Above: Roach and home made balsa waggler float.

    By late afternoon the storm had developed into a small monsoon. Sheets of rain blew in over the surface of the lake dropping their load in fat drops that pummelled at the waters. Without a bivy or the modesty of an umbrella I padded through the ring of mud that marks out the island looking for shelter amongst its trees. This turned out to be a false promise as the wind took to liberating the rainfall from the trees at regular enough intervals to ensure I would not miss out on the bounty.

     Despite the weather summer has arrived at the lake; the stretches of water cleared by the winter die back of weed have gradually shrunk under the season’s new growth.  Even bank space is at a premium as anglers have returned from hibernation in public houses or curled up under the warm glow of a T.V.  sets.  There is little open water in which to throw a lure and so I have my excuses to fish with floats and bait. 

    There is almost a welcome rhythm to float fishing, tie on hook, slide a float up to what you think depth may be, add some shot weights to hold it and then hook on a plumb weight and cast. The plumb was given to me by a fellow angler who took pity on my early attempts to catch fish with a float. Unlike the other weights in my box it never ventures out as part of rig but serves as a temporary addition to the hook to find the depth of the water. I pass the hook and line through the eye on top of the plumb weight and then push the point of the hook into a small piece of cork wedged into a slot on the base.

     I cast and wind in stopping every few feet to check the depths, if the float disappears under the weight of the plumb the length between the float and hook is under depth, if the float lies flat on the surface I am over depth. From my plotting’s I work out that the bottom falls away sharply to a pretty constant depth only a short way out. I cast again and bring the float back to my chosen fishing position just beyond the drop off and the float sinks until its top creates the slightest lump in the surface tension; I am just on depth at about five feet. Once retrieved I unhook the plumb weight and move the small shot weights that hold the float in position and the float six inches up the line over depth so the hook will lie on the bottom rather than hang mid water like an apparition.

    I take four of the larger split shot weights from my selection box and pinch them on the line either side of the float and then drop it in the water. The float stands upright with the water covering three quarters of its length, I add another smaller shot half way between the float and the hook and a much finer one six inches from the hook.  When I cast again to deeper water the float settles until only half an inch shows above the surface enough to hold its own in amongst the ripples surface but still show a bite. The float is traditional waggler with a bulb of balsa at its base, the design keeps the float relativity still even when the surface of the lake is bruised by ripples. I am ready to fish.

    I hook on a single sweet corn kernel and cast again following it with a handful of loose kernels thrown around the float. The fish come in short bursts mainly roach of a good size and skimmers (small bream). As afternoon turns to evening the sky darkens prematurely and my rain filled bait box takes on the look of sweet corn chowder. I realise it is time to leave when I begin cradling fish for warmth and wondering whether wading in the lake may be the drier option. 

Balsa Jubilee

Image Above: Hand Carved Balsa Lure Bodies

Summer has missed beat and a little bit of early spring has once again reared its head. The lake water at least looked to have benefited from the cold snap and the rain; it had gone from its normal Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup to a light broth with a hint of ginger. I spent a little longer there this morning than I should of float fishing and catching my fair share of roach, skimmers and golden bream all candidates for a new look alike lure.

The Montana John

I finally got round to finishing a small number of ‘Montana John’ fishing lures.  The lip and single hook make them look pretty distinctive and as lures go I think they are pretty unique. What I like about them best is the running depth at less than two feet I can get them into shallow water without constantly pulling weed from the lip. Jerking them along really makes the best of the dressed tail as together with body it has the look of a jointed lure. The price £12.50 plus postage, See the shop link in the side bar.