Making a Spybait fishing lure from PVC foam board

I am not sure that spybaits should work, well catch fish I mean. Apart from the slight flicker of the rotating blades they do bugger all and after spending a great deal of time getting lures to make some kind of dying minnow performance it can be a bit unnerving. Spybaits supposedly stem from Japanese bass fishermen hacking shop bought lures by removing the lip and adding props, but rather than floating like traditional prop baits spybaits sink and run almost silently. Not having bass population within a thousand miles of home I took my little creation out piking.


It has to be said they do cast like rockets but with little or no resistance on the retrieve It feels a little like pulling a fly though the water rather than a lure. I am used to feeling the head tug of minnows or the deep vibrations of a spinner through the braid, but with a spybait when fish hit it is a bit of a shock with just a bang out of nowhere. So with a few fish caught under my belt I suppose I have to admit they they work but like any new lure it is going to take me some time to figure out just when or even where to use them.

  Spybait Fishing Lure Drawings and Teplates

Making a Spybait Tool Sand Materials

Making Pike leaders (traces) with crimps

The reason I began making my own pike leaders or traces as we call them in the uk, was the poor quality of those I found for sale in tackle shops. After losing a couple of lures though thankfully not fish to the shop bought variety I decided I could probably do better myself.
I have been making my own leaders for a few years now and I have yet to have a one fail on me although I do still manage to lose some lures to snags but it is always a snapped piece of line that comes back to me not half a broken leader. This particular leader is my standard bit of kit for middle weight lures and although it is not exactly a delicate thing it takes the abuse I tend to subject my tackle to in its stride. If I am stepping up a lure size to a glide bait I normally go down the much heavier solid wire route. But if I am perch fishing in water where pike may be present I tend to go with a light uncoated wire of about 12lb with twisted ends rather than crimps.

Although I own about six different sets of crimping pliers or crimpers I tend to stick with the Savage Gear ones because of the multi pressure points, these same plier or very similar are available from other makers like Fox and Greys. I have over time tried a number of different methods of crimping with different pliers and at this gauge of wire I really haven’t come to any conclusion as to which is best as none have failed. After doing a bit of vice testing of different methods I found the simple method I used in the video to be as good the more complex.

Length wise I tend to stay up over fourteen inches with about twelve inches being the minimum for use with a very short five foot rod I use for perch fishing. Sadly I have found a number of six inches leaders and lures stuck around the jaws of pike I have landed, these have obviously been bitten off from peoples line as they were a on the dangerously short side, but still six inch leaders are for sale in tackle shops.

See video descriptions for tools and materials list

The Priest and the Postman

The guy is wearing a large electronic tag on his wrist; it almost looks like it has been saved from the set of an old sci- fi movie, one of those ridiculous visions of the future that came true. This is the new postman; we have two now, one who works for the queen or the royal mail and this guy who works for some company that I imagine operates out of grey clad buildings on grey industrial estates run by grey managers, who drive grey cars.

I am waiting for someone to answer the door as my family feel that even though I am a little over forty. I am not yet responsible enough to be trusted with keys. I ask the new postman what crime he has committed to be wearing a tag and he tells me that it is to scan the letters before he posts them and also give his global position to the base. I hold out my hand to take the post but he tells me he must post it through the letterbox as it is company policy. Then I wonder if this guy travels globally like Santa delivering letters, but I think I already know the answer to that question.

As if to restore my faith in humanity me wife opens the door while complaining loudly that my incessant bell ringing will not reduce the amount of stairs she has to descend to open the door.

Trout Priest Drawing of

Bulletproof glide bait part 2

Bulletproof Glide Bait Drawing and templates

Silver Carbon fibre lure

The first fully formed carbon Kevlar object I remember coming in contact with was a kayak. It wasn’t any old kayak it was a specialised wild water racer; a boat designed to plough through raging torrents at speed. Even as a kid I knew this was something different, a seventeen foot piece of sculpture with a look of polished granite weighing little more than a small cloud. Carbon Kevlar is a composite (a combination of two or more materials); a resin which in the case of the kayak was epoxy combined with layers of carbon Kevlar reinforcement.

To cover my fishing lure I wasn’t really looking for strength although anything that can reduce bite rash has to be a bonus, what I wanted was the look, that kind holographic quality. When I discovered a product described as silver carbon fibre, let’s just say I got a little over excited. The fact is there is no proper silver carbon fibre but there is Alufibre which is glass and aluminium fibres woven together that produces a material that looks like carbon fibre with added bling.

Composites can be a bit of a pig to work with as I found out with early experiments trying to wrap it around lures and get some kind of decent finish. In a factory setting moulds and vacuum, bagging equipment are the norm but even for OCD lure maker that looked a little expensive and maybe overkill. Instead I opted for a simple flat sided lure and combined with homemade flat sheets of epoxy and fibre laid up on a piece of plastic box file. Despite the simplicity of this method really stunning sheets can be produced that once incorporated into a finished lure lend me that same feeling of being stood next to that kayak.

To glide or to jerk

Despite the internet making the world seem a little smaller we don’t all share the same views when it comes to naming lures. In America there is the glide bait but in Europe the same lure would be called a jerk bait, were as jerk bait in America would probably be called a wobbler in Europe, confused? Well get over it and let’s move on, I will stick glide bait but if I mention jerk baits I mean the same thing.

What do glide baits do?

Essentially a glide bait glides from side to side in a pattern often called walking the dog, although if I had a dog that walked like this I would be looking for a refund. I once asked someone with a science background if he could give me a quick explanation of how a glide bait does what it does and he said that any short answer would probably be just B.S. so here is some well-crafted B.S. For a glide bait to work in a walk the dog way it needs a bit of input from me the fisherman, a jerk of the rod tip with a fast crank of reel will pull the lure forward, once the rod tip reel are briefly still the moving lure wants to keep moving. The trouble is the lure has no real aim so wanders off to the side. On the next jerk of the rod the lure does the same thing but it first turns back towards the rod before wandering off to the other side. A steady pattern of jerks and pauses will create a steady walk the dog track for the lure. That is a simple explanation but there are obviously a lot more factors that go into determining how the lure and angler perform and as with all lure varying the retrieve will often bring a little more interest from the fish.

Why fish like glide baits?

I have no idea. What glide baits do have in their favour is weight and power, jerking a glide bait moves a lot of water and most fish are sensitive to sudden water movement, some fleeing from it other like predators attracted to it. Another advantage is not just moving forward it can move wildly from side to side and therefore covering more of the water but also all the while not racing out of range of potential predator strike.

Tools and Materials list for Making the Bulletproof Glide(Jerk) Bait Fishing Lure

Devon Minnows,Trout and bloody rain

Image Above: Homemade cane (bamboo) Devon Minnows

Images Below: Trout and Priest

Wind Turbines at Royd Moor, above Scout Dyke Reservoir, Yorkshire

The reservoir had filled since my last visit a little under a year ago when a summer drought had lowered it until it had taken on the feel of a dry dock in the process of being drained. The rough stone banks had gone and the water now reached around the bases of the trees meeting the grass in small bays. A healthy growth of weed and pads hung about the more sheltered stretches of bank and out of view of the imposing dam wall the waterscape felt almost like a natural lake.

The last weather forecast I had heard had been a little over-enthusiastic and what had started as driving rain in Manchester had subsided to a drizzle over the heights of the Pennines. The drizzle despite being unable to dimple the water’s surface had quickly soaked through my jacket marking my clothes beneath with damp patches around the seams.I was not alone everthing was touched with a sheen of water from the barded wire to the blades of grass, while the low cloud muffled the wind turbines until they sailed like ghost ships across the moor above. I had visited an agricultural supply shop on route and bought a pair of green dairy over-trousers something I hadn’t worn for a few years. The assistant kept pulling out small and medium sized pairs from the pile before getting closer with a large. I advised him to add enough X’s before the L to make it look like a large roman numeral. The trousers turned out to be a wise investment as my legs were the only part of me that stayed just damp instead of saturated.

I had come with three basic requirements for the day to fish, film and test a few things; if I could combine all three and catch a fish on video while testing a new lure it would be gold. Sadly the rain never stopped long enough for me to get any footage apart from some cutaway shots of tying on bits and bobs under a tree. Fish wise the reservoir is stocked with rainbows and a few brown which have to go back, there is also a good head of perch.

I began casting some cane Devon minnows and after a couple of hours and having changed enough times to have worked through the selection I had brought I hooked on a micro wobbler I had made last year hoping it may do me some good on this bit of water. Three or four casts later and I was into a rainbow. I had forgotten about the speed these things can kick up but it quickly came back to me as the fish shot round the bay tail walking as it went. When I finally banked it like an amateur I kicked my bag into the water behind me, normally this would mean just a bit of wet tackle but it was holding my camera and a couple of lenses. I dropped the fish and grabbed the bag before it sank, luckily I had, had the foresight to wrap my camera in a plastic bag to protect it from the rain. The camera was dry but the lenses had taken water and I dried off and drain them as best I could. Meanwhile, the fish being free on a grassy bank sloping down to the water unhooked itself and made its own way back foiling my plans for a fishy dinner. A passing dog walker unaware of the chain of events that had led to me standing in the rain swearing at myself was little taken a back and almost broke into jog to escape the scene.

When I had gathered myself a little a wave of relief washed over me as I remembered I had caught a fish with a previously untried lure. I caught another trout at the next bay guaranteeing dinner and then predictably threw the lure into a tree overhanging some very deep water. At this point I decided to return to car to dry out my clothes, the lenses and reassess the general direction of my life.

Slightly less damp I returned to the water and managed to get something to tug on one of my Devon minnows but it failed to make to the bank. Looking for a second fish I tied on a flying ‘C’ minnow and it quickly proved itself by filling out my bag limit. With a few hours to left to fish and feeling eager to avoid trout and treble hooks I thought I would try a bit of drop-shotting for perch using some of my micro soft plastic worms and new hooks I have been doctoring. I casted around the weeds and overhanging branches but failed to find a single perch, the trout however were throwing themselves at me and in a couple of hours I lost track of how many I had caught the single hook making it easy to unhook them in the water.

It never stopped raining but by late afternoon the drizzle had slowed until it almost hung in the air like wet dust as the distant wind turbines gained some definition to their outlines.

Down with Abu

I am suffering from a deep need to fish, I have boot full of tackle, I am less than few miles from the lake and the traffic is not moving. Ahead a helicopter is trying to land and I am guessing it is an air ambulance. When the lights change I cut across behind the stationary traffic and do a U-turn and briefly enjoy the empty lanes before turning on to a small road and heading across the countryside.

Even away from the main road the traffic is backed up through villages not used to dealing Friday evening’s commuters. It is slow going; each junction holds its own torture. When I finally inch my way into the lake car park it is empty, although the line of traffic I had escaped from is moving slow enough to be considered for parking tickets.

It is not long before I am stood in some water and the traffic is forgotten. I am here to fish and work out some filming ideas; two things that I find seldom go well together. I have found a fish but it hasn’t found the hooks, there is always a chance if I set the camera going and recast it will make another appearance. After half a dozen badly aimed casts the pike finally makes contact with some metal and I am in, the only pressure now is to land it for the camera.

When It is back in the water and I have had chance to get myself together and check the camera was actually recording I spot crack in the handle of the rod. The carbon fibre that runs beneath the handle has split; this is not the first problem I have with this rod. Part of the reel seat broke on its first outing, I should of sent it back but I am a tinkerer and I added a brass ring from an old rod and re-whipped the reinforcement at the joint with some Kevlar thread and epoxy That re-whipping is now holding the handle together well enough for me to continue fishing. I could just blame myself for buying cheap fishing tackle but I do not believe spending another hundred pounds will make me a better fisherman or bring home anymore fish.

The reel I am using is also a cheap Chinese import, a copy of an earlier abu bait caster. The reason I bought it was as a spare to and Abu pro-max reel but to be honest the Abu is a piece of crap and I have stayed with the import. The Abu cost over a hundred pounds and I also should of sent it back after a couple of months, it never really performed; too much plastic and too little engineering and quality. I have older Abu boat reels (7000i, seven) which I used to use almost daily boat fishing in the Atlantic, and to be honest these are a tools that just work without any questions, a little rinse after use, some oil some grease and I have friends for life.

The truth is that high prices these days only guarantee that a lot of money has been spent on advertising and sadly Abu seem to heading down that route. Will I buy another Abu Reel, probably but it will have to be old school and pre-owned. The rod handle will be repaired but I do need to build my own rod.

I pick up another three small pike and miss some in equal measure before my camera battery dies and I think about going home on some empty roads.

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 soft plastic fishing lure: The Uber Grub

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I didn’t know if it would all work out, I suppose it seems foolhardy to make a film about a lure that I haven’t tested as well as using a process at its extreme.  When I opened the mould after the first injection, there were a few nervous moments to say the least.

Making DIY Injection Molds For Soft Plastic Fishing Lures

In the tackle shop they are talking about the next life, this apparently is not a new online experience but reincarnation. They have covered slavery, the ‘three seats of power’ and whether the council can ban you from their premises. I unfortunately have arrived mid flow and the conversation looks to building momentum rather than waning. Paul who is sat next to me passes me the Angler’s Mail to show a giant pike that was taken from a river and then goes on to tell me about his last fishing trip with another Paul and momentarily I feel like I have joined a club of Pauls.   

My visit to the tackle shop has little to do with buying anything substantial, just to pick up some bits and pieces, wire crimps, swivels and whatever shiny bits take my fancy. By the time the shop owner has called for a time out in the ongoing debate my mind has been blanked by talk of the Illuminati. I buy some things and leave them to their talk; well at least it has killed some time while my video uploads.

LRF, well almost

LRF On the East Float, Birkenhead

I am not very good with labels; it seems like latest one, LRF (light rock fishing) should stand for something new, despite that in the tackle shop the old gits tell me they have been making little worms from bathroom sealant for longer than they can remember. When all said and done I am no stranger to dangling bits of fluff and rubber off piers and landing some little monsters. But I think like all labels or brands LRF is a bit aspirational, and my trouble with it is that it seems to be something that is vaguely cool and for most of my life if not all, cool has always been some other country I would of liked to have visited.

So I set off to do some kind of rock fishing with light gear in the docks where I had fished as child with garden worms and a rod bought for me with my grandfather’s cigarette coupons. Instead of a selection of miniature soft plastics I had tied up some micro sabiki rigs with size eight hooks on 6lb fluorocarbon line and rather than just lash on some curling ribbon I got the fly tying vice out. The inspiration for my newest lure venture had come from another handmade fisherman Jan from the south coast of England who had sent me some standard sized rigs he had tied himself based loosely on one of my mackerel feather rigs from the videos I had made. I say loosely because it is fair to say he had taken them to whole new level and by all accounts has been going home early from his fishing trips due to reaching his personal bag limits rather more quickly than expected.

Where as Jan had used fur, at short notice I could just about rustle up some marabou from a bag of craft feathers and a bit of flash borrowed from some Christmas decorations. For thread I had sewing thread in some garish colours all topped off with a drop of nail varnish. After dropping no.2 son off at school it was off the docks.

Dockside I sat in car testing the air temperature by winding down the window down far enough to

realized that even with the vast amounts of insulation tucked into my clothing it was not going to be enough. Undecided on whether to stay or go I was finally encouraged out by another hardy soul who was threading line through his rod eyes at the far end of the car park. Out in the wind I set up quickly while I still had the use of my fingers and dropped my feather rig into the water. There was to be no yanking or long cast this was LRF, all be it a bastard form. I made delicate taps and tweaks to the line imagining myself performing tai chi, which I then realized was Chinese in origin were LRF is Japanese inspired so I tried imaging myself as graceful geisha but I couldn’t really find a mental connection between high class prostitution and fishing with feathers plucked from a turkeys back.

It was a baby cod that fell for the dance first in a little spot sheltered from the wind by the rear end of a Mersey ferry. I made my way along the dock to fish and chat to the other fisherman, who as luck would have it was making coffee on a stove in the open boot of his car. A mugful later I was feeling almost human again with just a touch of freezer burn on expose parts. I took a few more fish finger sized specimens and a whiting before I finally succumbed to the elements and retreated to the car.

Was it LRF, who gives **** I caught some fish, shared a coffee pot and some of my ludicrous fishing stories, my rigs worked and I got to come home with all my fingers.

Image above: Jan's rig, Cheers Jan

Image below: Iris's rear end

Making soft plastic paddle tails part 2

I think all this messing around with soft plastic is making me long for a knife and a block of wood.

The Handmade Fisherman

I have finally made a start on building my new website, “The Handmade Fisherman” hopefully this will be a base for visitors to land on and explore. At the moment it seems still like I have a couple of thousand things to deal with before everything is up and running and I can get back to making some videos let alone doing some fishing.

I also did a bit more experimenting with my real minnow, adding another hook hanger and a diving lip. I may get chance for a couple of testing sessions next week, it swims great in the bath but that is never a judge of how it will work out in the real world. Weight wise I have ordered some tungsten 4mm fly tying beads which I think will work out better than lead free shot I am using at the moment. Carving the balsa is still a bit of pig so I made up a face out of layered paper covered with foil, this feels like cheating a bit. Another great thing I discovered about working on something this small is when I go back to making larger lures like the crank bait the feel massive by comparison. 

Making Simple Soft Plastic Fishing Worms

It is all over the film is uploaded it seems to run ok, there are fifty things I would like to change about it but I want to go fishing so much it hurts. Someone on video course I am attending asked me what I do as a job, one day I would like to say fish.

Sushi Whip Tail Grub Molds / Moulds For Sale

In an attempt to pay for some much needed video equipment I am offering some Sushi Whip Tail Grub moulds for sale at £10 each plus postage. These are cast by me using high quality RTV silicone from my master, they take a day to cure and then a day later I give a test, if everything is ok I put in the post.   Recently I have done very well fishing with this grub on small jig heads, the body being just a little over half instead of fully round means the hook can be left to stand really proud, which seems to have helped hooking bony mouthed fish like the pike and the odd very greedy little perch.  

The grubs from the mould are 85mm (3 ¼” approx) long, the tails come out thicker than injected bait moulds which gives them a nice pulse that draws fish out even in the mucky ponds and canals I fish. If you are interested send me an email to paupadam@aol.com unfortunately I can only deal with paypal users.

Thanks

Adding or Replacing the Eyes on Soft Plastic Lures

He tells me the fish used to be bigger and there were more of them and then almost to contradict himself he tells he watched a guy pull a 27lb pike out last year on a dead bait. Before I leave him to his feeder rod and head along the bank he tells me that he has never seen anyone catch anything on a plug. I don’t stay to argue or brag, fish are always bigger and better in the past.

Maybe he is right if I killed a fish and stuck it on a hook my chances of a large pike would improve no end, but often it’s not the arriving that matters so much to me as how I got there. I route in my tackle box and pull out another little creation and cast again; the fish seam less than impressed today with my handiwork.

Making Reed Fishing Floats (bobbers) by hand

It has been a little bit of a strange week, I seem to have been stuck making a video that didn't want to be made; computer crashes, broken cameras, accidentally deleting scenes and then breaking the float I’d made.  Just before finishing the film I took my floats down to the lake and it all largely didn't seem to matter.

  Making Reed Fishing Floats Materials

Prototype Skull Jig Head

I should be a little tidier but it is not in my nature, yesterday I lost a little skull I had made from polymer clay using a toothpick for the finer details. It was about the size as my fingertip and will probably turn up while I am searching for something else I have lost. So I started again and this time set the camera to video and hopefully if the special silicone I have ordered turns up before I lose the new model I may get a video out of it and some tin jig heads. I don’t know why I should need a skull jig head, maybe I need all the Voodoo I can get my hands on to lure some monsters.  

Mackerel Fishing With Homemade Feather Rigs

There are those rare times when I am fishing that a fear creeps in. It is not the fear of going home empty handed but the fear that it is all a dream and in a moment the lap of the water and the tension on line will fade and I will wake up in an office with only the hum of copier machine for company.  

Making Soft plastic Fishing Lures

A very bad fisherman

    When the pike hit the lure I did what I have been telling myself I shouldn’t do, instead of striking and setting the hook I reached for the button on my camera. The pike needless to say was camera shy and just as I got the video going it threw the hook and buggered off to recover. I gave a few more casts just in case it was having second thoughts but I guessed it had better things to do. Well this was my first outing with my new Sushi Whip Tailed Grubs, I hadn’t actually caught a fish but at least I had proved to myself that it had attracted or annoyed one enough for it to take a swing at it.

                Despite being five in the morning other anglers had begun to arrive and my open water was quickly reduced to small patch which felt only a little larger than the bath tub I had tested the lures in. Before long I was into something again and this time I managed to strike. Whatever was on the end of the line shot off stripping line from reel as the drag buzzed. Despite thudding away at my rod I was not convinced it was a pike, I thought maybe it was one of the fabled catfish or a foul hooked carp.  A few mutes later I was gaining on it and the back end of a very large eel emerged from the weeds.  

I suppose an eel foul hooked doesn’t count unless you are a really bad fisherman. The only compensation was that I didn’t have to get my forceps down its mouth to unhook it.  

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.