Back To The Drawing Board

Image Above: The Phox Minnow Blueprint 

Despite owing a few drawing boards I rediscovered CAD this week after downloading a free to use program called Draftsight.  It has been a good few years since I last used this type of software but I am slowly picking up the bad habits I got into last time.  So I have set myself a bit of a challenge to come up with a set of plans and instructions on how to build a Balsa Minnow for anybody with a bit of spare time on their hands. One of the hardest tasks I find while making lures by hand is getting uniformity. The other is waiting, watching resin dry can be pretty nerve racking.  

One of the big disappointments I often find with lure making tutorials and books is the reliance on a well kitted out workshops and a range of expensive power tools.  So I have set myself some limitations as to tools and equipment.

As for the lure design, this is a refinement of a minnow I built a while ago that just keeps catching fish. The inspiration behind the design came from Japan and minnow lures that are still made by hand by craftsmen who should be working in temples rather than workshops.

Hopefully I will get the first vid out around the weekend and a PDF of the Plans.  Watch this space. 

Polyurethane Blank Fishing Lures (hanging to cure)


It was back to work today, if you can call making lures a job. Over the last week or so I have been trying to speed up the process of making my casting spoons and today’s quick turnaround creating blanks seems to prove that the new methods are working.

Monsoon

Image Above: The Roach King sits out the Monsoon

Sunday

The noise came from the other side of the lake; I could hear the crashing of branches and looked along the shoreline of the island and the muddy creeks that separate it. It sounded as if a fellow angler was having a fight with the shrubbery; fishing rods seldom pass cleanly through undergrowth. When the clank of goose or duck broke through I guessed a loose dog had found some sleeping waterfowl and decided to wake them. A brown back finally scuttled on the edge of a thicket of dogwood, when its legs stop kicking a large male fox emerged backwards onto the muddy shore. It stared at me for a while and then took a few paces unconcerned with my gaze. I played the slow motion game trying to reach for my camera at a speed that would not startle the animal but at least give me a chance of a photo.  The fox paced and then left as I fumbled in the rucksack.

 Wednesday

At the far end of the lake the sky has darkened under a cloud blue enough to remind me of scorched steel.  I have taken one pike, lost another and I am hoping to stoke the interest of a third that has just broken cover as my lure left the water at the end of a long retrieve. To my left the Roach King (nickname) is perched under an umbrella giving me instructions on how to rid his swim of the beast that has already taken a roach he was playing into the bank.  He is fishing a deep channel in the lake with a homemade float over a size 22 spade end hook; some people like to make it a little harder that it ought to be.

I cast again but fat drops of rain are falling, they grow fatter and faster until the lake almost shudders under the onslaught. I drop the rod in the long grass and shelter in the trees.