When ya can't buy what you want..

Make it ya self!

Theres been a few things ive wanted recently that ive come stuck with getting hold of, either because its too expensive shipping in or because we just dont have anything here that i like. 

I've made pretty much everything in lure fishing now except a few things which recently ive finally got round to doing and now i have a whole new avenue to go down, theres nothing like supplying yourself with things to fish with. Its not just the satisfaction of catching on something you have made, its a whole interest in itself and the interest keeps going at home when not out on the bank.

So recently it started with not being able to get hold of decent nose weights to screw into bigger sized soft shads to replace the use of jigheads and make a break away rig so that soft lures hopefully last longer by not being chewed up inside a pikes mouth while playing it. This was done surprisingly easy by just making a mold of a 10g weight to put a wire through and then form it into a screw in spiral. I've allready gone on to make some 20g versions but these 10g versions were my first.

Then i struggled to find decent loose body soft shads bigger than 6" most were either crap or just too expensive. At this time Wayne Fletcher from the lure anglers society started showing some of the brilliant work hes been doing with soft shads and this sparked off ideas in my head that id had for awhile. I fish with soft plastics in all sizes probably more than i do any other lure type, but yet i made every other lure type except soft plastics. I had a go with a decent sized shad earlier this year but it didnt turn out as good as i'd wanted and at that point i felt like i was wasting time and money not achieving what i wanted. I put that on the back burner meaning to come back to it until as i say Wayne reminded me of what could be done.

So i set about making another 7" shad master to make a mold of, as i was doing this i was starting to get allsorts of ideas of how i could make more and more soft plastics of all sizes. I finnished my master and it was a case now of making a mould of it into a top pour.

While i was waiting to mould my 7" shad i got side tracked with something else i'd not been able to get hold of. A few years ago i bought some Aji ringer shads, these were tiny little paddle tails, to this day ive not seen anything else as small as these and they worked great for trout along with foreign species with them LRF. I was running out and could not get them here anymore.

This lead me into making my own injection molds, i'd watched a video by Paul Adams from http://www.homeluremaking.blogspot.co.uk/ who had made his own worm mold for injecting so i set about doing something similiar to make tiny little paddle tails. I made my originals out of oven baked modelling clay and now my head is absolutely crammed with ideas for other possible things to make its endless! 

I got carried away with the little shads and made a few different types and just raided my boxes for softplastics i never used and melted them down to inject new lures. This became addictive and before long i had hand fulls of the little bleeders.

I still have loads to do and im now trying drop shot lures as again it is endless what you can do, here an example of one i did the other day.

Friday came and i'd arranged to go and see Mark Kelly from http://www.lurefactors.co.uk/ and check out and choose some of his Lure factors products, i spent a good 3-4 hours there i think chatting and watching Mark pour and chuck stuff together and it was quite apparent my thoughts on this being endless possibilities was more infinite than id thought. Mark has probably poured thousands of baits before but by just chucking a few things together showing me pouring, he was coming up with many new things to try himself and coming up with some great looking mixes of lure flex. 

I had in mind what i wanted to do colourwise with my 7" shad so Mark showed me a just a few examples of mixes of colours to suit what i wanted.

I moulded my master friday night when i got home and i didnt sleep all night, i was too excited to pour my first shad and see if my hard work had been worthwhile. As soon as i woke saturday morning i ran downstairs like a kid at christmas and checked my mold which was ready! Time to take over the microwave and get pouring.

I was chuffed to bits with my first results and now ive gained a whole new route to go down with my lure building.

While doing all this i've noticed how cost effective it can be, if your sat thinking you'd like to give this kind of thing a go dont hesitate its great fun and not expensive at all once you get going.