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Posts: 4266
| How many of you make bass, pike and walleye size lures besides muskie lures? I've been using Mike King's 4 and 5 inch shad body lures religiously for a few years now. I love the ease on my body. I figured since I caught my first 4-footer on a 4" Crane Bait that small lures still get eaten by big fish, and I was right. Spring is the best no doubt, but I've caught muskies and smallmouths on the same lure on the same day during flat calm days in the summer. I've been making some small bodies for cranks, but wonder about small minnow baits. I think I'm going to use some 5/8" Mahogany for the minnow lures, but I miss having the big palettes to paint on. Any tips or techniques from guys making smaller lures to toughen them up for muskies? I don't do thru-wire, so what do you think the low end limits are for size and strength? I think small shallow runners are good for kids starting out, but it's weird working on small lures when I'm used to making much bigger lures. |
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| dont make em but use 2" shad raps and have caught several 40"+ fish with them. Theres a lake I go to where the pans are potato chip size so I think thats what makes them work well in early-mid summer short line trolling with bass rods and 8lb braid.. its fun and an arm workout when on ,plus you have to drive the boat to them as they rip a lot of line with little drag on due to the light line. |
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Posts: 556
| I love to use the SMALL Lures--Work every time early in the year---I made these 3 last year and for my first attempt at the smaller lures they came out great and work perfect---My biggest fear with making them is routing such small pieces of wood on that router table--Fingers are real close to that blade---top Lure (firetiger is 7") but the other 3 are 5" size.
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Posts: 791
Location: WI | Crane 105's are some of my favorites. Twitch , Twitch, boom |
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Posts: 791
Location: WI | Funny you say that about the router. Just got done with 80 of our 6 inch crank baits and I thought the whole time I'm amazed that I've never taken a finger off |
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| ^ you did knock on wood... right? |
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| I make a 6" crankbait that weighs just under 2 ounces out of cedar. The body is somewhat meaty with the thickest part being about. 1 1/8". I use heavy duty screw eyes epoxied in and haven't had any issues. They are easy to throw and run on the shallow side. Good twitching lure.
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Posts: 742
Location: Grand Rapids MN | I cringe every time I routed my 4-5" shad style baits. 10-12" baits are a dream!
Trophyseeker50 - 1/14/2015 7:25 PM
Funny you say that about the router. Just got done with 80 of our 6 inch crank baits and I thought the whole time I'm amazed that I've never taken a finger off |
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Posts: 1530
| we use and build 5 inch and 6 inch lures there great early season on boards.. the joy is running a minnee shad 15ft on the boards releases sound like a rifle shot. |
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Posts: 1202
Location: Money, PA | Its funny you ask...It may just be me, but in recent years (say 2 or 3) the smaller baits have really outproduced for us...and not just in the spring, but all year and even into the fall...Its crazy! We used to do SO well on big baits and I still make sure I always run some bigger stuff in my spread, they just have not been as productive for us for some odd reason.
My 4.5" Lil Hammer has also caught smallmouth and walleye at St Clair, Chautauqua and Lake Erie...I am thinking about making a slimmer body bait like that specifically for the bass and walleye. |
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Posts: 683
Location: Moses Lake, WA | I fish exclusively for walleye and bass on Moses Lake so most of my lures are small minnow baits in the 3-4" range, some even smaller. Big lures allow you much more artistic license but they won't catch anything where I live. I have found some decent thru wired plastic blanks in 6" lures that might be muskie proof but most blanks wouldn't hold up to bigger fish. |
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Posts: 369
| Here's one I just made for a friend, 5 1/2 in long with tail out
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