Making your own baits...

Well I finally did it. I started making some of my own baits. My first
bait was a giant paddle tail creature bait. I really planned it for a late
summer big fish hunter, but I had to try it, and I've caught fish on it 4
out of 5 times I've fished it. I really didn't throw it much the 5th time
as I was having success on other baits.

My second was a fluke like type jerkbait. I think the tail design is better
although only an angler or a designer would see the difference as glaring.
That one has been a smashing success. I shot some of my first baits with it
the is last Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon I tried it in one of
the little pockets I like to fish. It got bit well dead sticking early and
worked really well as a surface breaking twitch bait and as a wakebait after
sunset. I fished it in a tournament yesterday and it easily got more bites
than anything else I threw both on top and dead stick. I'm even considering
using it as a flip bait although I didn't think of that until after I came
off the water.

So far I have 4 molds. All programmed and CNC machined myself on my little
bobby CNC machine. I do not have a good CAD program, so a lot of the
process are backdoor figured, or just hand written and coded. I just picked
up and started to learn how to use a new CAM program that should allow me to
do a lot of the design work faster.

All the molds are totally my own designs although some are influenced by
others. There are only so many overall profiles for a minnow twitch bait.
I do have some ideas for more improvements on some though. All molds are
designed as two or more piece injection molds rather than for hand pouring.
I also made my own injector on the lathe, but I need to make some
modifications and maybe redesign it.

The guys at Tackle Underground have been invaluable at helping me figure out
how to do some things also.

Bob La Londe
www.YumaBassMan.com