Home made plugs.

[barbelblanker]

I am seriously thinking of spending some time over this winter making a whole load of Balsa plugs of infinite size, shape and colour (as you do).

I've seen the stuff that's on Operation Sea Angler (where the idea first came from) and was wondering if anyone has any tips on sourcing materials, balsa, wire etc. Designs etc.

I always remember the satisfaction of catching on home made flies, floats etc and can't wait to give these a chuck.

One more post till 200, ooh getting excited.

[BaggieRich]

Hello mate,

I've done quite a bit of reasearch on this topic but never really found the time to actually get very far! I found a couple of American sites were really helpful. The best was Tackle Underground. there are some REALLY talented guys on here, who make plugs (Or crankbaits as they call them) that are pure works of art.

The other useful site I found was a small section of a wider fishing forum called Noreast.com These are mainly stripped Bass fishermen on the East coast. Again some real talents here.

There are a few UK guys, especially on T.U. that should be able to point you in the right direction. Also there's a quite helpful Dutch site called lure making 101 and another good American site, but I can't find the links at the mo. I'll post them up if I can find them.

I found that if you want to make nice looking painted plugs, you'll need to invest in an air brush and have more artistic talent than me. It can be done with spray cans, but from the sad attempts I made in my garage it is VERY hard indeed to get right and looking nice. A couple of techniques that looked good to me, (As it involved no painting!) was foiling and photo finishing. There's a fair bit of info in these, but it's still tricky mind.

I made a couple of attempts from pine as I was just starting and found it difficult to get the plugs symetrical and weighted correctly. This is something that needs to be bang on if you want your plug to run correctly. I really needed access to a band saw or a scroll saw to help out here, but I managed to get close with a Stanley knife and a belt sander in a vise. Balsa would be much easier to carve but also easier to take too much off I guess.

One thing that you'll learn quickly from reading the above forums is that you'll need to cut a centre line and your lip slot in you plug BEFORE you start to carve the body. This helps with the balancing mentioned above.

Lastly you'll need a top coat to seal your plug. The are ENDLESS discussions on the fourms about this. Some of the products they talk about aren't available over here, but I managed to get hold of a large bottle (Which is still untouched) of Devcon 2 ton epoxy resin. It seemed to be quite well thought of. As I never got that far, I couldn't comment.....

Have fun, and if you have any more questions let me know.... I can't actually build decent plugs, but I did a lot of reading last summer!

Cheers,

[nimue]

I think I may be being a bit obvious here but so often the obvious is forgotten, Balsa is very weak and so hooks screwed in will just pull out very easily. You will have to drill through the body and wire the hooks to each other and the main line. I make very few plugs but quite a lot of spoons and spinners. they work for bass, macks, pike and trout!

[barbelblanker]

Many a boat sank because someone forgot to ask the obvious question "Is the sea cock in now then". I was thinking about that before I read Mike Ladles great web page on just this subject. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[fishbonkers]

Suggest you try and get some conventional plugs cheap by registering on a couple of pike forums and asking if anybody is having a plug clearout - and say that you're particularly interested in anything silver or mackerel looking. And do this every 6 months - you never know, it might work.....

[night-stalker]

ive made a few before and one which caught bass like never before, u just used normal wood (not balsa) and shaped them out on a sanding machine, then got safety pins, cut them, nailed them into the wood, and then painted, was great fun making them,
i have also made a few out of balsa but i think just a normal bit of wood works just as well if u want a heavy lure

[dartfly]

Another material worth playing with is a low melting point thermoplastic that you can buy on eBay quite cheaply. You can soften it in hot water and make all kinds of neat stuff. Best of all, it is re-usable, as it can be re-heated infinitely.

It sinks slowly in salt water - which can sometimes be a good thing - but it is easy to trap pockets of air or pieces of cork to make floaters.

[love2fish]

I never made my own plugs before but it sounds pretty neat! Great tips guys!