Making your own lures: imagine that. What kind of lures are suited to make yourself? The easiest ones are probably streamers, which you tye onto a big hook or tube. Spinners are not too complicated either, but you have to make your own blades, otherwise it turns out to be more of a do-it-yourself kit. Plugs made out of wood, you can pour them too, but only from soft plastic. We don’t use those, so I will not go in to that.

The reason I make my own lures is that I like to do it in the wintertime when there is ice and when the fishing season is closed. You can give your lure your own special effect, intended or not, or a special format. Spinners you can cut from a very thin plate of stainless steel or if its difficult to obtain that material, you can use a plate of tin can. All you have to do is to come up with the shape and that is the strength of it. Making your own plug gets you your own special effect a standard plug doesn’t have and that is the secret Streamers are always great lures, but now you can make them for your spinning rod.

You can give them any shape, colour and effect you want. No one else has them and it is probably cheaper then any available in the store. Big lures are expensive and imagine you catch a pike over 3 ft on your own lure. You won’t forget the first fish you caught on your homemade lure. The reason this item is discussed here is the fact that it isn’t just the way you fish or where you fish or the way you move your lure, but discovering how to maximize your lure to your way of fishing. That’s technique.  

Spinners: actually an easy to make lure, but you need to get some equipment and materials, like tags, steel wire, metal and plastic beads. The tools you need are: wire cutter, a pair of tongs, metal cutter, hammer, a one and a half mm drill and a file. Take the wire and form an eye at the end. Slide one oblong bead or 2 round beads on the wire to prevent the spinner blade to turn around your line. Cut, file, tap (use the rounded rear end of your file on a soft wooden underground to achieve a rounding in the blade) a metal disc and drill a little hole at the top and attach the tag. Make sure the hollow side of the blade is towards the wire. Slide a few more beads on the wire till the lower end of the blade at least 5 mm. Choose the beads for weight and colour. If you want to go deeper, use more metal beads as long as you keep the weight at the back, so always the metal beads at the end. That throws your spinner a lot better and prevents twirling while you are throwing. Keep the wire between your fingers and check the spinning. You form another eye as close as possible near the last bead and attach a splitring with a hook. Attach some red wool and you are done. Draw some stripes with waterproof felt –pen, like red and black. Final tip: colour the inside of your blade red.

Streamers: You get some material, like bucktail and hackles, some plastic binding material that shines and glitters and streamer hooks of course. Secure the hook in a holder and use some of mother’s sewing thread. First we reel some thread on the handle of the hook and secure it with a drop of glue. Now you can start building by adding some hair or feathers or plastic, reel it and secure with knots and some glue. If you want to make a streamer for your spinning rod use a hollow tube, preferably metal and naturally reel some thread before binding the first hairs or feathers. Instantly you get some weight to throw, no long distance but short by. Trust me, you catch most pike just nearby the edge. To get some more weight you can attach some extra leads or a spinner with metal beads.

Plugs: I made a lot of those and just of the top of my head. Sure I needed to adjust some before the plug moved the way I wanted. Take some wood, broomstick or whatever, saw to the desired length. File the wood in the shape you want. Flatten the plug and keep the topside bigger then the lower side. Before filing check which side floats: that is your topside of the plug in order to improve stability. Drill holes in the lower side of approximately 5 mm up to half the body. Fasten the eyes and ram lead hail into the holes. Occasionally put the plug in water to assure yourself  it still floats. In our opinion two-piece plugs have more action and because of that they are better baits. Unless you want to create a jerkbait you saw a slot for the vane. Consider the draught and copy it from the mass made plugs. I make the vanes from plastic which is a bit flexible, so I can use heat to form it. A flexible vane also has the advantage that stuck on the bottom, it won’t break that easily. Primer and some colour and your plug is ready for testing.

Shads: There isn’t much to tel about making your own shads. To fuse them is not advisable because the nasty fumes it produces. Casting with bought casting material I really don’t consider it DIY, except for the template. Shads are cheap, so there isn’t a lot to gain from it. So unless you want different colours or extreme big shads..

I hope this item was to your advantage. For more detailed information check “lurebuilding” or Google “making artificial bait”.

Tight lines

Translation done by Tonny Fijnenberg