Bait Mods!

[SMDave]

If you have lure modification ideas, post them up in here! I have a couple, and will post more up when I think of some.

First one: The brush hog. I cut the top to make it shorter (optional) and then cut the limbs on the side parallel to the body. The legs are now shorter, but look more like a craw's legs or something. Also, I cut the paddles on the side down the middle.

 

[SMDave]

Next up, a tube bait. You probably have heard that by giving the skirt of a jig a little bit of a trim, the more it flares in the water. It's no different for tubes either. You can trim the tentacles to however short or long you want them.

 

[SMDave]

Next: the senko. I thought the Yum Forktail dinger was a pretty cool design, and figured this would be easy to make. Simply cut through the tail of the senko. You can point the tips to make it look even more natural. By the way, all of my projects listed so far you only require scissors.

 

[Jim]

Great ideas! I like the senko one, Those things rip so easy, from now on I will flip them and cut them to get more use out fo them.

 

[SMDave]

I just thought of another one; I don't have any pictures but heard they definitley produce! If you don't want to break the bank for a Cavitron, and only have Strike Kings/Booyahs at hand, simply drill holes into the blade - this will make the bubble trail larger, and will let you fish the buzzbait slower while still on the surface; basically a low-end Cavitron! I will be trying this myself this year.

 

[FishinsMyLife]

Use a lighter to heat the lip of a crankbait and bend it with pliers so it is pointing down more so the bait will go shallower. If you bend it enough, it will become a wake-bait.

 

[slim357]

heres a jig i cliped up and one that hasnt been cut yet. Nice topic. heres one i heard this morning, havent tried it yet, for topwater frogs (the ones with the plastic bodies and frog hooks, not the soft plastic ones) if you cut one tail so it is about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch smaller you can walk the dog with it. im about to go try fishinsmylifes idea right now.

 

[jkbirocz]

I have a bunch of cut up and drilled out buzz baits, from when I was a kid. They do bubble pretty well. I have also tried putting steel rivets instead of the aluminum ones they usually use to hold the blade on. I saw it on some fishing show when I was a kid, they told you to soak the steel rivet in clorox, so it would rust and it would make the buzzbait squeak a lot more.

I also cut my senkos in a similar way. I cut the tail in half an inch or so like you did, tthen give the worm a quarter turn and cut the tail in half again about half of what I cut before. After I do that I angle the cut into the worm, this helps make the cut tail flare out more. It almost looks like a crayfish claws when it is done.

I'll post a pic later.

 

[SMDave]

Yay! Revival of a post from September!

 

[jkbirocz]

heres how I cut my senkos

This is a good topic, I guess I never noticed it before

 

[slabmaster]

im a computer idiot so i dont know how to post pics, anyhow. i love to fish a 1/2 oz wareagle jig with a zoom pro chunk on it. when i fish this bait a night i modify it with doll eyes. i get the doll eyes from hobby lobby. i use the kind that are little black plastic disks encapsulated in clear plastic. put the jig in a vice. take a jewlers file and file the sides of the jig head unitl there is a flat spot large enought to glue the doll eyes to. i use super glue. it works good but neatness is a must. exsessive glue will ruin jig paint. the doll eyes rattle when you shake the jig. i call it the bugeyed bird.hope you can use it.

 

[Captain Ahab]

im a computer idiot so i dont know how to post pics, anyhow. i love to fish a 1/2 oz wareagle jig with a zoom pro chunk on it. when i fish this bait a night i modify it with doll eyes. i get the doll eyes from hobby lobby. i use the kind that are little black plastic disks encapsulated in clear plastic. put the jig in a vice. take a jewlers file and file the sides of the jig head unitl there is a flat spot large enought to glue the doll eyes to. i use super glue. it works good but neatness is a must. exsessive glue will ruin jig paint. the doll eyes rattle when you shake the jig. i call it the bugeyed bird.hope you can use it.

I have seen this done for some Saltwater stuff (adding eyes to surf lures is common) - do you find a difference in your catch rate between the modified jigs and the "stock"?

 

[Captain Ahab]

Inspired by Jakes cut tail Senkos that i saw last year, I recently took the device I use to cut the "tentacles" on tubes to a Senko. I got a nice flare tail design - gave all of those baits to Jake for testing

 

[slabmaster]

here on beaver lake ,arkansas. i have noticed that i can catch more fish at night with eyes on my jigs. in the daylight it's a toss up.

 

[FishinsMyLife]

Bump for anyone who hasn't seen it.

I had some torn up Strike King Rage Toads that were each missing a foot. I cut the good leg off one and attached it to the other toad with superglue. Now instead of having two unfishable toads, I had one that I could still use.

In the pictures, I show what I did to a battle torn Horny Toad. I took two Manns Hardnose Mullet baits and cut them off at the tail. I haven't had much luck with these baits, so I decide to put them to good use instead of just having them take up space when I wasn't going to use them. I cut the rest of the toad legs off and melted the Mullet tails to the toad body. The head of the bait only lasted one fish, but I can melt that back together. The bait doesn't look as good as the original, but I'm saving some money anyway.

The fish this bait caught, a skinny 2.5 pounder.

 

[jkbirocz]

Nice work. That is great idea, not to mention I like those type of legs, rather than the legs that are on a horny toad.

 

[FishingBuds]

I had alot of tricks given to me over time stored on my other computer that crashed I'm still looking for someone to try and get my stuff off the hard drive

 

[Jim]

I had alot of tricks given to me over time stored on my other computer that crashed I'm still looking for someone to try and get my stuff off the hard drive

I can try if you want!

 

[FishingBuds]

I can give one up thanks to JIM :wink:

Most of the time I cast a drop shot rig to cover just like you would a jig or texas rig. So I rig it up with a 6-12" leader, a 1/4oz weight (depending on depth and current) and a 2/0 lightwire Owner offset worm hook. Then I'll rig a 4" ZOOM finesse worm, RI flirt worm, or a 4" ZOOM dead ringer weedless and very slowly inch the rig through cover, shaking it and pausing it along the way. Another very effective technique is to flip a drop shot rig in heavy cover like grass mats. I use a 7' heavy action flippin stick, 40lb Stren Super braid, a gammy 2/0 superline wide gap hook, a 1/2-1oz weight, and any small craw, beaver, or any other normal flipping bait on a relatively short leader (no more than 6"). And just flip it into the cover, let the weight hit bottom, and shake just like you would if you were flipping a texas rig.

 

[LeftCoastAngler]

im a computer idiot so i dont know how to post pics, anyhow. i love to fish a 1/2 oz wareagle jig with a zoom pro chunk on it. when i fish this bait a night i modify it with doll eyes. i get the doll eyes from hobby lobby. i use the kind that are little black plastic disks encapsulated in clear plastic. put the jig in a vice. take a jewlers file and file the sides of the jig head unitl there is a flat spot large enought to glue the doll eyes to. i use super glue. it works good but neatness is a must. exsessive glue will ruin jig paint. the doll eyes rattle when you shake the jig. i call it the bugeyed bird.hope you can use it.

I've also heard that clear glitter finger nail polish found at WallyWorld'll work aswell...

~LCA.