First Attempt Making a Wooden Fishing Lure

[DanMarino]

[Memory Maker]

Good job ........ but you’ll probably have to weight it to make it swim right

[DanMarino]

Thanks! I will test it out this week before doing anything else with it. I post back with the results.
I need to get a band saw and belt sander if I'm going to make more of these things. haha.

[summersoff]

Great job! Talk to any plug maker and they’ll tell you it’s a ton of trial and error, especially hand carved! Impressive!
Reminds me of a Cordell Big-O (above). A guy in Brooklyn, goes by Greenpoint/Handcarved Lures/blue shark did a wood version.
Fish it and picture that catch!
C1C97DB2-C117-499F-9F96-D9371E5DF4C8.jpg

[DanMarino]

To close this thread out, my wooden lure was a fail. I didn't get the lip slot straight and the lure would swim sideways. It also needed more weight in the belly than I put in. I will probably try a top water popper next.

[bignose]

As a former Shop teacher, I admire your attempts at carving out some lures.

Your results matches my attempts at doing this, many years ago.
Except for poppers and prop baits that I turned on the lathe at school, most of my experiments were failures. (But still a good learning experience.)

You might want to try using Basswood rather than Balsa as your wood for crank baits. It's a little harder, and denser then the Balsa is.
Or buy pre-made wooden blanks at sources like Jann's or Barlows.

[dsaavedra]

Thanks! I will test it out this week before doing anything else with it. I post back with the results.
I need to get a band saw and belt sander if I'm going to make more of these things. haha.

If you're serious, I've got a bandsaw I'll sell you for cheap.

I used to make a lot of lures. It was a pretty avid hobby of mine. I rarely made a lipped lure though, for exactly the reasons you've experienced. Placement of the weights and diving lips is absolutely critical if you want a lure that swims worth a damn and I didn't have the patience for it at the time. What I mostly made were 2-piece lipless swimbaits and glidebaits. Sometimes 3-pieces. These seemed to be a bit more forgiving and it was quite easy to get a good swimming action just by virtue of their jointed design. I used to paint lures too with an airbrush and all kinds of specialty paints. That's almost a whole other hobby itself... you can buy plastic blanks to paint, or repaint store-bought lures.

I haven't touched any of my lure making/airbrushing equipment in years, yet I can't bring myself to get rid of it. Except that bandsaw, I want that thing out of my shed haha. It's always in my way when I want to get to something else.