AUGUST

[Micanopy]

Last month was named in honor of Julius Caesar, this month for Augustas. Hot baby hot. North South East and West it is hot.

Quick pointer for you. Gas pumps down my way make you suffer through horrible commercials while you pump your gas. Look at screen, 8 buttons, 4 on each side. Right side, second button down, mash it to mute the commercials.

Got another hot tip. When pouring jig heads it is best to use a well warmed mold. No need to pour molten lead in cavities 5 or six times to pre-warm it. Flip a Do-It mold on it’s side and fill that large cavity. Mold will be good to go in 5 seconds.



Gift to my buddy.

He swears by pink. Likes eyes. Says 1/16th ounce is best. I prefer pre-attaching my plastic baits but he likes to configure everything as he goes. As he guesses really. He suffers from jigs slipping down the hook shank. I made him jigs featuring Screw Locks, which we know is the final solution. He can’t stand them. So these are some jig heads with the lead hook like thingie, and some with the wire hook like thingie. These should prevent his fouling his trolled lines due to baits binding up. Big help.

I have studied him and have come to learn many things. Gifting these is not without some consideration. I am thrilled to make the gift and will be honored if he uses them.

Top left Arrow jigs 1/16th
Top right Free Style jigs 1/16th
Bottom left 1/16th Free Style my custom blade
Bottom right 1/32nd Free Style

I am insatiable about the prospect of my new mold. It is gonna be awesome.

[DockShootinJack]

Very nice work

[BobC]

Nice, Micanopy. Well done!
Bob

[BuckeyeCrappie]

Nice!

[GrumpyLoomis]

I like to put my mold on top of the pot when I refill. Take a break and mold is ready. Jigs look really good.

[Micanopy]

Everyone has a way to warm their molds. This is the one I came up with. LOL

I presented the box yesterday morning and he really liked it. I had a few extras that didn’t quite fit inside, so I will keep them for myself.

I ordered some baits from Bob’s Jigs. I have all sorts of curly tails and paddle tails and such, but was lacking just the plain old Stingers. He is having a sale where you can get a large amount of them for just a little bit of money and free shipping comes with the deal. $9 gets you 120 baits. Man that is a deal there. I got my favorite colors, too. He has run out of the tubs and is sending mine in bags. Apparently I am not the only one placing orders for these. They come in several sizes if you ask him. Mine will be in my mailbox Monday.

I don’t have much experience trolling these, but the times I did use this type of bait they seemed to work. I am thinking they will make a great alternative to present to the fish on days when they don’t want my regular stuff. I also think they will look very nice attached to my short shank hooks, and with my custom blade designs. I needed to try some new stuff anyways.

Recently, I saw where a member was selling a large assortment of baits, dirt cheap. Strike King’s Slabalicious and their Slab Curlys. These are typically the types of baits that I use, so I got 18 packs for $30, shipped to me.

I am considering ordering me up some of that plastic stuff they use to pour the various baits. No, I am not going to get started with that whole mess. Got enough stuff happening already. I am considering buying the clear plastic and use that for adding eyes to my baits. My mushroom jig heads would look great with baits that have eyes. Can’t stick eyes on those heads. I saw where you take the bait, attach some eyes to it, then dip the bait into the clear plastic enough to cover the eyes, let dry, and wham you got a bait with eyes that will not come off. I think I could get pretty creative with that.

So soon I will have more baits than I will ever be able to use. Thinking about making up some jig heads with baits attached, for gifts to my club members. I haven’t been able to attend the meetings because I am at work. Some gifts of free jigs might get those ancient minds to remember me. I cannot wait to see what jig heads come out of the new mold I have been so anxiously awaiting. Plan to make lots of those.

Of course it is so hot that I haven’t gone fishing, but might go tomorrow. I asked my buddy and he says no one is catching very many. A few is all anyone is getting at this point. Not that I am greedy or anything, just that those kinds of sentences are not much motivation to get out into the heat. I guess I am getting older as it is kind of hard to get motivated like I used to. Used to be I never considered such trivial matters.

I haven’t made much progress with regards to making my own 3D eyes. I really need a wireless printer and so I need to read some more about that. I plan to make a sheet of them printed like a picture would be printed. I am leery of buying anything until I can finger up that new mold ( that I am anxiously awaiting for ) and determine the exact size of the eye cavities. I will require them to sit completely down inside in order for my idea to work. So I will need to be able to size everything accordingly. If I can pull this off I will be able to get very creative with my jig heads. The jig head has a very large eye socket for it’s size, which means the eye socket can become much more than just an eye. For example, I could make some eyes that look like my avatar and have a jig head that looks orange when viewed from the side. Holographs, laser stuff, real world animal eyes, the list will be endless. I could even make some with my wife’s eyes. I could create a logo and use that as an identifier of my jig heads so long as the logo made the eye look cool.

My wife texted me Wednesday. She got a $5,000 bonus. That girl is amazing. She is certainly climbing the ladder and quick, too. Has her own office, which is kind of rare for new hires. She started in February. Promotions. I mean she is setting fire to her office. I worry some there will get jealous and target her with their inadequacies and hatreds. Those folks are present in every office I ever worked in. They see you get something, and that is something they could have gotten, deserved to have gotten. Basically someone else stole that from them and off they go down the trail of hatred. No, it’s true. They will not consider that they need to try harder or anything similar. It is that someone else has it in for them and they are just retaliating. I left a toxic environment like that and I understand that that place kind of fell apart after my departure. Seems there was really only one good producer, but a whole collection of haters riding me dirty. Yup.

I saw a deal at Winn Dixie. Tenderloins. Two pieces of a loin, packaged separately at $20 each. This practice of cutting up large pieces into smaller ones is called marketing in the world of retail butchers. Placed end to end they made up 2/3rds of a normal sized loin. I was worried they might spoil if I lolly gagged and delayed cooking them, so I soaked them seus vide style yesterday at 129 degrees, morning until evening. I took them out and rolled one around on top of my char broiler. I sliced off a nicely sized steak and had that for dinner with some salad. Man was that good. The char broiler added flavor, as I added no seasoning at all. So I have about twice that amount left on just that one piece of loin as a left over. Tonight or tomorrow I will make her kabobs using it and the other night I will slice the other one up and lay it atop of a salad. I will still have leftovers. It is so tender that it really just kind of disappears in your mouth. Mmmmmmm….

I was planning on making baby back ribs sometime this weekend but they can stay asleep in the freezer for a while longer. Bought something new to use when smoking them. I like to smoke at about 225 degrees for two hours, then wrap in foil for a while with some sauce, then finish for about a half hour to get a bark. Going to try smoking for two hours, but then wrapping in pink butcher paper instead of foil. Apparently it is all the rage. Can’t just use any kind of paper, but specifically that paper. Others have treatments that are not conducive with consumption.

Smoke and then wrap in this pink butcher paper with some honey and some Chinese stuff in a bottle with a picture of a dragon on it. Then finish atop the char broiler. See what that does for me. The paper became popular in Texas where they call it the Texas Crutch. An aid to cooking biscuit. The paper allows some smoke to penetrate and keeps most of the moisture inside the wrapping during long cooks. The paper is not consumed at the temps we smoke at. Saw a roll on clearance at Wally World and tripped the light fantastic over to the register with it. Where I waited of course.

My wife’s sister’s husband’s mother died. Memorial Service is today so I will be expected to be on my best behavior all day. The plan is to have everything at their house, followed by a pool party. I am soooooooo grateful that I will be able to have some beer and move about the property some. The difference between In Laws and Out Laws are that Out Laws are wanted. LOL saw that one in Slab’s thread and well I like John Wayne so there you go.

[Micanopy]

Long day yesterday so we stayed home today.



I wanted to do some experimenting. I made up a couple of dozen of the Bat Jigs in the 1/8th ounce size. I am using the size #2 Do-It Whacky Hook which is very sharp and has an aggressive posture. I had bad luck using the recommended hook, which is size #6, and lost way too many fish with that one.

I dipped in white, then white, then UV Clear. I am kind of tired of monkeying around with the eyes, so considered skipping them. But alas I slid one on and wondered if I could just skip glue and pour UV resin over top of it and let it reach the edges and then cure. I think it worked great. My first attempts had me using too much resin. Later I was able to daub it on straight from the bottle and once I had the right amount, it covered very nicely. Then a quick hit with the flashlight and out onto the deck they went.



The eyes are on solid and it was with a minimal amount of effort. Give it a try for yourself.



This serves as a trial run for my idea of using printed eyes. I see now that they will work great.

I did have one issue, and that was that I like to apply three coats of powder paint and that has the effect of filling in the eye cavity. My system would work best with a deep cavity and less paint.



I made other colors and this is just a one dip into UV Clear powder paint. It had the deepest cavity and those eyes are encased nicely. Hit with the UV flashlight they glow a beautiful bluish color. The pure Glacial White heads also glow with that bluish white color. There have been some early mornings when I saw this bluish glow on other jigs made like this. Looked like little LED lights almost.

UV light is present underwater and at greater depths than visible light. To me it makes it easier for the stupid fish to spot the thing and lock on.



I made some with my custom spinner blade design as well.

The idea was to get some ready for when my order from Bob’s Jigs arrives. I ordered up some of those Stingers and want to have something with a bit of heft to it to lead the way. Looking for something sleek. If I have guessed correctly, this size head should make a nice match for the baits and give them a minnow look.

I am still waiting for my Print A Lure mold. Didn’t realize the thing was made in Israel. Small wonder it takes so long to get one.

BTW- whilst studying the other evening I hit on something interesting. Seems people have issues with their CNC molds not completely filling the cavities. Somewhere I read to add a piece of tape to the mold’s surface, near the handles. That that will allow air to escape and let the cavity fill completely. Then after about 200 pours you remove the tape and use it normally from there on.

I was having issues with my new Collins CNC mold not filling completely. Next time I go to use it I am gonna apply some tape and see what happens.

Dr Nip once said that if he had to start all over from scratch that he would skip the Do-It molds and just buy CNC molds. I now understand what he meant. Currently Do-It molds run about $65 shipped, and a quality CNC mold about $130 shipped. So double the price. However when you consider your time, efforts and sanity cleaning off the slop from the Do-It molds, the CNC molds make perfect sense. I do realize some don’t care but hey…..that ain’t me.

My issue with them is that they make all the cavities the same size. So you have to buy multiple molds to cover the spread with a specific design. I suppose this is because hairy legged hobbyists don’t buy CNC molds. Professionals do, and they want to pour seven at a time. Still I would like to have 1/42nd up to 1/4 ounce offerings.

I can’t wait to get some eyes printed up so I can test my experiment. The idea being to make 3D eyes in place instead of elsewhere and then transferring them over only to have to then secure them in place. Today’s experiment has given me all the confidence I needed to proceed with my idea.

I also thought some more about adding eyes to my plastic baits. Grubs would be a little tricky to do, but I have plenty of baits with flat sides. I can make my Magic Mushroom heads and make a nice minnow looking bait.



I played around some adding eyes and just looking at them. No sense in gluing as it will never last. I ordered up some Clear Plastisol so I can begin adding eyes. Easy to do if you don’t already know. Stick eyes in place, dip the head of the bait into Plastisol at 350 degrees. Just dip enough to completely envelope the eyes and remove, lay on a flat surface and allow to cool. No glues which don’t work anyways because plastic baits continue to leech out their compounds and this destroys the surface the glue was attached to. Cute little guy Huh ?

Everything in tackle making seems to be advancing towards realism. Making a bait look more like a real minnow. We crappie people like bright neons colors and such, but we might be missing out on the move towards realism, too. Subtle and subdued tones might be just as effective, and maybe even more so. I have never really given them an honest go. I see that chartreuse and that is the one I grab for every time. So I am gonna gravitate towards trying to create more realistic baits and see where that takes me.

[DockShootinJack]

Great work on the jigheads. The Tenderloin sounds like it was awesome.

[Micanopy]

Got more baits from Bob’s Jigs than I know what to do with. So I decided to try my hand at adding eyes.



These are my first attempts.

The idea is you stick eyes on, then dip the bait into Plastisol enough to coat the eyes in place. This was very easy to manage. I don’t think I had gotten the Plastisol hot enough. I didn’t use a thermometer, but it did burn my fingers. It felt kind of goopy. Next attempt will have me using a thermometer and should provide more professional looking baits. These baits are 2” long.

I also made up some of my Magic Mushroom jig heads for these baits. The heads will be a good match size wise.





I am not sure how I feel about these eyes. Having eyes on the head kind of looks more acceptable. Also, the eyes are on solid enough, except when using Screw Lock jigs. The twisting loosens the Plastisol. That might be because I didn’t get it hot enough to meld with the bait. The Plastisol kind of skins off on me.

Anyways, it was something new to try. Still waiting on my jig mold from Israel. No emails yet. They say they send an email when they ship it. Did I mention my mold isn’t here yet ?

I watched a YouTube video of a CNC mold producer up in Michigan. His shop was running like ten machines, and he was six weeks behind. Mostly he does the large injectable bait molds. I would think these guys would be more into making some jig head molds, too. Apparently there are a lot of folks out there making their own baits. At the cost of the materials and tools and such, a man could buy a ton of baits with that money. Same with jig heads. Same with building rods and such.

I actually enjoy making jig heads but want to stay far far away from making baits. That looks like trouble plenty. The way I change my mind I would have a small fortune tied up in molds that no longer fancy my eye. I already have way too many jig head molds. The worse ever was the Randy Howell Herring Head. Man that mold sucks.

Bob’s Jigs is keeping up with new designs and such and I wanted some of the 2” Stingers that seem so popular. They do look like a minnow. Also looking forward to testing out that Beaver tail bait. See how it swims alongside the boat.

Last night had to take her majesty to Lowe’s. Yup…..afraid so. She wanted to buy some paint. There are only a few things that I hate and painting is tops on the list. So this weekend I will be moving everything out of the bedroom, out into the living room, while she slathers paint all over everything. She already asked could we get new flooring for in there. So I guess the carpet is gonna act as her drop cloth. That’s the plan as it appears to me anyways. So no fishing for me again this weekend.

My buddies went a couple of times last week and caught a few small fish. I don’t understand why last year this time we were filling the boat and this year nothing. Weird little fish me thinks.

[DockShootinJack]

Enjoy the painting