Eazy's Bassin' Blog: A Few Fish and Building A Lure Drying Wheel

Another good fish from a pond.

I have been a little busy to do individual posts, but I did get out twice. I took another trip to the pond from last week and got another good one, better actually. This one was in the 4.5# range; I need to remember to biring my scale. She was caught using the same pattern from last week.

I also got the boat out for the first time for the year and spent a few hours on Braidwood. Weapons of choice included a 1/2 oz spinnerbait, 1.5 square bill crankbait, and a Zoom Super Hog on a 1/4 oz football jig head (no skirt). The temperature gauge on my Lowrance was reading 98 degree water temp, but I guesstimate the temperature to be around 65 after sticking my hand in the water.

I was fishing a cut back on the hotside, a small flat area 4-6 foot depth around the corner from a bank that quickly reached 15 feet deep. Throwing the bait close to the bank and slowly working it back, I managed two fish within a few casts of each other. The bites were light, and came about 10 feet off of the bank in 6 foot depth.

The larger of the two fish, being 16 inches or so.
Braidwood has a 1 fish, 18" minumum
(for tournament purposes, catch and release only.

Both came on the Super Hog, that I modified by biting off the rounded 'arms' on the body of the bait to create smaller craw like legs. I also only split the claws at the bottom most connection to keep them from spreading out too much. This will move a tiny bit more water, and give the claws a subtler action, and keep s the profile of the bait just a hair smaller.

A few months ago, I started making my own lures as a hobby. I have made a few PoP (plaster of paris) molds of different plastics, have not done much pouring because of ventilation reasons.

I also bought some balsa to carve some crankbaits, an airbrush to paint them, and some blanks to custom paint and tinker with modifications on them.

For sealing the baits, I use Dev Con 2 ton epoxy, which is a little thick but will still run before it cures. After a doing some research online, I built a drying wheel that will rotate the baits as the epoxy cures preventing the buildup/uneven-ness when hung to cure.

The materials used:
1 rotisserie motor I bought on ebay for $15
3 x 10" rounds of wood, 1/8 in. thick.
1 5/16 in diameter, 3 inch long machine screw
2 washers, 1 fit the screw
1 nut, to fit the screw
19 wood screws
19 aligator clips
Epoxy
Wood Glue
Super Glue
Small pieces of paper towel.

*note, I only have pictures of the finished product below.

How I made it.
I glued the 3 10" rounds together to get the a good thickness/ strength to hold the baits. Any wood could do, but I used pre-cut wood out of convenience and it was light to keep strain off of the motor.

I put the 19 screws around the outside that will be where the baits are fixed. Make sure the shank of the screw will fit inside the aligator clip. Put some super glue in the hole on the clips, and put on the screw with the operating side of the clip on the outside edge of the wood. (see pics) The bill of the baits are easily clip in and won't fall out when rotating.

Then, I drilled a hole in the middle of the 10" round and put a washer on either side when I put the machine screw though. I tightened everything up to stay in place with the nut.

I used a 5/16" screw b/c that was the largest size that would fit in the rotisserie spit slot. There was a hole that ran all the way through the slot so if packed the bottom of it with paper towel before filling it 1/2 way with epoxy. Then I set screw into the epoxy, and after it cured I topped the remaining space off with super glue just for added security.

Now I have an in expansive drying wheel that works absolutely awesome, and even clear coat on all of my baits!