For me, one of the highlights of any fishing trip is stepping into a local tackle shop and browsing their selection of lures. Gets me absolutely giddy with excitement. Been that way with me since the moment I first stepped into one at the ripe young age of 5.
Not going to lie. I was definitely hooked. The colors and shapes, hell even the packaging...more tempting than a kid in a candy store for me. I step foot in a new one, odds are high Im coming out with a sack full of stuff. For me and my bank account, they are infinitely more dangerous than strip clubs..
A few years later after that first trip into a bait shop, I started coming across fishing shows on Saturday morning TV. Mostly Bill Dance or Roland Martin, but occasionally I'd run across Jimmy Houston, Babe Winkelman, Tony Dean....the list of legends and masters could go on...
One of the things that I always paid attention to were the lures they were using. Most of the time, there were crankbaits involved. Cotton Cordell, Rebel, Rapala, Rat-l-Trap, Lucky Strike, etc etc. Sometimes the colors were outrageous, especially during that dark era of fervent adherence to the gospel of the Color-C-Lector. Like looking through fashion magazines that came out in the 1970's...shudder
Somehow, during these brief edited glimpses of professional fishermen's lives and adventures to lakes and waterways I knew I knew I'd never see, I developed an obsessive fondness for fishing lures of all types, but mostly crankbaits. I had unwittingly become a Bait Junky...
I tried a few times to carve my own, tried rattle canning paint jobs and other ill advised methods to get something to honestly catch fish. Other than trout flies and an early version of the little known mayfly rig for walleye, I had no success with my lure creations. I remember trying to weld plastic worms together with a bic lighter. Nothing like burnt fingers and plastisol patches on my clothes. Had a hard time explaining to my mother why I ruined another pair of pants....
So here we are, a couple of decades later and in the interim, I succeeded in learning how to make inline spinners, walleye spinners. Felt like it was time to focus on crankbaits. Thought it would be easier than making the other types of lures....
Let me tell you, I was wrong. Dead wrong. Painting them is easy enough once you get the hang of the airbrush. Sealing them isn't that bad either. Its getting them to run even remotely close to the lures they are supposed to be replicating that is my main issue.
Enter reality and the old proverbial axiom of getting what you pay for comes to mind.
I could paint them strikingly similar to the Ito paint jobs, seal them very well, but compared to the real thing, they not only feel different when retrieved, they definitely do not respond remotely close to the real thing. Ergo, the success rate with these baits is smaller than with the exquisite engineering of the original. Getting them to run as close as possible to the original bait is often a long game of try it and see.
This alone is the main premise as to why I have refused to sell any of the baits I paint. I cannot possibly guarantee any of those lures will catch fish like the original. Money is hard to come by for a lot of folks and I'll be damned if I "con" it out of them simply by presenting a lure that looks like the original. I don't have it in me to do that to people.
Make no mistake. I've had enough people ask me to paint lures for them that I could have probably bought a bigger boat. But integrity has to come into the question. I wouldn't want some joker selling me a knockoff that performs poorly.
My only option then from this point forward is to paint the real thing. I won't be buying those baits to use as blanks unless its for my own personal stash. If I did, the price of these baits would be ridiculously high. Better to have someone bring me the exact baits they want painted and then go from there. Should keep the prices reasonable.
I do give some people lures I have painted. A lot of the lures I do paint have caught me some pretty nice fish. But my personal confidence in the final product always needs to be addressed. If I send or give people baits, its because I feel they will work and that I have already caught fish using the same blank or paint scheme.
So why do I keep painting these blanks if they don't work quite like they should.
Thats the sticking point right there.
One also has to look at purchases from vendors like this as warm-ups and a way of honing your painting skills. It takes the sting out of having hundreds of blanks of questionable quality you may have bought on faith.
Paint them, slap on the right hardware, make alterations like adding suspend-dots, or different hook sizes to make the lures you paint run the way you want. Its a slow laborious process but the patience and persistence in getting it right will make you glad you took the time.
In closing, I want to say a few words on sealants or finishes and I need to be clear about this. No lure sealant is going to be anywhere as close to being as lightweight as factory finishes, unless you have the facilities to use automotive grade sealants. If you do, you are fortunate because that alone will boost the price of those painted baits considerably, due to product cost and cleanup costs.
For the rest of us, there are other options....KBS, Diamond Kote, cement sealer etc. I personally use Alumilite UV (100 bucks for a 2 pound can) and warm it up before I dip the lures and let it drip off for no less than 10 minutes. Then after that, I apply the drip stick, put them in the UV box and let them cure for 20 minutes.
The goal with all of this effort before they go into the UV box is to get the sealant as thin as possible to add the least amount of weight to the bait. By striving to do this, you end up with livelier artificials that run much better than a bait with too much sealant on it.
Another thing you should consider before picking up this hobby. Cost in equipment and supplies add up. You need a good airbrush, a nice selection of paints, blanks, a spray pot, UV lights and Box, possibly a lure turner, small heaters or a heat gun to help set the paint, cleaning fluid, q-tips, an airbrush holder, a paint box, lights, forceps, tapes, hooks, split rings, split ring pliers etc etc. You see where I am going with this. Painting cranks is and becomes a huge investment in time and materials. Don't make the mistake in thinking you'll start small. It balloons much quicker than you imagine.
Will I stop doing it? Doubtful, if only to keep pushing my painting skills as far as they can go. If I am going to be painting original baits rather than knock-offs, better to use the knock offs for practice runs.
It is a fun and relaxing hobby, but I've seen far too many people get into it without realizing how much it actually costs to do it. Everything seems cheap, but it isn't. But for those that do decide to try it out and spend the cash, I will be doing some tutorials in the future on painting crankbaits so visit often. You never know when I am going to put those articles out.
Until then...
Keep those lines wet, those hooks sharp and the fish afraid.
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