Design Considerations with Wooden Fishing Lures

[TackleMaking]

Hello All,

I am collecting information for a series of articles I am writing about design considerations for wooden fishing lures. I've searched high and low for information about this topic but haven't been able to find anything. I apologize if this is a little off topic, but I would truly appreciate any tips you could provide on the topic of selecting wood and designing wooden fishing lures.

Thank You!

- Erik Moore
TackleMaking.com

 

[DaveVikingPE]

A long time ago, I belonged to the Outdoor Life Book Club, from which I purchased a book on how to make fishing lures. The book covered everything except fly-tying as that's an art unto itself.

To the question, the book had lots of examples of wooden lures. I copied a couple, mostly plugs from balsa (the book also covered spoons and other lure types, like fake eels). Sadly, all my fishing equpiment is gone, including the hand-made lures...

The crayfish plug I made was of two balsa sections, between which ran a piano wire for attaching hooks with the appropriate hardware. The sections were fastened with expoxy and I painted the thing with Testor's enamal. The thing cast well, sank and certainly functioned well. I figure Rapala would've charged $10 for such a fine reproduction of a crayfish.

When I was in high school, I experimented with cedar plugs in the woodshop, but the teacher thought I was makeing dope paraphenalia.

Mind you, none of these ever caught a thing! Thusly, I go with live or cut bait exclusively.

 

[KirkX]

Just seen your request for information. While looking for lure designs I have just found:

http://www.luresonline.com.au

Looks like an up to date site which could supply some useful information.