Fishing lures making

Why might you like to make homemade fishing lures?

Fishing licenses, poles, live bait, fishing boats and other hardware and even software today can run you a good buck. If you are fishing for food as well as for sport or pleasure, you will certainly want to run a streamlined fishing expedition and save money by making your own lures. These are cheaper to make than to purchase and cheaper than live bait. If you make one that is especially successful and catching some whoppers, you may be able to go into business for yourself, marketing your discovery.

We will be covering the home construction of The Lucky 13, The Spoon and The Jitterbug fishing lures.

We begin with a parts list. These items can be found at your local fish and tackle, hardware and art supply stores. Many of the tools can be borrowed from a friend or neighbor. The numbers of each item are determined by what is needed for constructing one each of the above named styles of fishing tackle.

1. Split rings-one small box if you must buy them new or at least 4 (small, about 1/4-inch) split rings.

2. Eye screws- 3 eye screws of about a half-inch in length with an eye about an 1/8 of an inch across.

3. Spoons- 2 old teaspoons that you won’t miss.

4. Hacksaw- for sawing the wood and the spoons.

5. Trebble hooks- 3 pronged fishing hooks, about an inch long and near that wide, 3 of them are needed.

6. Broom handle- one old wooden broom handle, old not rotted, or at least 10 inches of the wood there from.

7. Paint and paint brush- 1 small brush and 2 colors that blend together such as yellow and green or red and blue.

8. A vice for holding the items to be sawed.

9. Pliers- a small to medium sized pair.

10. Drill and 1/16 drill bit.

11. A wood carving knife or sharp pocket knife.

12. A metal file.

13. Sand paper.

Building The Lucky 13 lure.

The Lucky 13 is made of a 5-inch piece of broom handle, two eye screws, a split ring and a trebble hook.

You will want to saw off a 5-inch piece of broom handle. Next, scallop one end and carve the other to gradually sloping point with a rounding head on the end. Smooth the rough areas with light sandpaper. Next, choose your color scheme. If you have chosen yellow and green you can go for a natural effect like some type of lizard might appear to look to a fish. Once painted and dried, you will want to screw an eye screw into the scalloped end of the lure in the very center; screw it in securely. In the very tip of the opposite end you will want to screw the other eye screw. On that eye screw you will want to add one split ring. On that split ring you will want to place your trebble hook.

And there you have your first homemade Lucky 13 lure.

Crafting a good Spoon lure.

Easier in some ways and harder in others is the construction of the spoon lure. You will be using one spoon, two split rings, a trebble hook, your paints and some of the other tools we listed earlier. Securing the spoon in a vice, saw the handle off as close to the spoon as possible. Adjusting the spoon in the vice, first drill a hole in one end with an 1/8 inch of spoon left at the end to spare, then do likewise to the other end. Using the metal file, file off the rough edges of the sawed end of the spoon til smooth and round. Paint the spoon only on the rounded side, leaving the other side to shine in the water when used; this attracts the fish. Attach split rings at each end. Attach a trebble hook to the split ring at the larger end of the spoon only.

Now you have a Spoon style fishing lure.

The last and hardest to construct involves elements of both previous pieces of fishing equipment.

The jitterbug starts like the Lucky 13 and is the same up to after it is carved out. Now cut a spoon as with the spoon lure but don’t drill holes at the end. Rather drill a hole in the middle. Now take an eye screw and use it to attach the spoon to the scalloped end of the lure by screwing it through the hole in the spoon into the lure with the rounded side of the spoon facing and fitting snuggly into that scalloped groove. Paint all surfaces to your own design. Now screw an eye screw into the other end and attach a trebble hook with a split ring. This unique “architecture” gives The jitterbug lure an attractive jittering motion as it is reeled through the water as well as its name.

And now you have a complete set of home made fishing lures.