New Idea (?) fishermen, wood guys w/pictures. Feedback?

[Daren]

I keep my little pieces of "cool wood" thinking one day I will have a good use for it. I think I may have found it.




I was going to make pens from them, but that seemed boring.



I like to fish, and the figure gives the lures a 3D look.



Obviously they look alot better in person, you know how figured wood is.




There is curly maple and elm, some spalted curly maple and elm, curly walnut. I think they look cool, and I have fun making them. Do you think there is a market for them? I am making some diving crank baits next, then some top water "poppers". I have other ideas too, and plenty of wood I have stashed over the years.




Any thoughts ? My Dad always said "90% of fishing lures are made to catch fishermen".

[iain]

Way good 8) 8) 8)




iain

[Tom]

Good looking lures, Daren.

Charlie made a big one for display awhile back too.

I've made lures out of pure junk, so I know you can make them catch fish if you want.

You have to balance them to do what you what.  a small hole and a few split shot will do wonders.

I like the idea of the figured wood over paint.  

[Mooseherder]

I can test them on some Bass and take pics.
When you get big enough and sell by the millions, you could be my sponser while I travel the circuit. smiley_contract_point

[pasbuild]

If your dad is right about the 90% of fisherman your sales should be great, there outstanding

[Jeff]

Those are great Daren. As usual using your gift. Way cool.

[Furby]

Got a party next Saturday and they have a couple of stocked ponds I could try them out on! ;D
Nice Job! 8)

[Norm]

Those are nice Daren. Do you make them on your mini lathe?

[Larry]

Great looking lures Darren.  Spooks right?

I sell basswood to a guy that makes those great big (and expensive) lures for striper fishing.  His only reason for making them originally  was to control expenses...but now he is selling some to collectors.  Put a few in a display case and hang on the wall.  You might be on to something. 

[SwampDonkey]

Very good work Darren. They look really great. I haven't fished for years and never did fish much for other fish that weren't salmonids. But, they'de be great looking lures if I was looking for some. ;)

[Daren]

 Yes, I made them on the mini-lathe.

I have a place to test them, Like Tom said you can catch fish with homemade lures. Fish aren't too smart, they are eating machines. Show them something new and they go for it, I bet they have not seen too much curly walnut  :D
Here are a couple pics of bass we caught at my Grandpa's pond. I have caught bigger, but you know how it goes (and how fishing stories start) you never have the camera when you catch "The BIG one"



This is a shot of one my wife caught the same day. I know hers looks bigger, I am 6'3" and she is 5'3"...but it probably really was bigger. She USUALLY outdoes me. If I catch a 16" crappie, she catches a 16 1/2". If I catch a 15 lb channel, she gets a 17 lber... She has a lucky fishing hat (as seen in the picture)



These fish were 6-7 lbs in the middle of summer (you can see they have sunken bellies) fattend up they would have been 8 Lbs. We threw them back, and have caught them more than once since...they just keep getting bigger. 8) Pretty good for Illinois bass.

I just got the figured wood idea because you see all these plastic lures that have depth, figured wood has depth a painted lure could never repro. Plus it is just DanG pretty.

I had thought about the dispay case thing. Just because my Dad has some of his Dad's antique wood plugs in some display cases he made. They are so neat to look at, stuff from Canada to Florida and 50-60 years old and some older I think. I was thinking about making a case for Dad with some of mine.

I guess if a guy was wanting to sell some he could make a fancy case that  holds 4 lures and put a brass tag on it that says "collector series" or some such and it let a buyer pick 4 (by type or wood) and sell them the case too.

I am going to make more in the next few weeks and will post pics.

[jon12345]

Oversized hardwood crankbaits for muskies go for 25$ or more, ya could also do some as novelty items with stuff wood burned onto 'em for 'dad' (fathers day, birthday) with non figured wood.  If you could mass produce some of them prop baits even, they are not exactly cheap at the store, but I don't know how much the hardware and stuff on them is.  They go a lot farther when you cast them than plastic too don't they  ???

[CHARLIE]

Daren, another idea is to make fishing lures for displays, ornaments and collectors.  There is a huge organization of fishing lure makers.  Apparently, they make lures and sell them primarily for collectors. I'll see if I can find out more about it for you.

A childhood classmate's husband makes these type of lures to sell and mounts 6 of them into a custom made box he makes too. He's sold his "Six Packs" for as much as $300. It sounds like there is a lot of money to be made to sell to collectors.   

[SwampDonkey]

Darren, here's what I did with some classic (feather wing) atlantic salmon flies.



The case has a mirror in the rear to give the view some depth when looking above.



A close-up.

[Max sawdust]

Wow Darren that sure looks like a good idea 8)

I live up in a big tourist/fishing area, would be interesting to see what the local bait shops think. 

I have a nearly endless supply of small figured pieces that I just can not throw away :  Never would of thought of the idea of fishing lures :(
You sure are creative and talented.


Max

[Daren]

SwampDonkey, that was what I was talking about Dad did. He has 1/2 dozen display cases hanging around with Grandad's old stuff.

CHARLIE, you are right about lure collectors. I did a quick search this morning and found some guys who had websites to see what was hot (I don't even know what to make, I was just playing with the lathe Friday afternoon) and they had their e-mail address and "I buy lures". I shot a few a quick note with pictures...I have gotten some very positive responces already. Geez, I only have 10 lures made. I think I need to make some more before I do that any more.

I need to set down and get organized (when I get time) and work a set amount of time and see how many I can make... to see if it is worth my time per piece. It is a fun hobby, and they will make nice gifts, but I will have to know the $ before I ever tried to do it in a big way.

Max, the idea didn't some overnight for sure. I have been stashing little pieces forever trying to think of a neat way to use them.  ???  I have sold a good bit of neat stuff to pen turners and guys with that sort of hobby, kinda wish I had some of it back.

Heck, the ceiling tile I sent to Jeff would have made 5 lures  :D there are cooler ones than mine up there. I need to read up on that thread to see how they are fastened...I may be sneaking up there Ninja style and getting some "lure material"   : :D

[SwampDonkey]

Darren, the last I checked was about 5 years ago on the price of lures, they was getting to be over $10 a piece. Getting pricey to purchase 5 lures for a $5 fish. So, I'm sure your lures could get at least that. Even classic salmon flies are over $20 a piece, and they are alot smaller, but with expensive farm raised bird's feathers. I think that was why the shift the hairwing. I can remember buying a whole case of flies as a kid for $2.00. ;) No respectful fisherman will buy those cheep Chinese knock-offs. I can take the feathers off them with the first 5 fish caught.  :

[Tom]

Here is a fun project to do with fishing lures.  I read about it one time and it sounded like fun.  I did it until my collection got put in a "Safe" place.

I read of a fellow who would attach a hook to most anything he could find.   Sometimes he  did a little shaping to make it into a real fishing lure and sometimes he just hung a hook on whatever it was.  His favorites were old pieces of kitchen and table ware.  Some of his "lures" were hooks hung on costume jewelry or old tools or belt buckles.......

He would take these creations to his favorite fishing holes and use them until he caught a fish.  He didn't spend a lot of time with one at any given time and would try many a day.  Eventually, some  hapless, hungry fish would succumb to the temptation and strike the lure.

The fish were always turned back because the fish was only secondary to the effort.

He would sometimes take a picture of the fish with the lure, but, always wrote a history of what the lure had been through when it caught the fish.  He described the lure, when he made it, how many failed attempts it had and where they had failed.   Also he would record who was with him when the lure was successful and any entertaining information about the the trip and the lure.

The lure was retired after catching its first fish.  He mounted it on a plaque, dated it and secured his story to the back. 

I thought it was a great idea.  The only thing I didn't do right away was mount the lure.  Heck, I could remember all of that information.  I still remember some of it and can picture the weird stuff I was throwing in to the ocean.  By placing the lures into a paper bag and not mounting them, I had created a bag of trash that I think got thrown out.

One of these days, I'm going to do it again.   It was fun.

Now, you can get back to the real thing.  :D

[Daren]

Tom, I know a guy like that. He is the crappie catchingest guy I know.  I have seen him use a piece of tin can on a jig head he found along the bank and used his Leatherman to cut a little piece off just show me he could catch fish with it.
I have fished with him many times, he is a trip. I learned alot about crappie fishing from him (like you don't REALLY need a whole tackle box full of stuff to catch them). I actually met him on the river one day several years ago. I was walking the bank and he was thowing at a stump and catching them one after the other. I stopped to talk (carrying my minnow bucket, 20 different colors of tube jigs...) He was using a little piece of DRINKING STRAW. He sat down and let me have his stump for awhile ,and watched me feed those fish a couple dozen minnows :D.
I ran into him off and on that year and we got to be sometimes fishing buddies since. He still uses a piece of drinking straw on a jig head most of the time. He likes the ones with a blue or red stripe. He just cuts a little piece that has 2 little points off the back.

[SwampDonkey]

Just elaborating on the fishing flies.....not to take away from Darren's thread....you know how things flow around here. ;)

When the hair and feathers would be warn off a trout fly, grandfather would just cut a trout fin off and use that. It mimiced a trout fly that was red with white stripe. You couldn't keep the trout off. ;D

http://globalflyfisher.com/patterns/bergman/

scroll down and see the 'Trout Fin' pattern and read the caption. ;D

Also, the 'Royal Coachman' and 'Black Knat' were my most favorite trout flies of all time. The water would boil with trout activity around those two. My grandfather always talked of the 'Parmachene Belle' and 'Silver Doctor' patterns also.

[UNCLEBUCK]

That is beautiful Daren , you should have a booth at all the fishing shows that come through your state .   

[Daren]

OK, now I have to get back to real work, just a few pics first.




I guess a few pics of  fish these can catch would be in order.



I don't really care about that, you can catch fish with a worm... some fishermen are harder to catch.

[UNCLEBUCK]

People try many different things in life until they happen to come across something that they really enjoy and people go crazy about !  I would think this could be your calling ?  Hello Daren this is Cabela's , yes we would like another 3,500 of the curly maple chug buggers !   

[Snag]

Those are pretty cool Daren.  Can you describe what types of wood you used in the latest pics.  Those colors are awesome....

[SwampDonkey]

I know if I were a minnow eat'n Toag or brook trout, I know I'de take at one of them lures right quick.  ;D