First Fishing Lure

Made from two pieces of acrylic. Features a fish attractring green led, two compartments for rattling ballast and an integrated brass wire to form the loops. Can’t wait for Spring!

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well done! nice finish. one question. I might sound dumb, how do you switch on the LED?

It’s on as long as the battery is in there. I can swap batteries, color of light, amount of ballast, etc.

very cool. What was the carving time?

About 45 minutes on the x-carve. Then another 20 minutes on the belt sander for shaping. Another 20 minutes with 150 grit, 400 grit, 600, then 800. Then 15 minutes on the buffing wheel. The wire inside for the hook loops took another 20 mins.

Nice lure, hope you’re not planing on wasting it on walleye and bass :sunglasses:

And 5 seconds to snag it on that high, out of reach branch above your favorite fishing spot where it will taunt you with its flashing led and rattling as it sways in the breeze…:grinning:

Nice job WIgger, looks down right commercially made!

Good luck with that lunker. I hear they have been stocking Minnetonka again…

If it works, I’ll retrieve it. I am pretty sure this particular lure will not work well however. Acrylic is heavy, so I don’t need those ballast sections. The battery and light should be on the bottom. The top should be milled out hollow so it will float upright. THis is pure speculation because all it does now is bounce off the ice when it is cast.

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you are supposed to drill a hole before you cast, silly boy!

If it’s bouncing off the ice, obviously you’re not casting hard enough. Need me to haul my butt up from New Mexico to teach you how to fish? :smile:

HA! Check out the beady little eyes. That’s what you get when you order from Amazon. These were 4mm eyes. I have 8mm coming. There really wasn’t any guidance anywhere online where the guidance matched up to sizes available. The hooks are perfect though.

That is a really nice project. I am imagining a 1 foot long one up on your wall as a piece of art.

I know you said you ground and sanded it to the final shape but have a question for everyone.

The internal pockets and outline were cut with the x-carve, if you made a jig, could you flip the parts and also carve the curved shape with an X-carve?

I also wonder if it would be feasible to rig up a simple switch for the power that is actuated by a strong external magnet so you do not have to disassemble and reassemble when you want to turn it off or on. I am thinking some sort of internal toggle or sliding contact that conduct but is also ferrous for the magnet. I know, a bit overboard for a lure, but would be cool none the less.

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How about a normally closed magnetic reed switch, so when you put it in the tackle box you put a magnet on it to turn it off.

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I think I would go even simpler, a moisture activated switch. If even possible.

The contact points would be open to the water environment inside a cavity open on the top and botoom to avoid air pockets,sealed off from other electrical components in the lure.
When it enters the water, moisture completes the circuit and when removed from the water the circuit is broken. no extra magnets or gadgets needed.

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Update. Meet El Chapo. The mini, inline bait illuminator. Spent three days on the ice this weekend and El Chapo did his thing.

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with regard to switching, there are dozens of toys at check out aisles and toys R Us, like little rubber balls and kids tennis shoes that have a motion activated switch inside. It is a tiny spring inside of a metal tube. Shaking the device, the spring makes contact and a circuit illuminates and flashes lights for a set period of time. They are typically tubular and approximately .4" inches in diameter and .6" long. This could be imbedded into the lure. The example I have only stays illuminated for ten seconds but I am looking for others. I could make something similar, I am not sure I could get the form factor as small.

I try not to fish with jerks. Oh, wait, I see what you are saying.

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Finally unpacked the airbrush, read the instructions and started painting. I never knew how awesome and fun the airbrush could be. I showed my lure to a tournament fisherman and he was super excited. He gave me his favorite, go to lure for ice fishing and asked me to duplicate it for his next tournament in Winnipeg. Apparently the water is very murky so he wanted lights. Just finished the prototype - I hope it catches fish! This lure has almost exactly the same dimensions as the lure he provided. It has chambers for rattles (BB’s), and a battery an light. Most of the fish is translucent. It will be interesting to light it up once the pain dries.

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Looks good enough to eat! (if I were a fish)

I messed around with airbrushes way back when i was still putting model car kits together.
I decided that my talents existed somewhere else.