Home-made sea fishing lures.

I see there has been a flurry of interest in home-made fishing lures.  I suppose it can be likened to building your own model plane, boat or whatever and seeing if it works.  It does give a buzz, if it does.  Likewise with homemade lures - the proof is in the biting!

We found ourselves, some years back, in the middle of an ocean and out of lures, and with no tackle shop nearby, we had to do something with what we had.

There were two approaches we took - there are, of course, many more.  Firstly, if you have the remains of any torpedo shaped lure heads and, secondly, some round lead shot - commensurate with the fishing you are doing, of course!

Now ...... , we found that we could use almost anything and amongst the things we used were:
1.  The sliver plastic bag from a wine box,
2.  A pink canvass sunglasses case,
3.  The leather strappy bits from a pair of sandals.

The other thing you will need is seizing wire to hold the lure together.  I will presume you have all the necessary pliers,snippers, etc.  We found out quite quickly that the lure doesn't have to look good - this is not a gourmet meal for a fish - but it does need to attract it!

Using an old clean bare 'torpedo' lure, drill a small hole for the seizing wire, off centre, making sure it does not go through the leader wire hole (v. important).  Thread the wire through the hole leaving about 3 - 4 inches poking through either side.  Next, cut the materials you want to use into strips.  It doesn't matter if they are too long, you can always trim them later.  Laying them round the torpedo weight, use the wire to hold them in place.  Leave about 3 inches above the weight.  Cutting a separate piece of wire, use this at rhe top of the lure but allow about 11/2 inches to hang over - don't trim this.

The same technique can be used with round shot.  You drill the off-centre hole in the second one down and then add weights till you have the weight you require.  But remember, you will have considerably more drag using round weights.

I can assure you it works!  Our most successful one was the pink sunglasses case and the leather sandal strips.  See my next blog!