Making an old school lure

Powered by www.big-game-board.info Big Game Fishing Board tutorials presents Thank you very much to Bahama Lures. www.bahama-lures.com Making an old school lure I was inspired to do this by Jim Rizzuto's book (required reading by the way for any prospective home lure builders) and his reference to George Parker's original tube lure. My hat is off to Mr Parker for having the almost divine incentive to come up with this back in the 1940's and for it to be so good. I figured it would be a cool thing to do to try and recreate the lure and see first hand what it was he was able to achieve all that long time ago and actually father the era of the modern trolling lure. What I was not prepared for was to see just how good this lure turned out, better than a whole lot of lures I have seen on tackle store walls even today. With a few basic shop tools this can be made at home by just about anyone and for very little money too. I bought enough of the basic parts in the hardware store for less than $20 to make at least 6 lures. PArts list included 18" lengths of 1.25" and 1.5" stainless or chromed plumbing tube and wood doweling to fit inside. Epoxy glue and vinyl tube for the leader hole. Ok, I admit I have a pretty nice lathe to play with, but I think a basic wood lathe would do the

trick too. Failing that then a drill press or take the wood to a furniture shop to be turned down to size. GP did it in a ship yard so he had access to lathes and drills too so I don't feel bad about using mine. A band saw and side sander were also helpful though not essential. First determine your measurements for the lure body, skirt shoulders and excess to go in the chuck. I cut the dowel 5.5" (140mm) to give plenty of extra and make the lure in a 3:1 aspect ratio of width to length as GP did. The inside of the tube is 1.167" or 29.76mm and I cut the shoulders at 1" and 0.85" respectively. Here is the dowel cut down and the tube test fitted over it

Next I used a 7/32 bit to drill out the leader hole I needed an extended bit to drill deep enough to go all the way through from only one end, I did not want to turn it around and try hit center from both ends. I also ended up expanding the hole to 15/64 to get the vinyl tube in at the end, you will need to determine those dimensions according to the size tube you use, or forgo the tube entirely as the wood will not do much damage to the leader if left without a vinyl tube. GP of coarse did not have access to vinyl tube back then.

Now that the wood is cut mix up some epoxy, does not have to be this one I just happened to have laying around. Also scrape up and gouge the inside of the tube to give the glue something to hold on to, I also wiped it out with acetone to de-grease it.

Cover the wood with glue and inside the tube, then slide it over Once in place I covered the exposed wood with glue to seal it and give the glue that will hold the skirts something to stick to other than bare wood. Clean up the excess with acetone and let it sit overnight to cure.

Next morning I chose 12 degrees for the lure face slant and cut it on the band saw

then cleaned it up on the side sander Insert the leader tube and glue it in place and it is done-

Fits a OLC size 50 skirt on the outer shoulder and size 30 skirt on the inner -

I am working on the Mark 2 version of this that will include a keel weight and maybe some stick on decoration. Not bad for $20. Whenever you ready, Jim. We can make lures and jigs! So for Mark. 2 I decided to modernize the lure a bit and add the keel weight, here we go - Draw it out first, note the cavity designated for the counter weight-

Center drill first, and drill out the main leader hole as before- Then cut the shoulders for the skirts, I like to do the smaller one first and leave a slight 'ramp' to the bigger one to help slide on the outer skirt

Double check that the skirt fits before you cut the slot for the weights I used a rasp file and the vicious wood saw on my leatherman to dig out the hole-

Test fit the weights, I am using tungsten rods as they are super dense. Really any dense material will work, lead sheet, nails, lead shot or whatever comes to hand thats heavy I fit 4 rods in the smaller lure and five in the big one

Here they are all gooped up and ready for the metal jacket Done, ready for overnight cure-

To make the larger lure I had to use square bar and cut it down, make a square peg fit in a round hole and all that... Here are all 3 lures together, note that the first one (top) rolled onto its back as it is top heavy. In the second photo you can see the ends I cut off also rolled over. If you look closely at the 2 keeled lures you can just see the marks I made to determine where the tops were before I cut the faces.

Seeing as these lures are now keeled I added the hook locks as well so I know where my hook point will be

I did not skirt them yet as I am holding out on finding some nauga hide and using that as GP would have done. If I don't before I go fishing again then I will use regular skirts as I do not want to miss the chance to pull them. I am also pondering using holo tape to decorate the heads, will post that too if I do it. All 3 lures came from the original $20 stake, and I have lots

left over for more! If anyone wants to give this a shot I will be happy to help.