It's the Terrible at Fishing radio show on Gold
Country Radio. Here's your fishing expert and
host, Michael Ruffino. Welcome back to Terrible
at Fishing everybody. I thought this week we'd
go over not just a little bit about the fishing
report, but how to make baits and how I do it
and some of the techniques that I use. But to
start us off, we're going to talk a little bit
about fishing reports. So lakes are becoming
unsteady, so I would not go out and step on those
lakes. Although we are having sort of a fluctuation
of different weathers lately, the ice is getting
layered and thin. Hit some rivers. River's going
to be doing really well. You know, the Lost River
is doing really well. You know, over in Bonanza,
I think I've told you all that. And look for
some open water. So the other river is going
to be opening pretty soon. Give it a few more
weeks. Klamath River and after Memorial Day we'll
have the Williamson's and the Wood Rivers open.
So, but if you're indigenous, have at it. That's
good stuff. Me, I have to move to Italy to be
indigenous. So, baits, baits, baits, baits. I
will tell you that some of my more popular videos
on terrible at fishing online is on bait making.
Now I'm a hard bait type of guy. I love fishing
with hard baits, you know crank baits jerk baits
things like that and I just get a lot of hits
off of them and somebody asked me this week when
I was at a meet -and -greet and What makes my
baits better than other people's baits? Well,
because I know my water So my lakes my rivers
things like that. I know what those fish like
You know, from one lake to another lake, one
body of water to another water, you get different
preferences of fish. Some of them will hit red,
chartreuse, green, black and blue, things like
that. And then there's some things they have
in common. So, you know, how do you kind of start
out, you know, painting your own baits? And I
airbrush my baits. So, you know, buying an airbrush
from Amazon. Yeah, it's not even gonna cost you
a hundred bucks, you know, for a setup. Although
a good airbrush, which you would graduate to
fairly quickly, runs about a hundred bucks. I
have a Pache and the Pache or even an Iwata.
Those are really good brands and you really can't
go wrong. I kind of went with Pache because,
I don't know, I had a Pache 40 years ago and
loved it. I always like the brand. And then you're
going to need acrylic paint. Yeah, water -based
paint. You're going to think, Mike, you're throwing
it in the water. How long is that paint going
to last? It will last. I'll tell you in a sec.
The acrylic set, if you know how to mix your
colors, just get the primaries. And just get
a color wheel, print one off of the internet,
and you can make any color you want. I like to
go into the pearls. Pearls refract light a little
bit better and they look prettier. But the pearl
essence have a pigmentation in it and that actually
or even metallics in order to get the light to
flash off of those baits better. And that's really,
you know, I mean I kind of like staying within
those realms. I'm not much for fluorescence.
So I don't usually do fluorescents. I do have
a couple that are fluorescent like chartreuse
which is a sort of a yellowish green tinge to
it and the and maybe red, you know, there's a
scarlet red that I use that works really really
well but You know, I kind of stay within the
metallics and pearls because as light hits it,
it reflects better off of it. And then, there
are some tricks to painting a bait. Some baits,
we're putting stripes on it. Just vertical stripes.
They don't have to look purdy. Just vertical
stripes. gives the bait some flash as it's pulled
through the water. Sometimes a striped bait works
better for me than other baits. Putting patterns
on it, you know, dots or something like that,
helps it look more like a real critter to the
fish. Lake of the Woods is where I fish most
of the time and there are certain colors that
work really well. Lavender or purple. Purple
or lavender works really well in Lake of the
Woods. Also browns or golds. Browns and golds
work very well. And then probably my favorite
that nobody else practically fishes with. Black.
I know, you're thinking black. I go, yeah, black.
One of my favorite baits from a company called
Sixth Sense online is one called the Black Magic
Design. Very hard to paint, by the way. So I
always go to the clearance section and check
them out. And my favorite bait from them is called
a Swink. It's got sort of an L -bill on it. It
goes down and then jets out. The Swank Black
Magix, good as gold. Now I do paint that design
something similar, not as, you know, exactly
like theirs, but black with blue spots with a
yellow belly. Probably one of my best baits.
And you're wondering, you know, typically what
you would do is throw dark baits inside dark
water, stained water, very little clarity in
the water, but the nice thing about black baits,
they always work. Black baits always work. Adding
the blue on there, which Bass Sea is a different
color than blue, but it's very attractive to
them. And then adding that yellow belly to it,
just a stripe right down the middle center line
on the belly. And then I put iridescent eyes
on it. Probably one of the best combinations
I've ever done. I've always caught personal bests
off of my black baits. I'll even do black baits
in soft plastic. Ask a lot of fishermen, ask
them about black and blue. Black and blue is
a very, very, very popular combination for soft
baits and jigs. They just don't translate it
over to hard baits. Why? I have no idea. It works
with worms and jigs. Why don't they translate
it over to hard baits? I hardly ever see anybody
fish a black and blue in a hard bait. I think
I'm the only one. I got a lot of them, too. I
mean, my walls got a bunch because I had a clearance
sale over at Sixth Sense and I kind of went nuts.
Two bucks each? You can't go wrong. I don't know
if the sale's going on still, but worthy of a
check. Always go to the clearance section. uh
it's 244 each um that is just a pretty good deal
i just had to do it so but black and blue is
one of those things that'll work in any body
of water now you're probably wondering why does
black work so good because it presents a clear
distinguishable profile the water even in dark
stained water where you got six inches of visibility
it actually has a really good profile and the
fish see the profile if you had let's say a white
bait it just blends right in they don't see the
profile it disappears it's like it's invisible
it's cloaked black baits work good Now, this
year I will be painting quite a few black and
blues, and you'll be able to buy them over at
the marina at Lake of the Woods. Those were,
those actually, if I was to tell you to buy one
of my baits, I'd get the black and blues. You'd
be shocked. You really would be shocked. They
have a really loud rattle, so they're like a
castanet. good good sound coming from them in
a in a deeper tunnel too the bigger ones too
and I do have a four and a half inch and throwing
a big bait gets you a bigger fish you know I
put one odd hooks on there which is a big hook
and you know just make sure you don't hook yourself
now this year I'm going to I think we're going
to package it in a very unique way so But when
you when you paint your baits, so after you let's
say you get your hairbrush You get your paints.
Now, where do you get the blanks? now There's
lots of places on online that you can get blanks.
My favorite one is lure build L -U -R -E build
calm lure build James gonna actually owns that
company is a really nice guy. He's always done
me right So LureBuild actually is my favorite
place to buy baits. And so now you got, you know,
there's lots of places, there's Barlows and other
companies, and you can buy these baits and you're
going to need split rings and really good hooks.
I'm a big Gamakatsu fan, so Gamakatsu hooks are...
best hook I've ever found, although they don't
make all sizes, unfortunately. So with my Finesse
or very light tackle baits, I can't go with Kamikatsu.
Sometimes I go with the VMC, depending on the
VMC, because VMC can make some pretty yucky baits
or hooks, but they can make a really good one
too. So it just depends. And so now you've got
your your blanks, but you're gonna need one more
thing and that's gonna be a clear coat and There's
lots of different epoxy clear coats out there
some are softer some are harder Lurebill pretty
much has everything that you need. He's got a
two -part epoxy that works very very well so
you can mix that up into 50 -50 and just paint
it onto your baits. In a couple days it dries
hard as a rock and that paint and that bait will
just be able to endure through lots of days of
fishing. So that's really how it takes a little
bit of practice. takes a little bit you could
use almost anything for a um a pattern you know
um luffa sponges you know the luffa sponge i
just cut those up and i use those as a pattern
for scales i know and it's cheap you can get
them over at you know uh a store and they're
dirt cheap and there's a lot of lot of netting
in there for you to go ahead and use and sometimes
i just cut my own you know just buy some sheets
of plastic from amazon and then you just cut
it out and just make stripes or something like
that my wife did scrapbooking she doesn't do
it anymore but she had all sorts of neat little
scrapbooking scissors and stuff like that that
i use in order to make these really cool um stencils
when I when I go ahead and do it. Nowadays I've
got you know a laser machine CNC machine things
like that and I'm able to do lots of different
things with my machines but still simple works
you know just simple works. You don't have to
get fancy and you don't have to create a you
know a real live looking you know trout. you
know, but I think as you get into it you'll get
better at it and you will find certain color
combinations work better for you and your style
of fishing. And I love topwater fishing in the
summer. We probably have the best topwater fishing
here in Klamath Falls in the summer. I mean 78
degree water at Lake of the Woods surface temp.
You're just popping, you're just getting topwater
explosions all day long. Square bills work really,
really well, always. Always have a bunch of square
bills with you because square bills just always
work. Definitely the most popular bait people
have in their tackle boxes. So, sort of take
that into consideration when you're buying your
baits. I hope this little bit of helps. We're
going to go into soft baits, how to make them,
and spinners in the next segment. So, enjoy our
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locally and beyond. Welcome back to Terrible
at Fishing. We are talking how to make baits
today. Now, you know, we just talked about hard
baits. That's near and dear to my heart. But
this last year, I wanted to start making soft
baits and spinners. Now, spinners are probably
the most effective bait there is in your tackle
box. And yet we pay four, five, six dollars for
a spinner. And that gets expensive because you
lose spinners a lot. You just do. You lose them.
So, I saw this, you know, they're called wire
benders. Wire benders can be very expensive,
you know, a hundred bucks for a good wire wire
bender. But I saw this one Video and it was like
the only video. It just popped on one day. I
don't know on YouTube and it's called tackle
tool and The tackle tool I do have a video on
my YouTube channel on on this tool as well as
how to use it The tackle tool is and a very very
affordable wire bender to make Spinners as well
as many other different types of baits comes
with a nice little book But for 40 bucks think
about this for a second 40 bucks When it'll cost
you about 80 cents then to make a spinner one
that you like 80 cents Now you're gonna go to
a store and spend five bucks on a spinner pretty
easily That's eight spinners Eight we all have
eight spinners in our tackle boxes So this one
tool, eight spinners. Now you can make any spinner
you want. You can make it heavy, make it light,
make it small, make it big. You can make any
color that you want. Because, you know, beads
are very, very cheap. And then the weight, you
know, the weight that we put on it is very, very
cheap. And blades are very, very cheap. I mean,
just go on to Amazon and check it out. It's just
crazy. um how affordable that is that little
wire ton i mean pennies you know so now the tackle
tool and i have a really good video because i
made a couple videos and it wasn't very good
somebody says mike you got to do a better job
at making this video so just recently i put the
camera right on it and hopefully you know i did
a good job on demonstrating the tackle tool.
I think it's from Jans Craft or something like
that. Anyway, it's in my video. But this tool
will make spinners for you easily. I mean, just
so easy in the color combinations that you want.
So there are certain... I remember when Topsy
was a big deal. Now it's gone because, you know,
they took the dam out. But over there, red worked
really, really well. No, chartreuse worked really,
really well at Topsy. And then red worked really,
really well at Lake of the Woods. So I would
never, you know, you just didn't cross it. But
when you fish certain water bodies, they like
certain colors and color combinations. You know,
they might want a gold blade. They might want
a silver blade. They might want, you know, a
blade that you painted. And you can just take
waterproof markers, and you don't have to be
fancy about this, but you can put patterns, dots,
black dots on it, or yellow stripes, whatever
you want onto the blade with just waterproof
markers. I mean, it's just very, very simple.
And then you get to choose your hook quality
too, which is always my favorite thing. is choosing
my hook quality. Now typically with, you know,
spinners, we're dealing with, you know, size
10 or size 12 hooks. Really tiny, small hooks.
But let's say you want to fish the Williamson's.
Well, now you can't use a treble hook, so now
you've got to use a single hook. Well, now you
can make a whole tackle box just for the Williamson's
River. That's the nice thing about it. You know,
if you go into a store, try to, I mean, I think
Blue Fox, which is my favorite store bought spinner,
and you can buy those Sonic Bells too. So you
can make your own Blue Fox. But Blue Fox gives
you a single hook option, you know, so they give
you an extra hook in there for you to switch
out the hooks. So those are some of the things
that making your own bait spinner allows you
to do. You can choose different blades. You can
make a Willow blade, a Colorado blade, or whatever
on it. And you can just make whatever you think
works best. If you have a favorite, let's say,
rooster tail or something like that, you can
do that. And you can buy hooks with feathers
on them, or learn how to tie it. I've learned
how to tie. So, everything I throw is something
that You know, I got creative and I made. And
that's, you know, people wonder why I catch so
many fish. I know this channel is called terrible
at fishing. But, you guys know when I started
the channel, I was paralyzed and I could barely
speak. And so I was terrible at fishing. So it
was kind of a sarcastic joke about what, you
know, when I, you know, when I started the channel,
I could always fish. I just couldn't fish. You
know, you couldn't hold a rod, barely talk. So
that's, you know, the Tackle Tool by Jan's Craft
is probably one of the most affordable ways to
make the most common bait that you will ever
use, which is a spinner. Worth it? Absolutely.
Absolutely. definitely I would tell you to just
invest 40 bucks because you put more than that
every time you go fishing practically and now
you can make an entire tackle box just for you
your designs your color choices your weights
your sizes you just can't do better than that
and you will catch more fish now we will end
the show talking about my my other you know,
types of baits that I use, which is soft baits.
Now, soft baits kind of intimidated me a little
bit because you're dealing with hot molten plastic,
something called plastisol. And the molds can
be very, very costly. For a good mold, yeah,
you're going to spend 100 bucks fairly easily,
maybe 200 bucks for a mold. But, recently too
that I did try a $20 mold from Amazon. It was
20 bucks something like that. It wasn't very
much and I wanted to try it. I mean we got to
loose and it actually worked out very well. It's
just a three inch paddle tail grub and I wanted
to try this not only for the price but since
it was long you know three inches is long. I
could cut the head off an inch or whatever and
make it a two -inch. And so this one little bait
allowed me to, you know, have two baits. And
it's a two -worm, two -grub mold. So every time
you put, you know, plastic salt in it, it makes
two. Not a bad little mold. Not a bad little
mold. But typically, Angling AI is my preferred
mold and those, they do get costly. I like, so
there are two different types of molds. There's
injection molding and open pore molding, all
molds. And the open pore is exactly that. You
don't need an injection tube. you can just pour
it right into the mold and it sets in a few minutes
and then you pop it out and do another one and
another and another. Now the nice thing about
an open pour mold is when you don't have to buy
an injector which is going to run you quite a
bit of money but you also can heat up in a microwave
that I bought for 25 bucks over at the thrift
store two different colors. and then just pour
them in one after the other and then they bond
together and this way you have more variety.
Now, with injection molds you need to have a
double injector which is going to run you quite
a bit of money, you know, 180 bucks for a good
double injector. This, you just need two, you
know, Pyrex, you know, or Pyrex measuring cups.
You can just pour it in there. My 6 inch open
pour mold is by far one of my favorites. I can
make anything I want. I also can paint it with
my airbrush. I use an oil -based paint. You can
paint it and the paint stays on. It does not
come off. I don't have to clear coat it or nothing.
The beautiful thing about soft baits, too, is
there's a lot more action. It's affordable, relatively
speaking. I get Dead On Plastic is where I get
my Plastisol and my colors. I know how to mix
color, too. I didn't there are some excuse me
color shifting ones that are very good so the
dead on plastic has a great great great um selection
and you can just buy a gallon of that and you
heat it up at three up to 350 degrees and you
can mix in your colors and little flakes and
pour it into your molds it works very well or
You could just buy a white or something like
that, create a base and you can paint it. And
it's kind of fun because painting, I could do
a lot with my airbrush and I can create patterns
on the soft bait. I can create three or four
different colors on it. I can make the head a
different color than the tail. I could do so
much with it and that's what's so much fun. The
creativity that you get out of making baits is
just a lot more fun. I mean, you could just take
a grub and dip it, you know, the head of it or
the tail of it. Just dip it in some chartreuse
dye, and you've done it. I mean, there you go.
You got a chartreuse tail. And just dip them,
dip, dip, and off you go. It is that easy. I
know it kind of looks intimidating, but Making
you know you can get that $25 or whatever it
was mold that grub on the internet and then You
know you buy some plastisol and some some colorant
You'll need a Temperature, you know thermometer
make sure everything's at 350 degrees and then
just go to the go to the thrift store and Buy
what you need. Buy some Pyrex class things and
some stirs and whatnot. It really doesn't require
a whole lot. It just takes a little bit of patience
and you can always re -melt it. Even if you mess
it up, you can just re -melt it. In fact, you
probably have a lot of plastic baits on your
wall that you don't use, and you can remelt and
make something else out of it. And that's another
neat thing about plastic. You can reuse it. But
that's about... I mean, the advantage of making
your own bait is that you will catch more because
you know what works best for you. and in the
waters that you go ahead and fish in. So try
it this year. Make your own spinners for 40 bucks.
You can go nuts. Make some for your friends,
your kids. Give some out to children like I do
at the lake. It's cheap. It's only pennies to
make your own spinner. So, you know, get that
tackle tool. It's a great little item. I mean,
I like making my own baits. I'm learning how
to tie flies and stuff like that. I think I'll
learn how to fly fish. That's this year. So anyway,
I hope you enjoyed this week's show. Thank you
for tuning in and support Community Radio. Anyway,
this is Mike Raffino from Terrible at Fishing.
Tight lines and see me on my YouTube channel.
Take care everybody That was terrible at fishing
the radio show with fishing expert Michael Ruffino
Check out terrible at fishing on YouTube and
tune in next week for the next episode and more
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