Despite the fact that the fashion for foam lures has already ended, for many fishermen such tackle have not lost their credibility in our time. Firstly, these baits are much cheaper than silicone, while their effectiveness is not much lower than rubber. And secondly, they have the least chance of clipping, since the hooks in such gear are hidden in the bait itself.
This article will discuss options for how to make foam baits yourself. As an example, the manufacturing option of foam rubber fish will be considered.
A few words and foam
Foam rubber is of three types, it is coarse-grained, fine-grained and foam rubber with an average pore size. The larger the bubbles in the foam, the softer it will be. In principle, it is possible to make foam fish from any type of foam, but there are some nuances here.
The lure of the softest foam will have the most realistic game. When immersed in the bottom, such foam will immediately absorb water and becomes the most flexible. The game of such a bait resembles the moment when the fish floats above the bottom, looking for food in the silt. Of course, such a bait in any case will seduce a predator.
However, the disadvantage of such foam is that at the first bite or hook, it quickly breaks, as it is too soft.
The fine-grain foam bait is the most durable, but the game with such gear is not particularly attractive to a predator. The fact is that such foam is poorly filled with water and it is hard. This means that playing the bait will be very boring for a predator.
The best option is to use medium density foam rubber. Such baits will have a rather interesting game to seduce a predator, and the service life of these baits is quite high.
Materials and tools:
- foam rubber;
- sharp scissors (if the scissor blades are blunt, the foam will tear and the bait will not be of high quality);
- nippers or pliers, round-nose pliers;
- blade;
- a piece of steel wire with a diameter of 0.5 to 1 mm;
- hooks of suitable size (doubles or tees);
- adhesive, insoluble in water, threads;
- A set of markers and other stationery for coloring bait.
The process of making the bait:
Step one. Making a blank
First you need to create a harvest of the future fish. To do this, select a piece of foam rubber of a quadrangular shape and cut it diagonally. The result should be two triangles.Further, these two pieces of foam in the form of a triangle will be blanks for the manufacture of two fish.
Step Two Cut the main contours of the bait
At this stage, the head of the future bait is made. This is a crucial moment, since the game of the whole fish will depend on the size of the front part. The wider the head of the fish is, the more actively the bait will play during posting.
After the head is cut, it will be possible to create the back.
As for the tail, it all depends on the fishing conditions. For fishing in strong currents, it is not worth making the rear fin at all. It is enough to give the back of the bait a carrot shape. In this case, the bait will have a more realistic game.
If fishing will take place on bodies of water or rivers with a weak current, then the rear fin will not hurt, since it will give the bait additional animation.
In conclusion, the bait must be rounded, cutting off the sharp edges with scissors.
Step Three We introduce the hook
The first step is to lengthen the forend of the hook, this is done using wire. It is important to understand that the location of the hook greatly affects the game of the bait. The closer the hook is to the head, the more realistic the fish will behave. But it happens that the predator attacks the bait from behind and does not detect, in this case, you need to strive to place the hook closer to the center of the bait. This would be the best option.
To install the hook in the foam rubber, two cuts are made, one across, the other along. A wire is inserted into the longitudinal section, its end should pierce the front of the fish and crawl out in front of the bait. The hook is laid in a cross section. In order to withdraw the stings, pierce the fish with a hook in the necessary places.
At the same stage, we make a loop, for which we will cling to our bait. For this purpose, round-nose pliers are used. Here, the author decided to kill immediately "two birds with one stone", while fixing the foam when creating a loop. If this is not done, the foam will slide off the wire. For fixing, you can also use threads and glue.
Step Four Colorize the fish
However, it is not necessary to paint the fish, everything is already at the request of the fisherman, because not all fishermen believe in the colors of the bait. The only fact that the baits of a dark color is noticed is that the fish attacks much better on a light, sandy bottom, since they are more noticeable. Well, for fishing on a dark, muddy bottom, the bait is best painted in bright colors.
In conclusion, it should be said about sinkers. If you use ordinary sinker type sinkers, the likelihood of the bait catching on the root or another obstacle will be quite high. The thing is that such a load will go into the bottleneck’s bottlenecks and after that it will be extremely difficult to free the tackle.
To make foam bait almost invulnerable will allow sinkers in the form of a bullet. Such cone-shaped sinkers will not jam and the fisherman will easily be able to save his tackle in the event of a hook using light twitches.
As for the game gear, it can be a variety of postings. Such a bait has such a realistic game that the predator is seduced even by banal dragging the fish along the bottom.