That's not a perch lure? This is!

If you look at the website, the picture of the lure in the painting process shows the wrap on the lure. If you want to believe they are hand painting every scale and fin to that exact detail then be my guest. They do air brush some of the stripes and details but a wrap is used to get the extreme real fish appearance

I wouldn't be surprised if they used some sort of dipping process, like they do to make camo- parts for ATV's and other things. They dip the body into the floating wrap and it sticks, then they move on to the next part of the process.

No doubt those are photo finish lures. A lot of guys are making them now, and I have been making Muskie and pike lures like that for the last couple of years. Its actually quite a straightforward process, the real key though is the making and tuning of the lure itself, as the action, wobble and depth will have a lot more to do with effectiveness than the colour.

The basic process I use and which most muskie bait makers use is to grab a suitable image off the net, or even your own photo etc, then size it to fit your lure. You'll need a flopped version as well for the other side of the lure. You then print it out by taping or gluing tissue paper to regular photo copy paper, and running it through your printer. You can print it out in colour, or you can prepaint your lure the colours you want, then print out in black and white. Cut out the image and epoxy it to the lure body. When the epoxy hits the tissue paper it disapppears, leaving you with the image adhered to your lure. A bit more painting and sanding to smooth and blend and you are ready for topcoat, which is usually epoxy.

Lip angle, line tie location, species of wood or other material used for the lure body and weighting are some of the main variables that really can change the way a lure swims, etc. but you can make some sweet looking lures with the process.

Moonman.

thankyou for the explanation of the process

Wow that process seems really labour intensive to be able to mass produce lures for sale to the public.
Hand dipping?, computer generated lure wraps?, glues and epoxies. Are you sure the whole process isn't much simpler like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOGUuZpF6f8

Using molded blanks (like they do with carbon graphite replicas) applying simple stencils and then hand painting with an airbrush to impart the individuality each of the lures seems to have?
I mean that's how they make completely indivual graphite fish replicas. These lures look similar to that only the miniature version.
Perhaps I'm wrong.

Those do look amazing, and kudos to the artist, it is fine work. Don't get too caught up though, a hunk of plastic catches fish just fine.

You are not wrong I would not be doing it like that for comercial sales. Its for personal use and few lures for firiends at the annual muskie tourny. Like anything, if you were trying to make a living at it and actually wanted to pay yourself for your time, you woukd be bankrupt in no time I but its a fun extension of our fishing passion.

Moonman.

Hey Moonman your lure making activities sound interesting to me.
And this is why I like this message board....because you eventually get feedback from people that 'actually' know what their talking about.
I'd love to see a photo of some of your lures.....finished products. Any chance you could post some. I to make Muskie lures but nothing as complex as the process you're involved with. I simply assemble giant Muskie spinner baits (size 10 willow leaf in-line spinners). The process is much more rudimentary....order lure components, twist/bend the in line wire, slide on clevis', hooks, skirts and weights. But I'd gladly be willing to exchange our products on a trial basis. PM me if you're interested.
Either way, I'd love to see an example of your finished products.

No probs Grumpa I Will post some. Actually have a serries of pics from some I made last year for the father of my buddy who hosts our fall muskie tourney on pigeon. Its pretty neat to see the lure blanks take on the colouration of a perch as you start the process. i also sometimes shape the lure like a perch first so believe me they do like like perch when you are done. i also make muskie inline spinners (double tens and eights), but just started that earlier this fall. I've been tying flies for almost 40 years so I have all the materials handy. Just have to find where I have those pics and I will post a few. Love to see some pics of your spinners as well.

Moonman

Great thread on ice shanty about making your own jigs. It's titled "lets see your homemade jigs" and is in the jig making sub forum (i believe you have to be a member to see this forum, it is a sub forum of the jigging one. In particular there is a guy from finland with screen name Piatu that hand crafts lures and sells to local bait shops and mail order. A number of his lures use real skins and some even use the heads. A bunch of his older pics are no longer visible, but he has a whole whack on the last page if you don't want to read the whole thread. Quite impressive.

Looking forward to pics of your lures moonman.

A bunch of you should all chip in and place a decent order, with your request to have the bellies in yellow. EZ. Tell them their ad will be on the best fishing web sight. Price seems quite fair.

Looks great, but how is the action????? Fish don't always see nice looking perch......... They need something to trigger them.

Colder water tends to make fish lazy so the presentation needs to be worth their while. In fact I have drilled holes in spoons and tossed then in the pool to see what develops. We have had some luck in Cooks Bay testing them. It seemed that the younger fish went after them. In the ocean, they worked well.


Below lure gives you an idea on cost differences. I used to try many of the high end Japanese lures with minimal improvement in hook ups.

Below is popular for bass. The maker catches a lot of huge bass.

Is it worth the money?? Your call.

photo finishing using a computer in fact gives the detail and is way less labour intensive then individual air brushing, you get detail that can only be made by using a photo finish by simply clicking your key board. The detail on these baits is created by the technology we have in the modern world, this is why they look so real, it's not magic it's a computer.

Bayliner no only mail order to Canada and USA. These perch lures sold out but I can't afford them anyway.