DIY Lure Making
DIY lure making: Glidin’ Doc BRISBANE
Greg Vinall support@makewoodenlures.com
Welcome to our fifth lure making project of the series! This month I’ve got a cool little glider for you. Depending on who you talk to, this style of lure might also be called a sinking stickbait, jerkbait, wobbler or twitchbait. No matter what you choose to call it, the Glidin’ Doc will add a whole new dimension to your hardbody lure fishing. Gliders are an oftenoverlooked style of hardbody lure, but they can be very effective if fished properly. Even better, gliders are reasonably straightforward to make. There’s no diving
lip to cut or fit, just get the body shape right and weight it correctly. A coat of paint and some hooks – and voila! FISHING WITH THE GLIDIN’ DOC Gliders have a lot in common with stickbaits, the main difference being that they work below the water surface while stickbaits work on top. Both styles have very little action if you simply crank them back at constant speed. Gliders that are designed to be worked fast tend to be heavily weighted, but the Glidin’ Doc is not one of them! This is a finesse lure, designed to sink very slowly. It’s best fished with twitches and pauses, a walkthe-dog style retrieve or other slow and erratic movements.
Template: 1 Square = 1cm
Allow plenty of slack line between twitches and you should get an erratic side-toside action. It’s perfect for imitating foraging baitfish that are unaware of an imminent ambush, or an injured baitfish that’s easy pickings. Bream, bass, ‘toga, flathead, trout and sooties are all fair game! Work it alongside fallen timber, through standing timber or around weedbeds for the best results. Balsa is a natural material that can vary in density, and no two handmade lures are the same, so you might find that your lures vary in their sink rates. No problem! By switching between lightweight and heavy-duty hooks and rings you can adjust the sink rate, or use
100% Scale
the small stick-on weights you’ll find in good tackle shops to adjust the sink rate to suit your needs. Glidin’ Doc can be fished on whatever bream, bass or trout gear you might own. As for stickbaits, a rod that’s a little soft in the tip will get more action from your lures. It just seems to soften the twitches and smooth the lure movement. I prefer a braided line with a fluorocarbon leader for fishing the Glidin’ Doc. The lure is often worked slowly, so the low visibility of fluorocarbon is an advantage, because fish have plenty of time to inspect it. MAKING THE GLIDIN’ DOC All the lures in this series have been pretty simple, but this one is about as easy as they come. The usual tools
TOOLS AND MATERIALS Tools Utility knife, battery drill and bits, hacksaw, pliers. Materials • 12.5mm x 75mm balsa plank • 1-1.2mm stainless steel wire • 120 and 240 grit sand paper • 240 grit wet sanding paper • Epoxy adhesive (with syringes and mixing sticks) • Ball sinkers (size 000) • Methylated Spirit • Holoscale foil (optional) • 3D eyes (optional) and materials apply: balsa for the lure body, a little stainless steel wire, some size 000 ball sinkers and a good epoxy adhesive like 24hr Araldite are all you’ll need. Add some paint and clear coat to tart the lure up, of course. PAINTING AND CLEAR COATING For something different, I wrapped this lure with a thin holographic material I’ve developed for lure makers, called Holoscale. This self-
adhesive film stretches over the lure and can be painted and clear-coated to give exceptional flash and brilliance that attracts fish from miles away. You can get some Holoscale for your own lures at my website makewoodenlures. com/product/holoscalemirroscale/. Of course, you don’t have to give your lure the holographic treatment. It can be painted in the same ways as our previous projects.
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Visit www.MakeWoodenLures.com/Fishing-Monthly/ to download all the templates in this series. You should be used to this step by now! Print the template and transfer the side profile onto a piece of 12mm thick balsa wood. Use a utility knife to cut away most of the waste, but stop just short of the lines you marked. 2
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With your lure blank on a flat surface, square up edges using sandpaper glued to a flat wood block. Use a curved sanding block to clean up the concave edge on the underside of the lure. Work gently to shape the profile down to the guideline you drew on the blank. 4
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Transfer the top profile to the lure blank using your template then trim away the waste almost down to the line, and square up the blank using your sanding block. 62
Mark a line down the centre of the blank and use your side profile template to mark the locations of the hardware. Carefully drill a 2mm hole into the blank for each of the hook hangers and for the tow point. Use a 5mm drill bit to make a hole for the belly weights. You can use a couple of small sinkers rather than one larger one. It’s important for these lures to stay horizontal while they’re sinking, which is more easily achieved if the weight is spread along the underside a little.
JANUARY 2018
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The Glidin’ Doc has reasonably flat sides, so the shaping process is similar to the Flat Doc from last month. You can skip drawing a centre line on the sides if you like, and simply draw a line a few millimetres in from the edge, all the way around.
Use a sharp knife to slice away the timber between the carving guidelines. Chip away with light cuts until you’ve rounded off the edge to get a pleasing body shape. A few minutes with some sandpaper will refine the shape and remove the lumps and bumps left by the knife.