Tweezer Cooties

I've got a new hobby! The necessity was to use up surplus tackle, and free up some storage and have some fun.

Carp on a Washer

 Swapped the wire former for a soldering iron. Turns out, once again, that storage suffers. Space is a problem as there is more gear than I imagined. 

After a few prototypes, I found it fun. Doing preparations as much as the soldering. Mindless Repetition is one of my 'most favorite' pastimes!

Naturally, I'm collecting more soldering iron tools and 'investing'.

Tweezers are a useful commodity when doing soldering. They keep the pieces steady and your fingers from getting very hot and charred! Another post for these tools will be in order. I've went from not being able to find a tweezers to poke around on a sliver or pull off a tick, to needing to make a rack for them. 

For now a flower pot works.

Temperature control is very important, solder comes is a variety of mixes.  

My old solder gun was for sweating copper pluming pipe and handy, but not for this experience. I needed to get a far better variable speed soldering iron that lets me set temperatures for different types of solder. Did I mention flux? That too.

I found one that goes up to 500 Celsius - 932 Fahrenheit. Smoking hot! First thing I learned, after struggling to get the solder to stick, and big gobs of it where they didn't belong, was to 'tin' the solder iron point. (Very Important!!!) This simple process makes a better looking job and stronger bond between parts. Look back at the carp picture to see how badly I attached it to the washer. I'll get better! Do overs are pretty easy. 

Alas, even those high temperature are not the end all or final choice.  

 Did you know there are 'hard' solders? You need a torch for those and 'silver solder'. Expensive stuff. I bought a handy butane torch, and it will chase solder all over your parts, but due to cost of silver solder, it was more skill and cost than I needed. So for now I stay out of that space, it's for Jewelers, and brazing brass and bronze and getting close to welding (Note - another future hobby out on the horizon).

The butane torch is now the go to fireplace torch, no more bic lighters!  

Moving along, I needed some silicon workspace mats. Marie didn't want me to be burning holes in the table tops (neither did I).

Also a heavy duty wire cutter. I make the legs and antennae doodads from stainless steel 4/0 hooks, which are very hard and sharp. I found a steel wire/cable cutter pliers works great and it's a big prep timesaver. Snaps right through hard wire, but parts fly, so use them inside a bucket to keep the parts off the floor and keep the dog from getting a hook barb, in one of his paws.

Coming full circle, other then some new tools and materials,,, most of the components used are surplus tackle collected doing swaps with Tackle shops for space on their racks, walls, and counters in the Fish Creek Spinners wholesale market.

Countless types of spinner blades, metal beads, hooks, and wire in boxes, patiently waiting on my re-discovery. Turned out that surplus spinner bait forms were handy sources of steel wire and heavy duty hooks. Even a larger hook could be cut into useful building parts.

Here's a few pictures. Willow blades and spinnerbait chop jobs on hooks and wire.

Big Indiana blade body, Gold Willow Wings and an Inline blade head, antennae and legs from hook parts

Tweezer Cooties - kind of bug creatures

Big Nickel Indiana body, Hammered nickel wings, bead antennas

Hammered Brass Willow body, #3/0 Treble hook tail, Worm collar neck and head

Hammered Willow wings, Nickel bullet antenna

Lots of creative ways to solder them together and plenty of variations of spinner blades. I'll make some Christmas Tree ornaments after I get tired of cooties. Yard Ornaments - always need some of those (the welding hobby)! For now, I'm going to provide them as swag on larger orders of spinners (customer appreciation) and perhaps sell them at Flea Markets. Still perfecting my solder skills! Life is short.

Stay tuned! 

Need any? LOL.

Salmon Calamari with Stingers

 Just finished a new group of Test lures. These are Cowbell swag. Let the cowbell do the spinning, these squid lures will bring Salmon and large Trout into the boat!

The Squid plastic covers a 1/2oz spinnerbait body. I clipped off the stems and twisted the eye with a wire former, also aligning and straightening the wire bend in front body. 

The plastic squid slid over the eye, along the wire and over the body. That means you can replace it.

Decided a stinger would be a good idea, so made a loop, using a short length of cable between to crimp sleeves, attaching a worm collar. The cable loop cinches over the spinnerbait hook and gets crimped. 

Another plastic squid slides over worm collar and a crane swivel with a duo-lock snap is added on the tail end of the cable loop to enable a hook change or squid replacement, if you choose.

All the Squid have glow eyes, the light green one has a glow belly.

Salmon Calamari with Stinger buddy

1/2oz Salmon Calamari w/Stinger buddy

After making the Squid lures, I built some 15inch short cowbells to provide the churn. Both 3 blade and 4 blade choices. 10 different blade choices. 

Sooner or later you should take a quick look at our new web store site!

 

Big Dog Squid Divers

I keep finding stuff when I clean.  Another sweet find under the work shop table.

This time 4 boxes of 'big' painted Musky spinnerbaits (about 500 of them). I got them in a trade with a Denver Tackle shop. They're not dressed out with blades and skirts, but are twisted .051 heavy wire and the hook shanks have 1 1/8 inch gap. The bodies were air brush painted in several multi-color patterns.

3oz Spinnerbait bones

2oz form

I tried dressing some out with blades and silicon skirts and also with some banded zonkers, but didn't like them.

Next attempt to get some traction on them is using Hoochy Squids.

I sniped off the blade stem and slid on a Squid. These could be attached to a cowbell and go deep. Also bounced thru fat deep water chutes for big Trout or Salmon. Water where is hard to get down to the fish.

Big Dog Squid Divers

The pink one in the middle has a stinger squid trailer. a sleeve crimped cable loop off the main hook, a worm collar for the squid, and a swivel clasp for stinger hooks.

Nice looking bait (in my opinion). Get'em wet. 

Let me know if you want any of the big spinnerbaits!

Trolling Cowbells - that Glow or are they Glowbells?

 I came across a box with some Large hammered Copper Colorado blades and also some Gold Fluted Willow blades. Big ones like #8s and #9s.They were hiding under my workbench in a box, never unpacked since my move in 2014...

Cowbell Component stash

Took awhile, but I decided to make some more Cowbells. This time I placed a small glow spinner body after each of the large blades on separate crimps and spaced them, to make them more consistently visible. 

Most Cowbells on the market put a few beads under the large blade on the same crimp. In my recent observation/opinion the beads are hidden by the blades rotation while trolling.

Anyways, I spaced and separated them, adding a small glow blade and separated spinner beads as well. 

Here's a few more pictures.

Big blades on cables

BTW, it's hard to get photo's of glowing cowbells! 

For all you crafty cowbell photographers out there... What I ended up doing is hanging them behind a closed door to a inside room/closet. 

After they kind of settled down swinging and hung vertically, I used an LED flashlight (a big one), to heat up the glow beads and blade. I got my phone's camera set up for night pictures, and turned off the light. Still a bit blurry, but practice makes perfect.

Lights Out - Glowbell do your thing!

Closeup of latest glow segment separation

A black light would have also heated up the UV beads on the cable (bead in the gap). Bring one with you if your ice-fishing night-time adventures! You'll be surprised how well the black lights work. Plus you can hang up some black light posters in your shanty and spark them up too! How Glowcool is that?

For more Fish Creek Spinners product pictures Check out one of the website items

P.S. These glowbells are not out on the Square website yet, I'm still deciding which degree of separation I want to market.

Cheers and noise on the line!

 

Fish Creek Spinner youtubes (from Colorado)

 Time to cattle prod those "get your feet wet" nerves!

First, some Dashboard views! Getting there is half the fun - Doc Cheatham and Nicholas Payton

Gopro videos from Zirkel Wilderness - Beaver Pond fishing with Fish Creek Spinners

South Platte Gill Trail- Nice flow and gravel bottom - Canyon chutes and rushing narrows

Rocky Mountain National Park - Windy Fall Day in the Park

 Once again! Time to cattle prod those get your feet wet nerves!

Cold weather, Cable Spinners and other brain storms

 After going through a cycle of making some cowbells, the cable was left on my workbench along with other spinner clutter (it's a mess, like my desk), on a cold December day. 

So I got to thinking, why not make a some small trout spinners using cable vs wire, and bucktails?

Sounded like a good idea, so here's what I came up with.

I bet I could put these at the end of the cowbells for trolling or just fish them like spinners in streams and river current. 

I think I'll make some with hoochies and banded zonker trebles too.

This is a hoochie treble.

Banded zonker trebles

In the zone, here's another custom idea. Cement mirrors on to the blades using the stuff your dentist uses on fillings and caps, it's water proof.

Inline mirrored Buzzers. Put it in front of your cowbell. These ought to shake something loose!

These ought to flash a bit!

It's cold outside, what could I do!

Cheers and Noise on the Line!

Fish Creek Spinners Models Specifications page

 Last night I recognized I needed to provide additional information on each Spinner models' component differences and similarities. 

My first shot at it, shows and image of the spinner, and it's weight. Bulleted Text lists blade size and style, components - Glass, Metal, Plastic for head, body and tail beads plus size and type of hook.

The most prevalent type of hooks used on wholesale spinners are trebles. During shopping there is an option box listing other hook types on most spinner items - Treble (default), Single, and barbless Treble are the common option set. I'll be refining this over time.

Here's a screen scrape of a typical models specification

Check our Store Categories and products for each Spinner models specification

Cheers and Noise on the Line!

Fish Creek Spinner Galleries

 Still working on the WIX website. The Home page has two slideshows, one of spinner models for shopping and another of customer fish pics.

Fish Creek Spinners Fish pictures

Overstock Assortments

Over the years, my son Ben and I have made a 'bunch' of spinners. Lots of models, lots of colors, lots of different blade styles. Boxes of finished product and wall full of pegs 8 deep.

Cowbells, Spinnerbaits, Walley rigs, Small spinners, Large spinners, and Custom spinners. In certain cases, fishermen in fishing forums came up with new ideas.

Fifteen years of hit and miss, lessons learned and course correction ... Overstocked.

Overstock, that I need to clean out to make space and simplify running the business.

When I sell displays to most tackle shops. I fill a wooden display with 48 spinners, walk in, show it and sell it wholesale for $110. Quick and easy. These owners are busy and if they a have a spot for a display, they deckscrew it to a wall or it sits on a countertop surface that day. A major retailer would have a buyer and purchase orders and draft a long list of items and quantities preparing for a seasons worth of inventory. 

Anyway, I'm still looking for tackle distributors, but in the meantime, I still want to reduce finished inventory and make some wall and shelf space available for other use. 

So, I came up with the idea of cutting prices down below wholesale levels on Spinners that have more inventory then I'll ever sell. 

These deals are for small and medium spinners only, anything under 1/2oz

Cowbells, Spinnerbaits, Walleye Rigs, Musky Spinners and Olympic Bullets are not in the deal.

Overstock Pricing Deals

Here's the catch, to get the deal you let me pick them for you, just like you're a small tackle shop, lol. I get to move more product at cost and it saves you time and money. 

You can use the Contact form on the website for any preferences you would like to mention, like a few colors you prefer or those you don't, etc. The hooks that are on them are trebles.

Take a look around, these are the types of spinners you'll get

There are currently four Overstock items set up.

1. 12 spinners for $27 (around 2.25 each) Retail value will be more like$42+
2. 20 spinners for $45 (around 2.25 each) Retail value will be more like $70+
3. 36 spinners for $72 (around $2.00 each) Retail value would be about $126+ 
4. 72 spinners for $126 (around $1.75 each) Retail value would be about $252+

If you're familiar with our products and want more or just want some new fishing swag to pass out for stocking stuffers or fill out some space in your tackle box, one of these deals is a great way to stock some new tackle.

Too many spinners? Nope, you can never have too many!

 Maybe you have a favorite local Tackle shop that wants some new swag?

Changing Views

Chainsaw Brush Rat progress report.

New Years Day 2015

April 11th 2015

November 29th, 2021