Eggs, Eyes - and Swivels

Meaning to write a blog post... and in the spirit of a few Badlands photo's I found hiding in my stash, here's what I came up with.

First the photo's -

Dry Dirt

South Dakota Badlands National Park dirt

The potential of Dirt

Badlands layers - dirt and time - just add water

So in the spirit of endeavor - A + B = C - here's that post.

I bought the stick-on eyes and crane swivels from Hagen's and the wholesale beads from Modebead.com - three sizes of ovals (eggs) and about 10 colors of each.

Slow Death hooks from Shorty's.

Here's a taste of what they look like out of the box -

Oval flat glass beads 

Customer Rep at Mode Beads said she didn't know fishing was into fashion.  Just sayin.

Oh well, Fun, Fun, Fun, Fish Fashion.

I sure like to look at shiny stuff! Sure it's purdy, it's made from sand.

 I think it has to do with all the sun in Colorado, lol.

So, I've started to put a dent in the flat glass beads and prism eyes recently.

A dent means empty paper cards where there once were stick-on eyes. Empty strings where there once were strung beads. And sticky fingers and the smell of drying lacquer in the workshop.

Strings and paper cards

Bottom line?

The beads are sweet new components. Stick a couple of eyes on them, coat them with lacquer, and fashion takes a turn to fishy.

Oval Flat glass and lacquered stick on eyes

Next, got to tie some swivel rigs for the Mustad Slow Death hooks - yesterdays post.

Mustad Slow Death hooks on 8 inch swivel Walleye Rigs

I like the finished products and so does a guy in North Dakota

The South Dakota Walleye's already voted -

Decided on two models - one using the small ones for 1/16oz spinners

and another using the largest size for walleye propeller rigs. I need to get new pictures of the finished rig, made some changes, the link shows an older version.

Still waiting for inspiration on the medium size. Most likely I'll split the baby, going for two models - a larger spinner and a smaller rig.

Whew, let me publish this thing.

Time to get back to tying some work in progress Zonker spinnerbaits.

These going to a guy in Pennsylvania to be used on Canadian Pike in June. Going to tye a Perch pattern on the Yellow one.

The Main blades can be changed.

Added some stingers and extra blades to the order. I love my job, custom orders ROCK!

You might find better, but you won't get more time, energy or passion in your mailbox for some time!

Oh yeah, please feel free to comment, share on your fishing circles and communities, facebook groups and most certainly - blog rolls.

Just sayin.

A day for modified clinch knots

Spent the morning shoveling snow. We finally got about 8 inches of fresh snowfall and some wind today. Whenever a storm comes in against the Front Range from the East, it tends to stack up and keep falling. Two shovel passes over the driveway, before it slowed down

In any case, after that chore, I took a couple hours to tie a box full of Slow Death harness setups. These are about 8 inches long from swivel eye to hook eye and will be used on the Bullseye Walleye Crawler rigs.

I discovered a cardboard box corrugated edge makes a good hanger and organizer. I had been taping them to a piece of 8.5 x 11 computer paper, but made a stand that I can slip the box into and out of while I fill up both sides, sliding the hook barb down into the corrugated top edge.

Works great. 120 hooks per box. Slide a couple of rubber bands over the completed card, and move on to the next set!

Here's a few more pictures of work in progress and other tools.

Line spool and bobbin

3000 yards of 15# Excalibur Silver Thread on a spool made for batching line cutting.

The spool axle and bobbin are made from a camo arrow shaft, cut with a copper pipe cutter.

The bobbin that feeds and hold the line is just a skirt band pinched in a R bend of spinner wire. The rubber skirt band provides a little friction and works pretty good to keep the line positioned and tension under control - cut after cut.

I use the fly tying vice for holding the crane swivels and slow death hooks as wrapping the clinch knots on either end of the mono line.

Modified Clinch knot during wrap  - as line is looped back and finished - before cinching it tight. 

About 10 inches of line for an 8 inch rig - measured inside swivel eye to hook eye. That equates to about an inch of line in each clinch knot. Takes about a minute to tie both ends and rack'em!

Now to make some more prism eyes! These go on a flat glass bead and then get lacquered to finish them off.

Started getting some interest on the propeller rigs in both the Dakota's.

Bullseye. Look out Walleyes!