As a side hobby, when I can't fish, I try to come up with lure designs that may catch fish - of any species.





As you can see from the above, some lures are modified by attaching the part of another lure; Spike-It is used to chance or modify colors; and the others are lures poured from molds.

Lure selection isn't rocket science and a few will do no matter where or when I fish. But it is fun to see the variety of designs and color combos that get bit, not just by one species, but by most fish species. Today I caught crappie, perch and sunfish in 48 degree water on a few of the above and the hits were hard at times! I did use a light 1/32 oz jighead to slow the lure's retrieve rather than the 1/16 or 1/8 oz I normally use.

I've given some of my poured lures to guys down south and never got an answer as to how well they did. Could it be they don't work in other states or regions or is it laziness to not try something new? All I know is that I've caught hundreds of fish this year on my own lures in different lakes and the proof is always in the catching.

Those look good to me! I've caught crappie on all of the color scheme examples above. I can say that down south we have a lot of shad so a lot of shad style baits work well too. I.E., clear glitter, white, blue and pearl "patriot" are good combinations. I think in general fish are fish and they bite what is programmed in their genetics regardless of location. Recently I've noticed some guys hammering land locked striped bass using squid imitations for instance.

There are a lot of bait makers down here in Texas. It seems like a very competitive field with a lot of great baits available. Personally I've tinkered with making my own baits too, which I fish with about 1/2 of the time. There is the jig maker sub section that might get more attention as sometimes the topic of homemade plastics come up.

I know some anglers use a soft plastic glue to make lures stay up on jig heads.
They probably would use the same to attach plastics together, but for me a candle flame does as well, is cheaper and less messy.

those should work almost anywhere you'd like to go.......good fishing!

Thanks. I bring all of them and use one after another, noting which ones worked best. The grub/worm combo (top of top photo) has worked well for years, but I still take it alone to see if the design modification catches different species.

I sometimes wonder if fish react to lures fish haven't seen in a certain body of water. So many times in the first year I've used a new lure, the lure would catch a lot of fish but then start to decline after that year. But others like the above pictured always work.

Fish are fish regardless of species and predators strike most soft plastics uncontrollably if worked right. There are no magic baits though many are advertised as such.