Texas Fishing Forum

Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿?

Posted By: Andrew Y'Barbo

Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 04:34 AM

Hey guys. I'm interested in starting me a tackle box full of balsa baits. Unfortunately I'm not old enough to have the knowledge of these baits.

I'm needing recommendations on what companies to buy and the best place to buy them. I'm hesitant on eBay because I do not know what baits are valuable or not.

P.s. Can you buy a bait that "hunts" or do you get lucky?
Posted By: Thad Rains

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 05:18 AM

I would start collecting a few of the Stanford Cedar Shad baits, but they are cedar, not balsa, but they work VERY WELL,but Dieter doesn't make them any more, but you CAN buy some of his old baits on eBay for about $15 each or so. Then I would go with some old Bagley baits, some Gary Dees D-baits, some Rapala and some old fashioned Lee Sisson, if you can find any"!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck on finding any outside of eBay, but maybe you can find some. Been there, done that and have the lures in 2 3600 boxes for special use on T days only. Hope this helps. Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

Thad Rains
Posted By: JoeFriday

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 05:25 AM

That is a dangerous path you are looking to take as the good ones are not cheap. Really, it depends on where you want to start. If I was going to give some advice in that area, I would suggest you start with two and then go from there.

#1 - WEC E-I in Chartreuse/Black, you'll have to look around for this one as you won't find them in normal tackle stores
#2 - PH Huntin' P in Sumpin Special, http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/PH_Custom_Lures_Huntin_P_Squarebill_Crankbait/descpage-PHCLHP.html

That will get you started for around $50. Both are different styles but are some of the best I have used. There's no telling how many fish I have caught on the E-I, and just started with the Huntin' P. The Huntin' P has quickly risen to be one of my top choices. If you are wanting a tackle box full, get ready to break out several Benjamin's.

If you want to research, look at Bass Craft, Brian Bees, Dave's Black Market Balsa, Black Label Balsa(haven't tried one of those yet) and so on... If you have more time than money, watch Bass Boat Central's lures for sale section. There are some good ones that pop up there from time to time.

Oh, the only knock on the PH ones is that their hooks stink. Replace them immediately. I lost a few fish before I learned that lesson.
Posted By: Thad Rains

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 05:32 AM

Sorry, I forgot the Zoom WEC Baits, as mentioned above. Also, a few South Bend lures were made of wood as well, but those may cost you in the $200 range as well, don't know, but good luck, again. New Dbaits run $15 to $25 for them.

http://www.dbaits.com/

Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

Thad Rains
Posted By: Tracker Tim

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 01:08 PM

Eric Gandy who is a TFF member.


http://www.gandylureco.com/
Posted By: Hal Land

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 01:45 PM

Dave's Custom Baits. Black Market Balsa. Hand made and tuned to hunt.
Posted By: reeltexan

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 01:59 PM

I'd buy vintage Bagley Balsa B-1s. Check Ebay often.
Don't pay over $10.
Fire tiger, shad colors and tin foil are some of my favorites.

The new models are not as buoyant and are smaller. I stick with the old models.
Posted By: Ian Fellenbaum

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 02:18 PM

I like the bagley b2's With brass hardware, also check out bass craft
Posted By: Douglas J

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 03:00 PM

Originally Posted By: Hal Land
Dave's Custom Baits. Black Market Balsa. Hand made and tuned to hunt.



thumb
Posted By: Sinkey

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 03:13 PM

Originally Posted By: Tracker Tim
Eric Gandy who is a TFF member.


http://www.gandylureco.com/


This! And his paint jobs are some of the best Ive seen!
Posted By: James Biggs

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 03:47 PM

Originally Posted By: Doug R.
Originally Posted By: Hal Land
Dave's Custom Baits. Black Market Balsa. Hand made and tuned to hunt.



thumb


100% hands down the best!
Posted By: bigbass94

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 04:32 PM

Zoom WEC on Ebay, PH Custom Lures, and Bass Craft are the best ones I've found yet.
Posted By: 5PounderOnAFrog

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 04:42 PM

Are you related to Antonio Gil Y'Barbo AKA the pioneering settler of Nacogdoches?
Posted By: Jake Shannon(Skeet4Life)

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 04:49 PM

Black lable are pretty good and the WEC ones
Posted By: Dan21XRS

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 05:45 PM

Originally Posted By: Thad Rains
Sorry, I forgot the Zoom WEC Baits, as mentioned above. Also, a few South Bend lures were made of wood as well, but those may cost you in the $200 range as well, don't know, but good luck, again. New Dbaits run $15 to $25 for them.

http://www.dbaits.com/

Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

Thad Rains


D Baits are no longer made. I've talked to Gary quite a few times and he says he's out of the crankbait business... Dan
Posted By: kellisag

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 07:29 PM

Originally Posted By: James Biggs
Originally Posted By: Doug R.
Originally Posted By: Hal Land
Dave's Custom Baits. Black Market Balsa. Hand made and tuned to hunt.



thumb


100% hands down the best!


Good lord!$50/each?
Black Market Series:

$50.00 per bait for the Black Market Balsa. sizes
available small (b1), medium (b2) and large (b3).
Posted By: Thad Rains

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 08:36 PM

Forgot some more, the old POE's 300 would fit this category. Not the new ones which were made in Mexico, but the old ones that were made in America and came in the fish package. MORE GOOD old time balsa baits. Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

Thad Rains

As far as HUNTING, most baits are not designed to hunt, while some are. Getting one that hunts can be the luck of the draw, or you can contact me, and I can teach you how to make ANY CB hunt, a fine line doing it, but ti works. Hope this helps. Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

tr
Posted By: bigbass94

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/19/17 10:01 PM

Originally Posted By: Jake Shannon(Skeet4Life)
Black lable are pretty good and the WEC ones



Hey, Jake, did you have a hard time getting your black Label Tackle squarebills to run correctly? I understand they're meant to hunt but my God, when I got mine they swam awful. And I was only able to get one to tune correctly. Just curious to see if I just got a bad batch or if anyone else had had this problem with them.
Posted By: Thad Rains

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/20/17 03:51 AM

As far as HUNTING, most baits are not designed to hunt, while some are. Getting one that hunts can be the luck of the draw, or you can contact me, and I can teach you how to make ANY CB hunt, a fine line doing it, but ti works. Hope this helps. Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

tr

Should have posted it here, Thad Rains
Posted By: Andrew Y'Barbo

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/20/17 04:37 AM

Originally Posted By: 5PounderOnAFrog
Are you related to Antonio Gil Y'Barbo AKA the pioneering settler of Nacogdoches?


Many many moons ago. Yes sir.

Thank you everyone for the knowledge. Please keep it coming!
Posted By: Slefler

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/20/17 12:42 PM

PH Custom Lures
Phil hand crafts, hand paints and hand tunes every bait before shipment, if you are budget minded take a look at his Old School line. Many different options and Baits to choose from, I personally like the new Ploppin P which is a Balsa Plopping bait that has been phenomenal.
Posted By: James Biggs

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/20/17 01:01 PM

Originally Posted By: kellisag
Originally Posted By: James Biggs
Originally Posted By: Doug R.
Originally Posted By: Hal Land
Dave's Custom Baits. Black Market Balsa. Hand made and tuned to hunt.



thumb


100% hands down the best!


Good lord!$50/each?
Black Market Series:

$50.00 per bait for the Black Market Balsa. sizes
available small (b1), medium (b2) and large (b3).


I pretty much only throw the large. Only need a few colors. That being said they are worth every penny. Hand painted & tuned.
Posted By: Champion1

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/21/17 06:09 PM

http://www.peepersbaits.com
Posted By: Andrew Y'Barbo

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/23/17 12:10 AM

I guess te time to spend some money!
Posted By: JoeFriday

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/23/17 12:51 AM

Originally Posted By: Andrew Y'Barbo
I guess te time to spend some money!


When it comes to good balsa, you've got to pay to play.
Posted By: daddystog

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/23/17 02:12 AM

I'm with Thad Rains on this, I still have a few old, old Poes 300s but they don't come not of the box unless everything else has failed
learn to tune the $ 6 crankbaits, a pair of needle nose plyers and good file can make a world of deference in today's mass production baits and you can save those $ 50 balsa woods for tournament day 3 when those fish your on want touch anything else
Posted By: meP2too

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/23/17 08:01 PM

I would not consider Poe's if you plan on fishing with them. When I used them in the nineties, they would catch fish. But the plastic bills would pull out of the balsa wood.
Posted By: James Biggs

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/23/17 08:16 PM

Originally Posted By: meP2too
I would not consider Poe's if you plan on fishing with them. When I used them in the nineties, they would catch fish. But the plastic bills would pull out of the balsa wood.


Aren't Poes cedar? If so not near as buoyant as balsa. My experience was it took 20 Poes to get 1 great bait.
Posted By: Thad Rains

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/25/17 01:52 AM

James,

You must have been fishing the newer version, after they moved the factory to Mexico. If you had the old package, in the shape of a fish, THOSE were the ones that really shined. The ones made in Mexico are so-so and you do need more of them to find a good bait. Hope that clarifies. Poes are cedar, but still worth a look because of the fish catching they do. Again, OLD Poes are hard to beat and the 300 is a coffin billed square bill, HARD TO BEAT when they want that presentation. Hope this helps. Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

Thad Rains
Posted By: Capt Jerry

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/25/17 02:09 AM

I have some "copies" of the original Big O squarebill/fat body crankbaits that work pretty well. You may find some on Ebay. By the way, the Big O was the original and handmade by Fred Young in east Tennessee. I really like the balsa baits for shallow water. Plastic baits just do not have the same action. I also use flat-sided shallow running balsa baits (in fact, I prefer these), but they are getting hard to find and expensive.

I saw a reference to D-baits here. His bait is a copy of the WE-Bait made by a gentleman in Cincinnati (probably no longer). I used to get these baits from a friend that knew the guy that made them. I still have some of these that I use. I have tried to make some myself but could never duplicate the level of detail in his.

I may need to put my balsa baits away soon and consider them collector items..... but not just yet!
Posted By: Bayou Burner

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/25/17 02:55 PM

I still have a few Stanford cedar shad(Patriot Shads?) squarebills and some Old school flat sided baits too... Did not know they were discontinued.
Posted By: Ken A.

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/26/17 03:26 PM

Originally Posted By: Andrew Y'Barbo

P.s. Can you buy a bait that "hunts" or do you get lucky?


IMO, you get lucky, especially with balsa baits. I had an old Bagley Chatter DB3 that I had caught a ton of fish on including one that went 11.67 at Fork many years ago. I had nursed that bait along for two years throwing it on special occasions. It had a lot of the Tennessee Shad paint knocked off and I had coated it with clear nail polish many times trying to keep it together.

The day I finally lost it, I cried.... frown
Posted By: Bissett

Re: Balsa Square Bill help!¡!?¿? - 07/26/17 03:36 PM

I'm gonna have to follow this one
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