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).

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

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.

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

Many many moons ago. Yes sir.

Thank you everyone for the knowledge. Please keep it coming!

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.

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

I guess te time to spend some money!

When it comes to good balsa, you've got to pay to play.

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

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.

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

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!