Customize Your Bladebaits For Bigger, Better Walleyes

BASE COLORS AND FINISHES

Bladebaits originally came in one color--silver. And they came in one finish--flat. That was it. But not anymore. Manufactured blades now come in gold, copper, and brass base colors, many with clear coating to prevent tarnishing. Finishes can be flat, hammered, or rippled. And painted finishes have been added, such as firetiger, red, pink, chartreuse, and combinations such as blue-chrome.

The fastest and most versatile way to customize blade finish is to start with a base silver blade and add prism tape. Larry McClintock with Critter Gitter Custom Walleye Tackle in Portland, Oregon, (503/257-0553, www.playnposm.com) makes tapes specifically for this purpose, and numerous Columbia River trophy walleye anglers swear by them. The color combinations are almost infinite: small silver black scale, clear red scale, clear silver scale, clear purple scale, dark green scale, and so forth. Critter Gitter also makes tapes that approximate juvenile fry, such as white black tiger and clear black tiger. ZAP Lures (419/475-2621) has tape available in gold, silver, red, and chartreuse prism for most standard-size blades.

MAKE YOUR OWN

If you go through a lot of bladebaits in a season, or if you want to experiment, contact blade manufacturers and buy just the blades (you can add weight, hooks, and snaps yourself). Critter Gitter's brass blades, for example, sell for only $1.50 each in quantity.

If you buy your blades in bulk, you'll need to add melted lead for weight. A good source for a melter and mold supplies is Jann's Netcraft (www.jannsnetcraft.com). While manufactured blades have the typical 1/4-, 1/2-, and 3/8-ounce weights, molding your own will allow you to customize the weight for the depths you prefer to fish. For example, springtime 'eyes can often be as shallow as four feet in stained water, where a lighter 1/8-ounce weight is more appropriate. Conversely, winter fish in 50 feet of water or in heavy current may need as much as an ounce of weight to stay in contact with the bottom.

To create a lighter 1/8-ounce bladebait, either grind down the lead on a 1/4-ounce lure with a power grinder; pour only half the normal amount of molten lead in a 1/4-ounce mold; or mix lighter metal filings in with your lead to lighten the mixture.

NOISE

Bladebaits vibrate, no doubt about it, but you can add noise to that vibration by adding rattle eyes. In fact, Heddon has done this as an option with their Sonars, and so has Luhr-Jensen with their Ratt'ln Ripple Tails. Excalibur makes Rattle Eyes for plastics that can be adapted for bladebaits, but better yet head to your local sewing craft shop. There you'll find tons of doll stick-on eyes with little black plastic balls inside the eye dome that will work just fine.

SHAPE

It's believed that Heddon's Sonar was the first bladebait to hit the mass market, circa 1959. It featured a flat blade, chunk of lead, holes, and hooks. In 1990, however, the shape of the blade itself came into focus, and the Reef Runner Tackle Company, makers of the Cicada, somewhat "cupped" the blade so it would fall slower on the drop and waggle more on the pickup. Luhr-Jensen's Ripple Tails have this same curvature feature.

You can make your own shape by slightly adjusting your blades, using a pair of pliers, the same way you adjust a trolling spoon. The more "cupped" or concave the blade, the more you'll affect the action and ensuing vibration qualities, as well as the speed of the descent-ascent.

Reef Runner's Cicada also represents an innovative shape change, in that this blade is designed to stand up on the bottom as opposed to falling over flat as most blades do on a slack line. You can customize your blades to do this by adding and flattening the lead weight at the forward part of the bait.