Flatfish Lure Design Secrets: Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

[@EngineeredAngler]

If you still want to see more flat fish lure making click on this video: Ikzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqfTn3Z9oNh4jaM was bummed when I couldn't get some underwater shots but I'll be getting those shots soon and we'll share it all on a short video.

[@motoformprototyping]

Nice video and great build. Merry Christmas from Sweden

[@Fish-Erman]

The Yakima MagLip is my favorite trolling lure, it can be pulled much faster than the regular Flatfish and works well slow too. It has a nice erratic action and is a serious fish catcher.

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thanks for sharing! I'll have to give that lure a try.

[@raygissendanner1476]

Great video and a great looking lure have a merry Christmas and a happy new years

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thank you, and the same to you!

[@jurajanal2277]

Great lure, despite the little accident it turned out to be a real masterpiece. Quick tip, if you can take your time with two part epoxy you can use one with long enough working time (I like Bison with ~1h working time) and work as much of it in the slot as possible with a little stick or spatula or something to squeze out air as much as possible, I like working it from the tail forward. It gives you a chance to ram in as much epoxy as possible down and around the wire, and with top down wire slots like you do it can help a little bit with weight distribution throughout the lure by packing more epoxy closer to the bottom of the lure.

[@outdoormaniac9951]

The first artificial that I ever caught a fish on was a flat fish. It was black with gold dots. It caught lots of fish, but I was the one hooked! I am so glad you made a replica flat fish. Great job Franco! I will be making some this winter. I hope my paint job will come close to being as good as yours!

[@EngineeredAngler]

That's a classic pattern! Good luck with your paint job, I'm sure it'll be great.

[@thewarpsyrhead]

Great video as always!

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thank you for watching!

[@s_s-g4d]

26:28 yes! That's what I thought when I watched you calculating the required ballast weight. From my experience, removing 20% of the suspending-point weight is way too much, unless you want a hard floater. What I have found to work well to make a lure (sized about the same as the one you make in this video, give or take) a relatively slowly rising one is to remove about 2 to 3 grams from the suspending weight. Removing 5 grams already makes it rise relatively fast. To make a quite slow riser, which is often desirable, removing as little as 0.5 g may be necessary. This kind of precision of course requires taking into account the added weight and buoyancy of the paint and the clear coat. I'm giving absolute values in grams, which are applicable as a ballpark estimate for lures weighing about 70-80 g.

[@jurajanal2277]

I like to get it within 2 to 7% from suspedning for both sinking and floating. -3% from suspending or something like that should be suspending in warm and near freezing water but slow floating in cold water because of water density changes due to temperature increase or decrease. In general around +/-5% should be good for slow sink / float.

[@s_s-g4d]

@@jurajanal2277 yes, these numbers sound very reasonable.

[@EngineeredAngler]

Yeah I totally agree....that was a brain fart on my part.

[@magcolor]

Great job and video! 👍👍👍👍👍

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thank you for watching!

[@TheCopperVillageAngler]

Great colors! Nice build!

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thanks, I like the color combo too.

[@paulrenier1550]

Merry Xmas and thanks for making my fridays enjoyable

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thanks for watching!

[@wiseupfixit7552]

Kool lure Franco! Happy Holidays to you and your wife.

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thanks and happy holidays to you too!

[@pmpkmc]

Merry Christmas, Franco!

[@EngineeredAngler]

Merry Christmas!

[@striperhunter-ic2wt]

Sweet paint on that one. Merry Christmas to you and your family..

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thanks, I appreciate it!

[@JayLee-od8ob]

That's a really great lure. Thanks for the videos.

[@EngineeredAngler]

Glad you liked it!

[@keithrenaud3380]

Merry Christmas Franco. I believe this is one of the nicest paint jobs I've seen. Stupid question because I'm not an engineer but when you are checking the displacement of water wouldn't 2 exactly shaped lures displace the same amount of water even if they were made of 2 different materials like PVC or hardwood which would weigh completely different. Wouldn't you need more weight to sink the PVC?

[@mike1261]

Keith, I really had to think about this too. Two identically shaped lures made from completely different material densities would displace the same amount of water, but have different weights. It's afterwards, when everything is placed on the scale that the difference is compensated. The amount of water displaced is the target weight for neutral buoyancy. The heavier lure would require less ballast to reach the target weight and the lighter lure would obviously need a little more. In the end, they would both displace the same amount of water and weigh the same. In the end this would give them the same buoyancy in the water... If I understand it correctly.

[@jurajanal2277]

Two lures, *identical* shape, different materials would displace the same amount of water. Displaced water tells you how much everything has to weigh to be suspending, more weight than displaced = sinking, less weight than displaced = floating. It doesn't tell you how to get there just how much you need to add or remove to get there, then it's up to you to consider materials to add. If balsa lure displaces 15g of water and cherry lure displaces 15g of water then they have identical volume but if you weigh them out of water, cherry one should be some 5 - 7 times heavier meaning that you have to put a lot more lead into balsa one to match the weight of lure made from cherry wood, and when you try to take their volumes after adding weight to balsa they should both be displacing 15g of water because you aren't measuring the weight of the lure but the weight a.k.a. volume of displaced water and adding weight *into* balsa lure doesn't change it's shape or how much water is displaced.

[@EngineeredAngler]

That's correct that's why you have to weigh the lure and then subtract the weight to find out how much weight you have to add to get to the target weight.

[@s_s-g4d]

one very curious problem that I've run into when gluing templates onto the wood is that paper tends to stretch (or should I say "expand" or "swell"?) when the glue is applied onto it, at least it happens with those office/craft glue sticks (PVA-based I believe). I think it should also be the case with spray can glue. this leads to the scaling up (a few percent) of the template and the resulting lure, which may be undesirable. one workaround that I'm using is applying the glue to the wood, but not the paper, but it's much less convenient. another solution may be (I have yet to try this) to use paper with an adhesive back layer, particularly one intended for use with printers. I print my templates on an ink jet printer after drawing them in a vector editor (inkscape). How well such paper is going to stick to and hold on a wooden surface remains to be seen.

[@mike1261]

You're so right about the paper template deforming when wet with glue. I've used regular white glue, and templates have even had a tendency to "curve" and "stretch" while applying. I've seen folks use adhesive labels to print templates for small lures and it worked well for them. I've though of using them, but different labels have various adhesion properties, and I'm not sure what they were using. So far, I've just stuck with the cheaper paper and glue option. I'll give your tip a try and put the glue on the wood next time.

[@s_s-g4d]

@@mike1261 speaking of adhesive papers, by the way, I would imagine that, since they already have some glue on them, they might actually be sort of "pre-stretched" and not suffer from the deformation when extra glue is added, if necessary, for better adhesion to wood. This is another reason to try them (I have already ordered some). But it would be best if no added glue were necessary. I don't like the fact that the glue that I normally use may get into the pores in the wood, thus potentially interfering with the sealing (for which I use some real thin epoxy) at a later stage. I expect the adhesive paper to be easier to remove without it leaving any residue, but this of course remains to be tested.

[@SuperRobertheath]

Franco, take that lure to the flats and try it on redfish. It looks killer.

[@SouthAlabamaPiper]

Looks great, I’ve got to try to make one also. 👍

[@EngineeredAngler]

That's awesome, I hope it turns out great!

[@potatosurfing6779]

hope you have a good christmas

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thanks you too

[@aclures101.]

Great lure... what about a subwalk lure for the next lure to make??😊

[@EngineeredAngler]

Cool idea!

[@hankvana2149]

Good one Franko! Love the flat-fish as a slow strong swimming lure for cold water or inactive fish. Is there a reason that you used a hook harness instead of just the regular twisted hook hangers? I like trolling a floating flat-fish a couple of yards behind a bottom bouncer for Smallmouth Bass and walleyes. I usually add a streamer fly on a 18 inch leader attached to the rear hook hanger. The flat-fish acts like a "dodger" imparting action to the fly. Most of the bass tend to hit the lure while the walleyes tend to prefer the streamer. Cheers!

[@EngineeredAngler]

Yes I Used the wire harness because the tie on eye would have to be screwed in on such a flat angle it could be too weak. I like to embed the twist eye at as large an angle away from the direction of pool as possible.

[@stuartrowley1579]

That thing looks awesome . I'd love to see a large rear weighted 200mm long floating stickbait for GTs, Apparently large floating stickbaits are difficult to make swim correctly or a diving popper, they are becoming very popular with reef flats fishing.

[@EngineeredAngler]

That is a great idea for a future project.

[@AAE-cg1il]

Great paint scheme…….Can those be weighted to slow sink?

[@jurajanal2277]

Yes, just get their weight above the weight of displaced water.

[@EngineeredAngler]

Yes, absolutely

[@joehall5487]

I have been using Total boat uv resin with mixed results. What brand of uv do you use? I can't quite make it out in this video. Fantastic paint job btw!!

[@EngineeredAngler]

You can find it on my Amazon store

[@tim1299]

How did you make an adjustment for it to go through the water? correctly.

[@EngineeredAngler]

Bent the the tie on eye in the direction of correction.

[@mike1261]

The Winter rugged look works well on you Franko. Hemostats have failed me more than once! I now safety-wire the finger holes together on really important lures to prevent mishaps. You mentioned a maximum weight and the target weight, and even that it could have uses a few more grams, but now what we wound up with. Out of curiosity, what was the finished weight of the lure after its final clear-coat? Despite the incident, the looks looks magnificent! Merry Christmas! 🎄

[@EngineeredAngler]

I don’t recall the exact weight but I’ll check it out.

[@s_s-g4d]

haha. I once dropped my lure coated in two-part epoxy which was already partially set into a trash can! it turned out fine, though, luckily all the junk was dry, so it was relatively easy to pick it all off, and it was still a success in the end.

[@EngineeredAngler]

Oh wow!

[@billmoody9736]

Metal working - build an old school Buck Perry Spoonplug but make it extra large like you did the Flatfish.

[@Cartersbaits]

Could you make a solid body squid with soft plastic arms?

[@nenukrc]

what changes would this lure need in order to fish in the stream ? Lower center of gravity? different position for the tie-on eye?

[@EngineeredAngler]

It would need to be smaller and the tie on eye I would have to be moved up a little bit to keep it from diving to deep

[@masbaqus]

Unfortunately there is no video for the action of lure😢

[@EngineeredAngler]

Im sad too

[@teamnappet]

I’d like to see you copy the Buster jerk from cwc (catch with care)

[@EngineeredAngler]

Thanks for the suggestion

[@pastmasters9591]

I just wish all the lures weren't painted the same colors

[@teamnappet]

You shuld keep that beard. Fits you great.

[@EngineeredAngler]

Wife hates it😁

[@alexsamoylenko5013]

Я в захваті з ваших робіт,молодець так тримати. Дивлюся з України.

[@s_s-g4d]

гг привіт. а я от почав трохи й собі робити джерки. липа, аерограф, епоксидка, оце все. затягує добряче.

[@EngineeredAngler]

Hope you are safe... thanks for the comment

[@tompayton6778]

only reason you use the metric system is the fact you can't count past 10 without taking your shoes off !!!!!

[@potatosurfing6779]

first