Fishing lures

thingiverse

There are two different kinds of lures here for you to land that next river monster! These are based on my adventures with small and large mouth bass and pike. They require metal hardware and treble hooks that you can buy at your local bait shop, BassPro, Canadian Tire, etc. They should be printed as one piece so using support and a raft is a must. If they aren't solid enough you could loose your catch or worse your custom lure! Lure #1 is a surface lure that you jerk to make it pop like a frog or surface fish to generate a strike. It works best at the edge of a reed bed or where there is relatively shallow, weedy water. It has a one piece body that should be printed fairly solid but with some hollows to make it float. I am thinking 60% solidity would be solid enough to accept the hardware with good thread purchase but still be buoyant enough to float. Lure #2 has a jointed body to make it wiggle like a minnow with a spoon to make it dive. This can mimic the look of a freshly wounded fish or the motion can generate a strike! It works well on medium to deeper water. The body would benefit from being printed with 100% solidity and be used on a line tied directly to the eyelet. Painting is up to you. The fancy lures in the stores are for our benefit but the fish respond to some basic rules. Shape and silhouette are important. Fish are pretty much colour blind but flashing metallic colours are good to get their attention so a base of silver with clear model paint sounds like a good formula. Try to render markings similar to local fish, they recognize each other and are smarter than you think! ;) I will keep you up to date on my results with this one! Heading up to try them out in a couple of weeks for the river monsters but in the interim I am printing and painting some for the trip and will post some pictures before I leave! Fish ON! Instructions UPDATE! Print off Lure 2 v2.0 upright STL. I put the components in a more appropriate layout. They will print off much nicer and without support. The spoon now prints flat on the build table and fits in with a little clean up and adhesive and the holes are a little larger for the hardware. See my photos of the finished and painted lure! As always if your software allows for it use the source file (3DM) to make any changes you think might help! It was modelled with Rhino. Print lure #1 with 60% infill solidity to make it solid but float and print lure #2 at 100% so it can survive rocks and 40+ inch pike fight! After printing, give them a light sand to even out the surface. Prime them, paint them like your local fish or experiment with a little research. Then clear coat to protect all your hard work! Use the appropriate hardware and hooks based on your scale that you print them. Go fishing for the big one!