enhanced my shad darts this season...

[JHbowhunter]

Added a little extra flash to this year's versions. Only making two colors and two sizes, 1/32 and 1/16 ounce. The "flashibou accent" I have been using for over 10 years (instead of calf tale) has been very affective, but this year I added some flashibou mirage to the tail - very "tinsel-like" and may give it just a tad more "flash". (Just a few strands, didn't want to overdo it)

 

 

[TroutandBucks]

Jack those look great! 
Never caught a shad before so I may have to tag along with you one day 

[1957Buck]

Are you dipping your own heads??  

[JHbowhunter]

Are you dipping your own heads??  

 

I pour the lead and melt it, I mold them, I dip, I tie...  Soup to nuts. The only thing I don't make are the hooks

[MGHunter66]

interesting, i make the same exact dart for steelhead

[LPJR]

They look great  

[Buck154]

Looks good.

[Capt Hook]

How much ?? they look great .

[smoking gun]

we need a tying session

[hammer4reel]

nice, but cant believe your still using vinyl paint. Powder holds up ALOT better and is so much quicker

[_X7]

They are nice looking darts. I have a bunch I made long ago with the small hook required for the mold. They were okay when using them in slow water where you had more control of a fish wanting to swim upstream. Lost more than a few shad on them in fast water. Live and learn. I use them for trout these days. Same thing as a trout magnet. Put on a rubber tail to mimic a hatching fish egg and you are good to go. Of course the shad hit it on instinct if the dart is in its way as they don't feed on their trip.

 

[The Buschman]

Nice work!

[JHbowhunter]

nice, but cant believe your still using vinyl paint. Powder holds up ALOT better and is so much quicker

 

all my hot pink heads, have a glow-white powder coat as the base...  But unless I am mistaken, you only get once shot at a powder coat as you have to heat the lead enough to melt it.... So how could I do multi-color "dips" in powder ?  That is where the vinyl comes in. Historically the vinyl will chip if you repeatedly bump rocks, but with shad fishing, if you getting stuck on bottom a lot, you are "Too low" and won't catch many.  When first started fishing them 40 years ago, the old-timers were like "if you ain't bumping bottom and losing some darts you aint doing it right".  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In 7-8 feet of water which is my preferred zone to fish, I want to be 2-3' off bottom.  In holes with 20+ feet of water, you can see them stacked up from 3 to 12 feet off bottom on the fish finder.

[hammer4reel]

its easy to do 2 and 3 colors of powder.

you dip first coat, then while its still hot tip it with the second color, which melts on top of the first color.

 

with the darts, its just a quick tip into the second color.

.

with other stuff you sprinkle the powder on with a small plastic shaker bottle..( like used to use for bulk fletchtite)

 

reason to not use vinyl is  it reacts bad to certain plastics and plastic boxes, and can melt them causing a mess

 

 

 

 

 

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[1957Buck]

Seems powder does not plug the eyelets like Plastics. does powder stink up the oven?