Anyone make their own spinners?

[Modest_Man]

I just started today, if you have any tips (especially for blade coloring) let me know.

This is my first one ever...a size one for wild cutthroat. I think the shaft is a little long.

It's fun and cheap. All in all I'm going to get hand made (by me), better quality, at about half the cost of buying Blue Fox, Mepps, Rooster Tails, etc. in the store. And I can tweak them for what I exactly want.

 

[Cookie*]

Very nice. Recently my dad has gotten into tying flies for trout and salmon. You can save tons of money just copying the models you like, and selling knock offs to locals.

 

[Modest_Man]

Here are my first dozen. The spotted one has fingernail polish for the color. I need to test them out tomorrow I think!

 

[xEchOx]

Awesome bro. Did you buy the blades?

 

[Modest_Man]

I bought all the components, and added nylon tape/fingernail polish to the plain blades.

 

[xEchOx]

I like the colors you chose. Will the nail polish stay on?

My only problem with spinners like the Mepps and Blue fox's is that sometimes they won't spin. Especially with short casts where its more prudent to retrieve slowly. If there was a way to customize the spinner to make it lighter and wider to take more resistance, it would be much more versatile IMO.

 

[Modest_Man]

If you want to do slow retrieves you'd make the spinner with an inline blade like a Panther Martin vs. the French blade that Mepps and Blue Foxes have...

Here's my report from testing them.

Had the entire stretch I explored to myself. I covered probably 2.5 miles of the creek. This is an amazing little watershed. Tons of fish, beautiful scenery and no people.

I was testing out my first attempt at making spinners and all 5 that I tried out caught fish. I caught roughly 30 trout in the 6-10" range in about 3 hours. Lots from holes but I got most of the larger fish in water that was mid calf deep. Loads of fun!

First off the two photos I took of fish. This was about the average size. Pretty good for the size of the creek. I was more concerned with releasing them all un-harmed instead of taking photos.

I couldn't go any farther downstream than this water fall, which was right by where I hit the creek at.

I did manage to scale this little falls upstream a bit. Lots of trout in this pool.

Few nice trout in this pool too.

Most fish came out of this pool than any other. I think I got 9-10 fish. Most pools you only get 1-2 before the fish get spooked or you fished it out.

Sorry the photos aren't the best, I just brought the POS, I mean P & S camera and left the DSLR at home.

This creek is honestly one of the prettiest and most productive that I've ever fished. Added bonus is that there isn't easy access so the trash stay out.

 

[BIG_ONE]

I'd be careful with the fingernail polish as painting. Check with your DFG/DNR there at Oregon. I think fingernail polish is very lethal to fish and you can find yourself with a big fine in court. If you want trout colors, best to go by with the standard hot chartreuse or hot fluorescent orange. Hot pink works, but I find hot chartreuse to be the most effective by all. And the hooks seems to be a little large for the size of the lures. Not very appealing, but whatever works.
FYI - to be on the safe side, they have their own specialty paints for lures for sale.