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Any fisherman has always done something himself. Despite the fact that in a special store you can buy any set of tackle, accessories, lures, and what is not available can be found on the Internet and ordered, homemade fishing products are always relevant. And often the point is not even that it is cheaper to make than to buy. It is much more pleasant to use a thing, even if not of very high quality, but by you personally.
Homemade products for fishing: what are and their features
Of course, making fishing tackle on your own is far from always justified. The fact is that the industry, especially in Europe, America and China, has long established the production of high-quality rods, lines, and other products. It is unlikely that anyone would think of making a spinning blank by hand or making a spinning reel at the factory today. However, many people are involved in the assembly, alteration of finished rods, the manufacture of handles, reel seats, and accessories. It so happened that the main field of activity for a homemade fisherman lies not in the manufacture of gear and accessories from scratch, but in the alteration of ready-made factory samples. From the point of view of time, money, effort, this approach is more justified.
But making something from scratch is quite common. At the same time, mass-produced semi-finished products are also actively used – hooks, swivels, rings, etc. In the manufacture of jig, for example, an angler who is fluent in soldering can save a lot. You can make them not only from lead, but also from tungsten. On sale, you can buy tungsten jig bodies and hooks separately for a small price, and then solder it, not to mention the soldering of simple lead lures.
Homemade products can directly affect fishing tackle or auxiliary accessories, creating convenience and comfort. Often you can see even in the arsenal of seasoned feeders stands that are made independently, feeders and marker weights, bends and leashes, leashes made by yourself.
Moreover, many gears initially require additional refinement by the angler. For example, the produced leader material allows making leads for pike fishing of arbitrary length and good quality. Most of all fishing gear can be made independently for winter fishing for perch, roach, and other types of fish.
Auxiliary accessories for fishing, which are not directly fished, but used in the process, are very diverse. Here are home-made seats, coasters, folding wood-burning stoves for heating the tent in cold weather or entire exhaust systems that allow you to burn gas for several days, sleds, scoops, lifeguards, boat oarlocks, oars, echo sounder mounts, yawns, extractors, cages and many, many other things. They can be bought and modified, or made from scratch.
DIY materials
It so happened that most of the materials that are used for homemade products are household, construction or industrial waste, sometimes natural materials. This is due to their availability, free of charge and the fact that they can be easily obtained. Be that as it may, you still have to purchase some of the materials for money. You can do this in special stores for homemade fishermen, and in ordinary hardware and fishing stores. If the former are found only in large cities, then a hardware and ordinary fishing store can be found almost everywhere.
Some do-it-yourselfers. Examples and manufacture
The following describes several homemade products for fishing with the manufacturing process. This is by no means a mandatory guide. Everything can be changed or done differently, because this is a creative process, and everyone does it in the way that is more convenient or better for him.
Rack for feeder
Often on sale you can see a rack for a feeder, a float fishing rod with a wide top. This is convenient, it allows you to shift the rod to the left or right, as it will be convenient for the angler. However, the price of such coasters is quite high, and in many provincial stores they are simply not available. It doesn’t matter, you can do everything yourself.
We will need:
- Factory collapsible rack for a rod with a narrow flier;
- A piece of wire with a diameter of 3 mm from galvanized steel;
- Self-tapping screw made of galvanized steel 50 mm long and a washer under it;
- A piece of tube from a medical dropper;
- Threads and glue.
Manufacturing process:
- A piece of wire is cut off about 60-70 cm long;
- In the middle, a small loop is made of such a size that a self-tapping screw with a small gap fits into it. It is advisable to twist the wire near the loop by one or two turns so that the shoulders of the loop are approximately at the same level and it itself sticks out a little away from the wire.
- The rest of the wire is bent in the form of an arc of the required width, and the tips are bent inside the arc so that they look at each other. The length of the bend is 2-3 cm.
- From the finished plastic rack, unscrew the upper part with a plastic flyer. The horns are cut so that a flat, even area remains at the top at a right angle to the axis of the rack.
- A bent wire is screwed to the site with a self-tapping screw, placing a washer under it. Before that, it is advisable to make a hole with a diameter of 1-2 mm in plastic with a drill so that the self-tapping screw goes evenly. Such a fastening is strong enough if the self-tapping screw is screwed tightly and well. It is advisable to then unscrew it and screw it on with glue so that it does not come loose.
- A medical tube from a dropper is placed on the ends of the wire arc so that it sags slightly along the arc. If necessary, you can warm up the tube, then its tips expand and it will be easier to put on, wind the thread onto the wire. The tube is put on glue, wrapped with thread on top and also smeared with glue. The stand is ready.
Such a stand is quite simple to manufacture, it can be disassembled and easily placed in a tube for rods, it is soft in contact with the rod and will not injure even a hollow carbon fiber whip, with the correct sag of the tube, the rod will lie on it securely in any place. If this does not happen, you can try to shorten or lengthen the tube or slightly bend the bends of the wire to the bottom, without altering the rest of the rack.
Wooden rod
When going out into the wild, many anglers do not take a rod with them, but only equipment for it. After all, you can make a fishing rod right at the place of fishing. In the wilderness, it is relatively easy to find young shoots of birches, mountain ash, hazel, where you can easily cut a whip of a suitable size. If you are embarrassed by the fact that this harms nature, you can choose a suitable trunk for power lines – there, all the same, these plants will be destroyed according to the rules for operating electrical networks.
The fewer knots there are on the tree, the straighter and thinner, the better. The best rods, which allow you to catch even large fish on a deaf float rig, are made from birch, a little worse – mountain ash. Hazel is also good, but it is less common.
If you go fishing for 2-3 days, then it is not necessary to clean the rod from the bark. It is enough to cut the tree near the butt below, cut off the knots and carefully clean them with a knife so that the fishing line does not cling to them, cut off the thin top. The top should have a thickness of about 4-5 mm, no more and no less. Too thin is usually fragile, and thick will not cushion when jerking fish. The fishing line is attached by simply tying it to the end of the rod. If desired, you can make a small notch with a knife so that the loop holds on to it, but this is usually not required.
If the rod is planned to be used constantly when they live near a reservoir, it must be cleaned of bark and dried. For long-term use, it is best to prepare rod whips in advance, in the fall, when the wood is at its densest. The whips are barbed and fixed to dry in a cool, dry place. At the same time, they must be fixed in a straight line along the building structures. It is convenient to use nails for this. They are hammered into the ceiling, wall, wooden beam, bent and a rod is slipped under them, bending them a little more with a hammer so that it holds tightly. It is very important that they are located along one straight line, every half a meter. Usually the rod is left like this until spring, when the fishing season begins. During drying, the rod should be loosened two or three times, turned a little and again bent the nails with a hammer.
The rod dried in this way is cleaned with sandpaper and painted with dark paint. It will be much lighter than raw, and it will be more pleasant for them to catch. If desired, rings and a coil can be installed on it. This is sometimes necessary when a predator is caught on a live bait with a float, or when such a rod is used when fishing on a track from a boat.
The main drawback of this fishing rod is that it is not foldable, it will be impossible to take it with you to the city or to another body of water, it is not very convenient to make transitions along the overgrown shore with a long whip in your hand. Its mass, even dried, will be much more than a high-quality carbon fiber rod. But if you want to catch on homemade tackle the way our grandfathers did it from time immemorial, remembering how we caught ourselves in early childhood is a good option.
Feeders for feeder
Many people know that you can make a feeder feeder from a plastic bottle and a lead balancing weight. They are called “chebaryukovki” after the name of the inventor. Today on sale you can find a ready-made cargo-blank. This is much better than taking a balancing tire weight. The purchased weight has a mass verified to the gram, a ready-made ring for attaching fishing line and horns that can be inserted into a plastic plate and riveted.
Only the plastic part needs to be made. Any plastic bottles are suitable for this, but it is better to take dark ones. A central cylindrical part is cut out of it, then a plate, which is then straightened over a gas stove using two pliers. A sheet of plastic is taken by the edges and stretched over the gas, without getting too close and changing the position of the pliers so that the straightening goes evenly.
A pattern is made from the finished form in such a way that it approximately corresponds in width to the length of the load-blank, and in length gives the appropriate size of the feeder. Then the workpiece is tried on, putting on it the position of the holes for the riveted horns. Holes are drilled with a drill so that the horns of the weight go slightly into them, at both ends of a rectangular sheet. The sheet is folded and tried on again. Then, in the middle, two holes are drilled in the same way for the striker and additional holes for washing out the feed.
The load is placed on a solid base made of soft wood. Slightly drown it in it, tapping with a hammer. So it will lie upside down and not roll over. Then they put plastic on it and rivet the horns with a lively riveter. The feeder is ready, you can catch. The weight has the shape of a bar, it holds the bottom better and does not turn over with the current, unlike a flat tire changer-plate.
Gypsum mold for casting lead
The finished load-blank described above is easily copied at home. You just need to buy one copy in the store, a bag of alabaster, take an old soap dish and lead. It is better not to use cheap gypsum or rotband, it is optimal to find medical dental gypsum, it holds its shape best and is more suitable for copying.
Gypsum is poured into one half of the soap dish, diluting it with water by about a third. When mixing, it is necessary that the gypsum becomes a plastic gruel. Pour it exactly under the top edge of the soap dish. A weight is slightly sunk into the plaster to the middle, placing it slightly sideways. After hardening, the weight is removed, the surface of the gypsum is smeared with any fat. Then the weight is put in place, the gypsum is poured into the second half of the soap dish and covered with the first one. In this case, they are slightly underfilled to the top so that the edges of the soap dish dock when closing. After hardening after 5-10 minutes, the form is opened and also treated with any fat or oil.
Casting is carried out in a non-residential ventilated area or in the fresh air. The form is removed from the soap dish and tied with wire. Due to the irregularities on its surface, the docking should turn out quite well, otherwise they look so that the edges of the form approximately coincide along the entire perimeter. Lead is melted on a fire or an electric stove in an amount sufficient to cast one sinker. Then it is carefully poured into a mold set on a solid non-flammable base. The shape is lightly tapped so that it fills it well.
When the lead goes through the evaporation, this means that the filling is completed. The form is set aside and allowed to cool, after which the wire is unwound and the load is removed. They bite off the burr and sprues with wire cutters, clean it with a needle file, drill a hole. The cargo is ready. In this way, you can make sinkers for any needs of the angler – balls, droplets, jig heads, depth gauges, spoons, etc. The main thing is to follow safety precautions, work in gloves and a canvas apron, away from combustible mixtures. The mold is usually enough for 20-30 castings, then the plaster burns out and a new mold needs to be made.
Useful Tips
They are engaged in homemade products if it is impossible to find the right thing on sale, if it is too expensive, or when they just want to do interesting things in their free time. Fishermen are usually practical and busy people, only a few want to spend time working in a workshop or garage, most prefer free outdoor recreation with a fishing rod. Therefore, you need to calculate your time.
It must be remembered that many things, although they can be made independently, also cost a penny in the store. For example, swivels, clasps, clockwork rings can be made by yourself. But for this you will have to spend a lot of time, even to learn.
In addition, you will need to find a suitable wire that easily takes the desired shape, does not rust and has the right thickness. Dental wire for braces is best for wire parts, a little worse is welding wire from a semi-automatic machine. If the latter can be obtained for free, then the former, most likely, will have to be bought. Given the penny cost of ready-made fasteners, swivels and other products, you need to ask the question – is there any point in making them?
There are things that seem easy to make. For example, floats, wobblers, poppers, cicadas, spinners. But in reality, it is not so easy to achieve good parameters when manufacturing by hand. A good float is made from balsa, processed with a quality composition and will not drink water even on multi-day fishing. A special keel is placed in it, it is possible to change the tip. You can buy two identical floats, and both of them will have absolutely identical carrying capacity, sensitivity, stability in waves and currents, and the nature of the bite. A self-made foam float can be less durable, it will be significantly heavier, the tackle with it will be rougher, and its main problem is that it will mercilessly drink water and change the carrying capacity in the process of fishing. It is usually simply impossible to make two absolutely identical floats at home.
Repeatability is another problem of homemade fishing. You can make several spinners, wobblers, and other baits. Some of them will catch well, some will not. The problem is to establish copying catchy baits. As a result, given the cost of fixtures and equipment, the cost of a spinner will be no less than that bought in a store. Here the situation is the same as with Chinese wobblers. Some of them catch, some don’t. Branded wobblers will behave the same, regardless of the batch, the series that was brought to this store.
Nevertheless, most anglers still have homemade products. This is due to the fact that catching with the help of such things is doubly pleasant. After all, fishing is not only healthy fresh air, but also getting pleasure from the process. By making your own stand for a fishing rod or even a float, you can get no less pleasure than fishing with the help of high-quality factory gear. And maybe you can make something that will be better.