Handmade fishing lures - Hot glue shrimp

Once upon a time in Japan, I happened across a man in a stall on the side of the road during some new years festivities. He was making animal shaped lollipops out of hot toffee. Each one took around a minute to make. They looked a bit like those glass collectible things that are all over the globe, but mounted on toothpicks. He was selling them to a stack of people three or four deep all waving wads of cash at him. They sold for around $10 each. He had a buddy handy to take the cash, so he didn't have to waste any productive time dealing with customers.

Sometimes it can take a few hours to do something that, with practice, you may one day be able to do in few minutes.

A week ago I had the idea that I might be able to make a lure from the plastic that my hot glue gun provides.

glue gun, plastic, and wire

I started with a glue gun, a small square of plastic (from the un-needed dividers in my new tackle box), and some wire.

In anticipation of this lure being too heavy at the back, I added two small lead weights by crimping them to the wire.

Reflective card 

I found some laser cut reflective card from some thoughtful person, who at some stage in the past, thought I was too sober, so bought me a bottle of wine.

Thanks.

I cut some bits out of the gift card to form the basic shrimp body shape.

half glue added to create basic shape

Next step was to build up a bit of hot glue to form the front and back, with the narrow waste I had a feeling might look like a shrimp.

finished shape

This looks a lot like a shrimp to me. It's surprising how easy this kind of thing is. I realize this in no masterpiece, but it's not as if I have any hot glue shaping skills here either.

The best thing about hot glue is you can heat it up over a flame and rework it.

This shape took about an hour of reheating, cutting bits off, and adding bits to replace the bits I just cut off.

finished hot glue glass shrimp lure 

With only a bit of imagination, it's possible to imagine this actually catching a fish.

Anyone paying more attention than they should, may notice that there are wire loops and a bib that give the impression that the lure would be towed from the front. But, after changing its shape a dozen times, I think this lure would work best twitched off the bottom, then allowed to sink back down. The fish would attack it as it sunk. To have it swim like a shrimp, it would need to be towed from the back, as when fleeing, shrimp panic backwards with flicks of their tail. The middle hook cluster would hang from the wire loop at the belly of the lure, but the hook that would be the rear should hang from the bottom of the front of the shrimp. In other words, that loop at the top, should be at the bottom.

The total length of this particular experiment is 95mm.