Lake Arthur - Alewife color, shape, size? 
Kevin_A
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Lake Arthur - Alewife color, shape, size?
So over the winter, I want to work on making a few baits for use over the coming year.
One of the things I want to do is make a Alewife glidebait or otherwise to use at Arthur but I'm not sure about the coloration/shape/size they typically are in that lake. I know, youre probably thinking "Why? Just make it the same general shape and shiny and be done". Well it's just something I want to do just make it as close to your average alewife in that lake as possible. I'm weird, whatever lol. I have not personally seen them or managed to get to the lake during a die off to figure out exactly what they look like.
Anyways, does anyone have suggestions or even photos that can say this is what you typically see? Their color from my research (googling pics) is sometime they have enough brown in them to matter, other times it just seems straight bright silver. Then there are some blues, greens or black along the back. Their shape also seems to vary where some are more potbellied versus being symmetrical along their length. Size is something else that seems to vary along with the color.
So yeah, any help you can give me would be appreciated. Its just one of those winter projects to keep me from going nuts.
Thanks all.
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Porktown
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Re: Lake Arthur - Alewife color, shape, size?
2020/01/20 20:03:45
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Just like the photos, they seem to be different. Some are much larger and thicker than others. Same thing with color. On the most part, they are silver sided. With a gold/brown back. I have seen some with more of a green/olive tint on the back too.
I have made some plugs in the past, which have caught fish. They are rather lifelike too. I used decals from a photo, air brushed to hide the decal edges (see tackleunderground.com for technique). It is actually pretty easy, almost feels like cheating... Added some holographic foil under the decals on some too. Those by far worked more than the ones without the foil that were more true to life color. It is pretty easy to change the decal colors in photo editing software. By far more success with unnatural colors, but the real life ones look nicer.
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Kevin_A
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Re: Lake Arthur - Alewife color, shape, size?
2020/01/21 10:25:29
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Porktown, thank you so much for the info! This is exactly what I was looking for and will be tremendously helpful. And actually, your process of using decals is not far from what I am thinking of doing. It may feel like cheating but hey, it works lol. Thank you again, see you out there.
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Porktown
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Re: Lake Arthur - Alewife color, shape, size?
2020/01/23 07:57:49
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They come out nice and surprisingly easy. The first few decals that I did were tricky, but once I figured it out was really easy. I even made my own logo decal that I put on. Probably best to experiment on test pieces if you haven’t tried yet. I of course am too lazy and went right for lures... They came out fine, but can ruin a blank that you just spent hours forming.
Back when I made these, I used the holographic sticker tape from the craft store. It worked just fine, but is kind of thick. I have been messing around lately with transfer foil (finger nail foil). I have been using on lead casting spoons (bought the blanks from EBay, same with the foils). They look great so far, but I haven’t clear coated any yet. I use some 3M spray adhesive for the glue. The transfer foils work better with heat. So I hit up the lead with my heat gun first. Not sure I’d do that on a wood plug with oil base coat. But only heated to about 200. Do one side and wait a few days for the glue to dry. If not, it will wrinkle when you touch it.
I had used Envirotex on my wood plugs as a clear coat and Solarez on some streamers that I have tied. I am planning to use the Solarez for my metals. Much faster to set and doesn’t yellow over time. But not sure if it will go on as smoothly. Both need to be much warmer to use. They are like syrup. They thin out when warmer.
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