Top 10 Bass Events in the Summer Olympics

1. Big Bass Bag Weight Lifting

2. Casting your tackle bag for distance

3. Balance on top of your pedestal seat

4. All day sweat collection (ew!)

5. 50 foot swim; after your fall out of your boat

6. Worm eating competition

7. Timed boat loading in a wave pool

8. Power rowing; after you run out of gas

9. Rod throwing; after the lake record fish just broke off

10. The equipment dive; after you just threw your $150 rig in the lake.

$5 Dollar Umbrella Rig?

So depending on were you are at in the country. You are either enjoying your summer or unlike me and much of the mid-west we have been having 100 degree days for the last 20 days or so. I don't really want to count because it will just depress me further. At 8:00 am it is already 85-89 degrees, so needless to say i have not been out fishing much. I really am a dedicated angler, however melting away while trying to find deep biting bass is hard for me as i  am just not used to doing. So unfortunately, i have been couped up on the weekends with the AC running 24/7.

So what do i do? I get caught up on my bass fishing magazines and get ideas on how to customize and tinker with my lures, organize tackle boxes and soft plastics. After all my product www.lureluster.com is all about customization, so why not do some other customization for other lures. Now you know that just about every bait that i have has my stickers on them, so i was looking for something else to do. (side story: as i have so many lures now, i really don't buy anything unless it is a deep discount. And although there are some really nice $10-$25 lures, i just can't bring myself to buy them. I just don't think that you have to have a lure at that price to catch fish. Ok i am cheap to!)

The Umbrella rig has obviously intrigued many with the stories of doubling up or more on this unique fishing lure. However, the cost of these are typically $15.00-$30.00 for the rig and then you have to buy the jig heads and swimbaits to go with them. So i have been tinkering and came up with a home made umbrella rig.

Now if any of you watch the Simpson's, and are familiar with Homer's spice rack, that is typically what happens when i take on projects. However, this one came out  not that bad. Maybe not as pretty as the others, but i bet it will get the same reaction bite!

Ingredients: Broken crank bait sawed; a $1.29 small whisk purchased at Ace Hardware, some old weighted swimbaits that i probably got on a clearance shelf and standard fishing line connectors. I couldn't find the wire and just found a whisk and thought, hello that is almost done for me.
I think you get the picture!

Lure Luster on You Tube

Hello every one. I don't think that I have posted this on my Blog so here it is. I hope if you find this interesting you will go to www.lureluster.com and give the product a try. Please share with your friends.

Good Fishing - BassinBrax

Lure Stickers? - Questionair

Hello all, I hope you are beating the heat this summer. Before I ask my questions, I will share a little story on my last fishing trip. Last sunday I got up at 6 am (early for me) to get to the lake by seven. You know when your driving to the lake and your thinking...."man I should have left an hour earlier."
This day was dedicated to meeting a buddy of mine at the lake for mainly beer drinking, but i was going to get a few hours of fishing in before it turned 100 degrees. Well I picked a new ramp to put in at, problem was it was not a maintained area and the roads were bad. It took me a good hour to back track and find my way in the back roads to get to a ramp I was familiar with. So the first lesson is, make sure you research your launching sights!

Finally was able to start fishing around 830. I always start with a top water and was using a buzzbait and hooked into a nice 1.5-2 lb. largemouth. At that time I remembered to get my video camera out. After all, you need video of catching fish with your product to sell it, right? Well around 9:30 it was already getting hot and every time i turned the camera on, i was getting snagged. I hooked into what was probably a 3 lb. fish and between him and me was a nice 3 log structure that he headed right to. I kept the pressure on, but did not have a good enough hook set on him to land the bass. I tried that area for a little while longer and then decided to go to the beach.

Well, I'm sure some of you can relate or have had similar experiences. Hopefully you may find a little humor in my last outing.

Back to business; If you have visited my blog and/or my website at www.lureluster.com, you have scene that I offer a lure customization sticker kit. This kit is a easy way to add color and flash to any hard bait surface like spinner bait blades, crank baits, spoons and buzz blades.

I have had great interest from all level of anglers in regards to this product, but have not had the sales that I would like to have had.

If you read this and like to fish, i would be interested in your comments:

1. Do you customize your fishing lures?
2. Would you use a product like Lure Luster?
3. What would you pay for a product like Lure Luster?
4. Would you purchase at a store or online?

I could ask alot more questions than that, but just thought these would help.

Please return your reply to orders@lureluster.com. Thank you and good fishing!

Get out of your comfort zone

As summer approaches, or is already here for the southern states, those bass will be harder to catch. In the lakes they move deeper and in other waters are much less active in the heat of the day. So unless you fish at night or get up at 5:00am you have to change tactics to get them to bite. If you are going to venture out to the main lake, look for rock piles in 10 to 20 ft of water. Find it or other structure on your graph and make repeated cast attempts before you give up on the area. You may have to find the right crankbait to get that reaction strike. Ledges are another good way to locate bass, they will move from the top to the deeper angles of the ledge. You can use crankbaits, Texas rigged worms, jigs or spoons. I like to fish river systems now as the current can lower the water temperatures and keep those bass more active. Often time they will hold tight to cover and just wait for the bait to come to them. All types of techniques will work. So stop pounding the banks and look for offshore structure and ledges in the lakes and try the river for some fishing relief.

Good Fishing

BassinBrax
www.lureluster.com

Why modify?

With so many different kinds of fishing lures that are on the market you would wonder why so many of the professional tournament fishermen are constantly helping those lure makers modify those lures? More sales to be sure, but most new designs that come out have been modifications, alterations or creations of professional anglers out on the tournament trail. Why do they modify?

Fish are have become and are becoming more and more preconditioned to seeing the same thing thrown at them every weekend. When the pros roll into town for that tournament, they are usually using something new or doing some new technique.

If you have read my blog in the past, you know what I offer....Lure Luster. I will be the first to admit that i don't use my lure stickers on every bait in my bag. No as an avid angler, i want to find patterns and match the forage and use what ever those bass are biting. Now for real, i have alot of lures with my stickers on them, because i have use the product for many years and i know it doesn't repel the fish! In fact, i have seen many times when i know that added flash has gotten extra bites.

Lure Luster is another tool, like suspend strips, red hooks, gels, dyes and all the other customization tools. You use them when you think it will help you. Sometimes using these products just gives you confidence in what you are doing and that helps to.

Lure Luster is a easy and fun way to customize any hard bait. Start with your spinner baits and i think you will see the results. Crank baits, spoons and topwater lures will follow.

I hope you will try it out. I have changed the shipping options on my website www.lureluster.com to make the product more affordable.

You can check me out on Youtube as well.

Using Lure Luster on Fort Gibson Lake, OK

Fished Fort Gibson yesterday. Put in at Long Bay, seemed like lake level was low. Not much to fish in that area, fished Toppers and down to Pleasant Creek areas. Nice day, but tuff fishing. We fished offshore, docks and some bank areas and ...tried different depths. Through all kinds of lures at them. I caught to keeper bass and 2 good sand bass using the attached white crank bait with my red Lure Luster on it. See picture. Had a 3 pounder buy the cliffs north of Taylors Ferry, however it jumped and spit it out. My partner zero'd!

 

This was a good example of adding some bleeding bait response to a lure and getting some bites.

Spring Fishing on Lake Tenkiller, OK

It was a great weather weekend, almost hot in the wind protected coves. However with water temperatures at 54-55 degrees, the air turned into air conditioning when cruising the lake. The cool water was keeping the bigger bass from moving up shallower. Was still able to catch a few on Saturday and Sunday. Some good size smallmouth and largemouth.  Next years birthday trip will be to a lake not quite so deep. That is not my area of expertise. Check out the pictures. Also please check out the website at www.lureluster.com if you have not seen it. You can buy the packages on line!

Local entrepreneur offers way to dress up old lures and baits

Braxton Close holds a few lures dressed up with his Lure Luster stickers in his home office Friday. KELLY BOSTIAN/Tulsa World

By KELLY BOSTIAN Outdoors
Published: 3/11/2012 3:07 AM
Last Modified: 3/11/2012 6:16 AM

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Go to Kelly Bostian's blog

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Braxton Close has some heavy lifting to do in the extra bedroom in his Broken Arrow rental home, and it's not just at the workout bench that shares the small room with the desk that is, for now, operation central for BassinBrax Innovations and his Lure Luster sticker kit business.

The 40-year-old entrepreneur is another in a long line of Tulsa-area anglers who have gone commercial with basement, bedroom and garage-based lure businesses. Close thinks he may be onto something with his shiny sticker offering.

"Even though most lures are more decorated now, a lot still need some shine, flash or a little color, and that's the thought process," he said. "You can't put stickers on things in the manufacturing process in a cost-effective way."

But giving anglers the chance to add a little flash after-the-fact makes lots of sense, according to Close.

"Whether you're a novice or an expert, you can use the product and the idea is to customize or enhance lures or to fix up lures," he said.

It might cost $5 to $8 or more dollars to replace a scarred, faded crankbait or a spinner bait that has lost its sparkle. But for $4.99, a packet of Lure Luster stickers provides enough flash and stick to dress up 20 lures, Close said.

The idea goes back several years to knowledge Close gained when he worked for National Label Manufacturing Company, which provides adhesive labels for everything from shipping crates to bottles of maple syrup. "It's that knowledge of the label industry and working with a clear poly-based material and permanent adhesive," he said.

In 2008, he was a top-12 finalist in the Tulsa Entrepreneurs Spirit Awards. He also scored an endorsement from "America's Favorite Fisherman," Jimmy Houston.

It's been just in the past year that he has focused on the project, promoting it to larger national retailers and local and regional distributors, but he's nowhere near quitting his day job as an inside sales rep for Delta Steel.

Putting some capital into a marketing plan is his next hurdle. A tough aspect in the retail industry is that stores don't want to buy something that people aren't asking for, but people can't ask for something they've never seen.

Most recently he set up a sales booth at the Green Country's Midsouth Hunting and Tackle Show in Bixby to make some direct sales. "Most people liked it or were intrigued," he said.

Bulk sheets of reflective material are available for sale, but Close said no one else makes a kit with pre-cut shapes meant to fit the sides or backs of crankbaits or fit neatly on a Colorado spinner blade. The kit also includes a selection of lure eyes. Clean the lure, give the sticker 15 minutes of curing time and it should stay on a good long while.

"On some of the plastics it may not stick as well, especially if it's not a smooth surface, but on the painted or glossy items or the spoons and spinners it works great and has a service temperature from below zero to over 100 degrees."

A bass fisherman since he graduated from high school, Close said he just likes adding a little flash or color to his lures, especially if he can put a little red on a spinner or buzzbait blade. "I just like the idea of adding a little flash," he said.

If you want to learn more, visit tulsaworld.com/lureluster

Original Print Headline: Splash of color

By KELLY BOSTIAN Outdoors

Not a whole lot to report right now. Working hard on getting product out there to retail. Cabela's may be moving forward. Looking toward sprint fishing. Can't wait to get out there and prove how www.lureluster.com can help me catch fish in tough conditions!

Lure Luster Introduction

Hello Everyone! Here is my first post on my blog. Had a great weekend at the Mid-South Tackle Show in Tulsa, OK. Had my Lure Luster booth and the attendance was good. The interest and feed back in my product Lure Luster was even better. As one of the only true lure decorator kits, it gives you the ability to overcome pressured bass with a new look to your hard baits. Spinner bait blades, Crank Baits, Spoons, Buzzbaits and even Jigs can be decorated to catch more fish. You can see the product at www.lureluster.com and see the benefits of using it. Talk to you soon and can't wait till spring to start fishing!