I was enjoying a recent article in Saltwater Sportsman Big Game issue and leading lure manufactures talked about which lure they named the American Express......Never leave home without it lure!
The original lure named the american express is made by: C and H lures.
I thought this to be a great idea, and an awesome name for a lure!
I was wondering what is everyone's american express lure meaning it goes in the water everytime out, no matter what. Is it a GM, Blue and White witch, B and W Ilander or what exactly is everyones American Express
I have four myself, Sometimes there run naked and sometimes with bally. I'll show you mine if you tell me or show me yours!
Todd
Yeah, me too. Classic head shape, it's neither too big nor too small for most blue marlin fishing, and you can rig and tune it to swim well in most positions and handle conditions from flat calm to fairly nasty. I like my skirt length on those heads to be shorter... about 13.5 maybe 14" overall size... just enough to accomodate either 2 x 11/0 or 11/0 front 10/0 rear with the back end of the lure head drilled out so the leader crimp can be jammed tight to fix the position of the hooks, and the rear hook point clear of the end of the skirt. Observation re the heads supplied by DeepC, I think the double dovetail/ shoulder/ tail piece is too wide in diameter and forces you to glue the skirts- if you prefer to do the reverse tie like I do, there's too much bulge at the neck of the lure.
ps. that bright blue/silver with yellow side stripe over straight white on the bottom left of DeepC's photo is one of my favourite colours, and caught my best fish - looks a dead ringer for a peanut dorado, I reckon.
well, im sure my AMX lure is just a bally rig, prob with one of my doctored jr. ilanders.
now, i just have to say something about those MPLures. . . they are just plain sweet. I picked up a handful of swimmers and bullets from Delmarva and they are awsome. Havent had a good chance to test em yet b/c of the tourney, but they do look great in the water. Keep up the good work.
Patudo,
The masher was designed as a glue on production model. In her original Murray Brother Lng 2 form she had deeper neck turning to accomodate the moldcraft/ trawlite/ witchcraft skirting pattern we used on them. I do on occasion make masher heads with necks designed to accomodate tie on inverted skirting. We get very little call for them however as most of our clients just want the preskirted production version.
The masher was born for single 7731 11/0. Her LNG 2 predacessor fared better with 10/0 and the LNG 1 a 12/0 we worked the masher to fit between the other designs.
I always thought the masher was a direct duplicate of the LNG #2 head, but it's been a long long time since I handled an original LNG #2, I'm probably mistaken. IMO the neck/tail piece should be turned down some - you don't lose anything if you are gluing the skirts, and you won't have that annoying bulge if you do the reverse tie. I much prefer the latter way of skirting a lure, it's neat, no mess and you can easily replace or change skirts. That's just how I would do it though. No intent to preach.
Patudo she is very close to the 2. My Crusher model was molded dirctly from the 2 but has never matched the performance. The original 2 had no insert and two holes drilled to accept light sticks. In making the Crushers insert we did about 40 prototypes and got as close as we could but not exact. The Masher however dialed right in and runs like the 2 did with just a couple more mm of diameter. As I said before we have several neck styles available on the masher. The production model is set that way for volume production.
Thanks DeepC.. You know this already I'm sure but when a mould is taken off an original lure the moulded piece is normally smaller than the original. Resin shrinks a little when it hardens up, then it's sanded and polished which removes a little more material.. Funny enough, this shrinkage seems to affect some moulds more than others, maybe the consistency of the mould rubber has an effect. Normally the moulded piece doesn't mind being a little smaller but I guess you got unlucky in this case, or maybe the LNG2 head just needs those long heavy Trawlite skirts? The original LNG2 was definitely a good'un. Sounds like you hit a winner with the Masher anyway.
When I say we molded off the original I meant the brass master which is actually about the size of the masher. Yes they do shrink. In my partnership with the factory in Africa, I was constantly going out of my mind when they would mold off a lure. Sometimes multiple generations of that until the resin got so thin at the insert that they would simply break if you looked at them wrong. Am currently trying to set up another sattellite manufacturing facility that will hopefully be able to get the job done right.
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IMO the neck/tail piece should be turned down some - you don't lose anything if you are gluing the skirts, and you won't have that annoying bulge if you do the reverse tie. I much prefer the latter way of skirting a lure, it's neat, no mess and you can easily replace or change skirts. That's just how I would do it though. No intent to preach. 
