How to make caster clusters
A step-by-step guide to making Terry Hearn's now legendary caster hookbait...
For a detailed breakdown click here. In this OlogyFix we’re going to show you exactly how to create those lovely little fake caster hookbaits, now christened Caster Clusters. They are a little fiddly - especially with superglue (and in Tel’s own words, “You don’t need a lot of glue”) - but you only need to make three or four up and you can keep reusing them over and over again. Here’s how you do it…
What you need:
Rubber casters
Hookbait swivel
Hookbait beads
Foam
Superglue
Sharp knife
Shrink tubing
1. Take your hook of choice (Tel likes the Curve Shanx, but the new Trig-Hammer works equally as well) and whip it onto your hooklink material using a Knotless Knot. You don’t need a Hair, so trim the tag end and then add and steam a piece of shrink tubing into place. That’s the hook part semi-complete, now for the cluster itself.
2. Start off by supergluing two of the fake casters together. Then glue a third in the middle of those two, followed by another two either side of the third one. Pick the lighter coloured casters for the top three as these will be the ones ‘on show’ as it were.
3. Tel connects the cluster to the hookbait swivel via some bait floss and stop; however, if you make a small cut into the foam, you can secure the swivel with some superglue. Once this has set, it won’t move or come free.
4. With the swivel in position, apply some glue to the top of the foam and stick the bottom two casters to it.
5. Once the glue is completely dry, thread a hookbait bead onto the hook, followed by the caster cluster, and then a second bead. And there you have it…
