Dead Fish Custom Baits

oat, we were chucking crank baits up on a flat and cranking them off of the edge of a drop off. Once I quit feeling the bottom of the lake I had to hang on, the bass would just slam my crank bait about 4 to 6 feet off of that break. I was catching a fish about every 3rd cast, it was incredible. My 2 friends that were in the boat with me had baits similar to mine, same bait, but a little different color. I bet I out fished them maybe 4 or 5 fish to 1, it was insane. That same bait proved it’s self again on the same body of water a year or two later in a tournament. My partner and I ran to that same drop off and I started chucking that same crank bait. Once again I had the “Hot Bait”, my partner had on close to mine and he caught a few fish, but not nearly as many as I did. We spent about 30 minutes on that spot filled our limit and culled a few pups out of the box. In the end we ended up winning that tournament w/ 5 smallmouths on a body of water that is dominated by largemouth……
So, having said all of that, I decided to try my hand at painting my own hard baits to create unique colors and patterns that the fish are not used to seeing.