BWCA Cleaning up salvaged fishing lures Boundary Waters Fishing Forum
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HayRiverDrifter
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06/08/2021 11:32AM  
I do a bit of treasure hunting with my mask and snorkel in a local river and always find lures that have been submerged for a long time. They are coated with anything from easy to clean off slim to hard crusty something that is hard to clean off. In the past of have just used a green scrubby pad and worked them fairly hard but end up taking the finish off.

Any ideas of what I could soak them in to clean them and save the finish. I have thought about vinegar.

I am mostly concerned about crank baits. Anything metal I can just scrub up with the green pad or steel wool.

Anyone else partake in this activity. It's a great way to stock the tackle box. Always a nice variety.
 
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Savage Voyageur
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06/08/2021 12:31PM  
I had to clean up one I found this spring. It was a crank bait with rusty hooks. I soaked it in CLR and then a light scrubbing after. CLR will remove Calcium, lime and rust. I installed new hooks and I had a new lure.
 
Stumpy
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06/09/2021 04:11AM  
Sorry, I have no good advise
But I've done same
Saving old lures...using just dishsoap and water, as I recall.
 
06/09/2021 07:53AM  
dremmel tool works great , just pick the right attachment ;) i cleaned the rust off of these with a dremmel (way dirtier than the 1st pic) and added a new dress treble.
 
06/09/2021 08:11AM  
also used the steel brush(dremmel) to bring the gold back on this blade , very rusty , left them in my boat in a non-waterproof container DUH !
 
06/10/2021 11:42AM  
Soak in soapy water for a few hours, quick scrub and rinse, soak in citric acid (powdered form can be purchased on amazon) for a few hours and rinse, from there either into mineral oil or iron out (depending on rustyness). If rusty, I go iron out for a few hours with a quick scrub and rinse and then to mineral oil for a few hours.

The acid, while it cleans it can promote some aggressive rusting, so the mineral oil soak is to prevent that.

 
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