How to Make Fox Lures

Making your own fox lures is satisfying when you get results, and it saves you buying expensive, ready-made lures. Beginners can start by making simple lures or adding to basic, ready-made ones. A lure made from fish oil, rotten eggs and skunk essence is extremely effective, and you can make the ingredients yourself, collect them by hand, or buy them.

Things You'll Need

  • Enough medium-sized fresh carp to fill a gallon jar
  • Two one-gallon jars
  • Thick, fine-weave cloth
  • Plastic bag
  • Sting
  • Wire
  • Three or four dozen eggs
  • Dead skunk
  • Hypodermic needle
  • Screw-top bottle
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Instructions

    • 1

      Start preparing the ingredients for the lure in April, if possible. The fish oil takes months to make and needs sunshine. The other ingredients take less time to make, so start them later if you prefer.

    • 2

      Gut and clean fresh carp, leaving the heads on. Dice them into roughly 1-inch cubes. Fill a gallon jar with them, leaving just two or three inches free at the top. Screw the lid on the jar and then unscrew it by one-half turn. Cover the jar with three or four layers of thick, finely woven fabric and add a plastic bag as the topmost cover. Tie each layer on firmly with string. Twist wire around the jar neck and use this to hang it high off the ground, away from animals. Put it where it will catch the most sun throughout the days and away from residences. Leave it for all, or most, of the summer. Strain the fish oil into separate jars. Store them somewhere cool and skim off the clear, yellow oil as it rises to the surface. The oil on top is the best-quality fish oil, but all of the oil can be used.

    • 3

      Take around three or four dozen eggs, depending on their size, and break them into a wide-necked gallon jar. Discard the shells. Stop when the jar is half full. Vigorously stir the eggs with a long stick, spoon or fork before putting the lid loosely on the jar. Stir weekly for one minute each time. When the egg mixture starts to expand, leave it to mature. When it is ready, the mixture will have expanded to fill between three-quarters and all of the jar.

    • 4

      Find a dead skunk, preferably a road-killed one. Animals hit by vehicles usually die quickly and unexpectedly, so skunks are likely to keep at least some of their essence if killed this way. Shock by other means can trigger spraying. Also, if a skunk is hit in the central nervous system with a bullet, it reflexively releases all of its essence at once. Therefore, shooting one yourself is not a good idea. Spread the dead skunk on its back and use a hypodermic needle to extract the essence from the glands found on both sides of the anal opening. Coat the inside of the syringe and the plunger in petroleum jelly first to prevent the sticky essence from gumming up the sliding action. Wear rubber gloves. Store the essence in a screw-top bottle.

    • 5

      Combine roughly equal quantities of eggs and fish oil with a comparatively tiny amount of skunk essence. For instance, around a gallon of eggs and oil mixture needs about 20 drops of skunk essence.