This design is a departure from Woodware Designs usual fair. The Trash Lure is a fishing lure specifically designed to snag trash. It is intended for use around marinas and other public water sport places. The Lure has a body made like any other lure but has a barbless hook

The user stands on the bank in the early morning when few people are around and casts out over the water. The Trash Lure floats to the surface and as it is reeled in, it easily hooks any trash it is drawn across. The user then transfers the trash to a garbage bag and casts out again. The easiest trash to hook are plastic grocery bags and the hardest are Styrofoam coffee cups.

Only a few testing samples of the Trash Lure have been built so far. The idea is presented here so that it may be developed for a number of purposes:

• Building your own Trash Lure -- You can build your own Trash Lure and test it out.
• Student Design Contest -- Let's get students involved in developing good designs for the Trash Lure and supporting equipment.
• Money Making project for conservation group -- Let's sell a card of three or six Trash Lures to raise funds.
• Clean up our Waterways -- Let's get out and clean out our waterways.
• Design other Tools -- Let's design speciality hooks, harpoons and fishing arrows too.

1. 
   Figure 1: Three Trash Lures of various sizes with top and side views
   
   

2. Build your own Trash Lure

   Imagine yourself walking along the embankment by a marina on a perfect summer morning. The air is still cool, the low sun still casts long shadows of the tall masts, and the boats rest easy in the rippling water. In fact, the only thing wrong with this scene is all the trash floating in the water. The Trash Lure is a fishing plug specifically designed to address this affront to beauty, nature, and peace of mind by making trash recovery from water fun and satisfying. The trash lure is a handmade casting plug with a barbless hook. With it you can spend a quiet hour casting out, snagging, and reeling in floating trash. In an hour you can make a marked difference to the appearance of a public water area.

   (The following easy to follow steps were written for Instructables)

   Easy steps:

   I have never seen a Trash Lure offered for sale even though they would be a perfect money making project for a coastal ecology group. They are easy to make:

   
   1. Step One -- Debarb the Hook

   Barbless hooks are sometimes available, but not everywhere. They are used for octopus and for some catch-and-release programs. For a large Trash Lure, get a 5/0 hook and hold the shank firmly with a pair of Vise Grip pliers. Remove the barb with a fine file until there is nothing left but a smooth bump. Then smooth the bump, and if necessary, resharpen the hook point with a small hand stone.

   (Also see Barbless Hooks: De-barbing, Sharpening and Using Them )
   
   2. Step Two -- Making the Body

   The body of the trash lure needs to be light enough to float the hook, yet have enough weight for a good cast. The best materials are light woods and hard foams. The example in the picture was easily carved from 3/4" quarter round molding scraps left over from a kitchen flooring project and was made from hard, white urethane foam.

   3. Shape the body with a coping saw, a shape knife, rasps, and sand paper. You want the hook to float below the body. Cut a slot for the hook on the underside. Also, drill small holes beside this groove so that you can wire the hook to the body.
      
   4. Step Three -- Attaching the Hook

   Always design your Trash Lure so that the line attaches directly to the hook and not to the body. Place the hook in the groove and hold it in place with twisted wire loops and glue. I used scraps of wire trimmed from guitar strings. The glue needs to be able to fill up space and must be waterproof. You could use epoxy, but I like a silicon based product.

   
   5. Step Four --Using the Trash Lure

   This work is best done off hours when there are few people around since you will be casting in a public place. Plastic bags are the easiest trash to hook. They often blow away from people and they look terrible in the water. Much harder things to hook include foam coffee cups and plastic bottles.

   Student Design Contest

   To really get committed to something, you really need to do something physically. Just talking out or giving some money is not enough, you need to do something. This is particularly important for young people

   The idea here is to have contests for high school students to design the most effective Trash Lure and supporting equipment like a trash bag holder. Fishing plugs have been a cottage craft in America for over a 100 years and most were made from wood and painted. Students can certainly make such a small wooden object. Now fishing plugs are made from plastic and there are hobby materials for working plastics. The organization running the contest can either provide the barbless hooks or the students can modify standard hooks with a hand sharpening stone

   Anyone interested in furthering this idea should contact me at Woodware@woodwaredesigns.com .

   
   Figure 3: Trash Lure card for sell

3. Money Making project for conservation group

   A card with three or six Trash Lures of different sizes would be an idea money raising project for a conservation group. The initial effort would require developing a few designs and then having them made by a small company that make fishing plugs. There are many such companies throughout the American South. The card would, of course, have the group name and logo.

   I developed this idea in about 1995 and build a few test units. I have no personal expectation that I will make money from it and consider it now in the public domain. Any group wanting to make money off the idea will have to pay for a patent search to be sure this is true. anyone interested in furthering this idea should contact me at Woodware@woodwaredesigns.com .

   
   Figure 4: Picture of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and trash in the water

4. Clean up as a personal effort

   If you do not want to wait, simply design your own Trash Lure. They are easy to make from softwood. If you cannot find a barbless hook the right size then modify a barbed hook with a small hand sharpening stone.

   Spending a few hours just after dawn cleaning up a water land area you love is simply a renewing experience.

   Anyone interested in furthering this idea should contact me at Woodware@woodwaredesigns.com .

   
   Figure 5: Additional Tools: Hook, Harpoon, & Fishing Arrow

5. Design other Tools

   If the Trash Lure idea works then a whole line of there water clean up tools will need to be designed. These include:

   1. Trash Boat Hook -- Modification of a common boat hook to better grab large chunks of trash.
   2. Tire Harpoon -- Specially designed to penetrate and hold old tires.
   3. Trashing Fishing Arrow -- To get the small items on the bottom in shallow water.
   4. Magnet and Line -- To fish for iron objects like lost outboard motors.

Anyone interested in furthering this idea should contact me at Woodware@woodwaredesigns.com .

Conclusion

I hope you have fun with our Trash Lure idea.

This design package is similar to the ones for the simplest computer desks. The major desks have many more drawings and more detailed instructions.

We at Woodware designs would like feed-back on how you get along with these instructions and drawings. Please email us with any suggestions at Woodware@woodwaredesigns.com.

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