Well there's lots to consider you're doing up a good bait that has caught fish, an expensive bait you want to protect, or both. My first Generic Trout, 12" I put some stuff on it that was supposed to dry clear and instead it tunred it yellow. A hard to get wood bait that I had caught a 13lber on and now it's yellowish all over x( I still use it though :)

As an aside, if you are trying to find things using the search feature, you pretty much have to use advanced search to find anything. I'll usually try to search on two words and use the 'and' Search Logic so it actually narrows it down. Searching for 'clear' and 'coat' will get you in the right direction. Searching for clear or coat will get you nowhere in this search engine. The search isn't that great on the forum and that's usually the only way to get anything meaningful out of it.

Back to the subject, here's a pic of my two best Slammers. Both baits were new in the summer of 2000 and were repainted in fall 2002 and january 2003 respectively, then Aristocratted shortly after that. They've both seen thousands of casts since then and are only chipped where I undoubtedly banged them off the shore. I touched them up tonight and they should be good for another couple years at least.

You know for all the conversation, I do have to laugh because Nico has his money Slammer that he must have caught 300 or 400 fish on by now, and it's just a beat to hell piece of wood these days. That thing must have been bounced off the shore 100 times and it still kills the fish. One day it should seriously be retired and mounted in a glass case. It's an awesome lure.

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/2587.jpg