Tigger

Dave great stuff! That is a heck of a machine. Thanks Rookie I fell out of my chair! I can't believe you said the "Holly Crap Batman" I said the exact same thing earlier when I read it. Do you have any lucky lottery numbers? LKN4........ Have you tried a squarer edged lip yet? I have found that I get a little more thump with those types of lips. Here is one that I been having issues with. I did this body thinking it may work for trout and salmon. I took some mahogany and ran the line loop and hook tie as one piece. I coated it one time with epoxy on its way to three final coats. I always test the lures between every coat. I went out and casted it and about fell over. It has the craziest action that I have ever seen. I have no weighting in the body. I stopped the other two epoxy coats and just finished it with automotive finish. I have tried to make three other bodies with no success. I also tried to upscale the body size for muskies. Just not the same action as the original. I am trying to figure out how the wobble works with this one. Does anyone have any ideas to try a new approach? I want to figure out how to do the "you tube" thing to show the action. I am working on that. Thanks John

Man some great stuff! Lapala is that a Snakehead? I have had Redline Snakeheads in the past in my aquariums. I had one get to 5 pounds. It was in a 200 gallon fish tank in my basement. I would feed it 8 to 10" goldfish. Rofish....... interesting stuff. I had played around with double line ties before. I ran two wires back as seperate loops into the chest cavity. I did like the results. I could never make up my mind if the unused loop was effecting the action of the bait. Bending lips...... this in my newest project at the moment. I have been playing around with a an upcurl, concave cup and and a "V" inversion. To my suprise the there is little difference in the actions with the 4 to 6 inch baits that I have been playing with. I think it may become more of a factor with the even smaller sizes. I know I am going against the grain with the line tie / tighter wobble moved closer to the body. For some odd reason I am getting a crossover effect once I pass the maximum widest wobble going to the body. I can still get it to dive deep and get stability as the whopping 1.5 to 2.3 mph speeds. I have not had good results moving the line tie forward to the front of the lip. It fights against the deeper running depths I was looking for. I need to play around with it some more this winter. Vodkaman..... how do you shape your baits? I am just curious. I don't want any trade secrets or anything. Routers , CNC , or hand shaping? It is easy for me to make the resin ones fast but I can't imagine wood ones. Matt what am I going to do with you! I wish we all had your personality including myself. The world would be a better place! What were we talking about? I have that A.D.D. thing also. Oh crap I forgot the stuff on the grill! John

Vodkaman, You are right about adding the type of finish. With my style of luremaking I use a very heavy top coat on the lures. That can be bad and good. I have one body style that I make that will not run right untill I get two coats of finish on the lure. Talk about a leap of faith! I also thought of another one that may seem small but is very important at times. It is the length or height of the line tie loop. You would be very suprised in how much this can effect the action of the lure. I think this is more inline with what LaPala is referring to in the calculation of the fulcrum point of the lure in the "Z" axis. Through much trial and error I have discovered that line tie location and line tie height are very critical in the "catch ability" of walleye baits. There is a certain pace or wobble tempo that triggers certain fish. The closer you have the line tie to the body of the bait the quicker the tempo or pace of the wobble. The closer the lie tie loop is to the face of the lip the more stable it is at a higher speed. I am honing in on the the right "Mojo" pace for walleyes. Vodkaman, I take a similiar approach to the design of the baits. I will make around 20 of them and do a similiar process in the evalution of the set. Then I get the heat gun out and drill out and start to modify the lips by bending and the drill by counter weighting. You got to the point I was hoping to lead this topic to. The "hunting" actions of baits. What I am finding is that there is a fine line to get a bait to work in that manner. You are of the edge of failure to get that action. Certian lures have it. What I am finding is that lures with flatter tails help achieve this action. With all the factors on the above list there are trade-offs with one area covering for another based on the size of the lure. If you are dealing with musky type of lures the forgiveness is greater if one area is lacking in design. The lure will still swim. As you scale down the ladder in size all of the elements become very defined. I am amazed how some of the guys can create such small lures. I started to scale down in lure sizes to fill that thirst for knowledge. I my suprise I have really enjoyed it. I have a much greater appreciation for the guys like Hazmail with his little designs. I have more thoughts to add but I am fighting a good head cold and the drips are getting worse. I'll take a break. John

I am curious on what your thoughts are in general about the actions of crankbaits. What do you think are the key aspects of a good swimming crankbait. Is it the following: The shape and width of the lip? The angle of the lip? The thickness of the lip? The placement of the line tie? The shape of the body? Is it the curve of the back? The weighting inside of the body? The bouancy of material for the bait? The size of the hooks? The placement of the hooks front to back? "Rookie" you better not say "its the paint job" John