gordon

Here is what I have so far, I thought I was on to a winner until I took it for it's first swim. Those top and bottom fins at the rear kill the action, take them off and it swims great.

Thanks for the replies, I will have a play and report back with my results. I have some zonker strips in my fly tying kit. Nathan - Love your website, that rodent is cool :-)

I am constructing some Bluegill swimbaits, complete with Dorsal and Anal fins along with a tail fin. They are made from Lexan which is what I normally use for hard swimbait tails. The Dorsal and anal fins are swept back slightly to imitate a Bluegill swimming. When I tank tested my first bait I found that the dorsal and anal fin severely restricted the action of these baits. When I take the fins off, the action is great with plenty of movement. Has anyone out there had success using soft materials that flex well for a fin material? I am sure with flexible fins my Bluegills will swim better with fins on. I am going to attempt to make a POP mold out of the hard fins and cast some soft fins from soft plastic, I will add a lot of hardener to it to try and up the durability. Durability is my main concern with using soft fins.

Hot Oil and Water is far safer than screwing up my wifes hair straightener. Great topic, thanks, I may have to buy a hair straightner of my own :-)

I only ever add to finished baits, diluted with worm oil. I don't use much scent at all, the finished baits soak the scent up with the oil.

I have a 17ft Aluminum open Jon boat with a tiller engine. I built it by converting an old Tracker Bass boat, ripping out the console ect in the middle. I also shortened the raised deck at the back by 2ft as I did not need livewells. I now have an 8ft lower deck. I have used this boat since 2006 with no problems whatsoever.

I own 2 boats, a NauticStar 18ft Bay Boat with a 90hp Yamaha and an old 17ft Tracker Aluminum jon boat with a 25HP tiller Yamaha. I recently purchased and fitted Nauticus trim tabs to my bay boat, the difference is night and day - faster planing at lower speeds, smooths out the bumps, feels nice and flat when making tight turns. Having realized that Trim tabs are very positive for smaller craft, I am in the middle of constructing some for my Jon boat. These will be made of Aircraft grade aluminum and also be adjustable with some kind of turnbuckle arrangement. The sides of the tabs will be reinforced with 90 degree aluminum elbow which may also help with how they run in the water too. Anyone out there had a go at making trim tabs before?

Thanks for the feedback, I definately agree that the mass of the bait is dictating the action rather than the bib. I decided to try a wedge bib as you say, no difference. I then put the same wedge bib up front right near the line tie - sucess - nice swimming action, the only problem is I have now made a shallow diving plug, which I am sure I can use. I used carved PVC for these baits; although bouyant, I think I need a more bouyant material such as balsa. I think had my baits been made with this I would have now acheived my goal. As the extra bouyancy would keep the bait afloat, this very property of the bib trying to pull the bait down and the bouyancy keeping it afloat should cause a very nice "disturbance" on the surface of the water. So far, I have only played with PVC for my swimbaits and these wakebaits. My reason for doing was that it is easy to carve plus there are no water logging issues. Are there any more bouyant materials (Plastics) that I could use? I now will of course have a go at a Balsa or Cedar wakebait too. Another question, that I have been thinking about for some time......... A lot of surface baits are jointed, a lot have a single body. In my mind, if a surface bait has a good side to side action, the single bodied bait would move more water and create more of a disturbance, becasue the jointed bait would follow the first section rather than kicking out more. Is this the case?

Here is a picture of 2 of the baits, they are 6 - 7inches long with the tail. Ballast has been removed at the moment, they sit well in the water with the ballast of the 2/0 trebles. The lips were origionally small and square, I also tried a larger round lip as you may find on an MS Slammer. I am thinking I may need to make these thinner or shape them differently to get them to work. My bait making so far has been large swimbaits carved from PVC which have all worked fine for me so far. I may need some more finesse in my designs for hardbaits other than swimbaits.

That did not work for me either. My design must be missing something fundamental. On a 2 sectioned wake bait do the sections have to be a certain dimension? Front section bigger than the rear or vice versa, or do they have to be the same? Or does it not matter? I used Baseboard PVC as this is what I had success with making swimbaits. Do I need to try something more bouyant which will enable me to carefully place some ballast? If so, where should the ballast be placed? These baits are oval in profile, I see the MS Slammer for example is very round, do I need a round profile to achive some action? Lots of questions....

So far, my efforts have been less than successful. I made 3 single jointed wakebaits from PVC, by the time I added ballast, foil, epoxy, hooks ect they barely floated, one of them sank. I then read about building MS Slammer type baits and that you do not really need any ballast as the 2/0 hooks will do the job. I drilled out all the lead ballast from one and that cured one problem, floats real good, hooks are enough to provide adequate keel weight. My other problem is they will not swim, I the joints are real loose with a good gap and no binding. I have tried small square lips (like on a redfin plug) at 85 degrees all they way to 60 degrees. I have also tried this with larger round lips, and larger square ones too. Any advice would be appreciated. The lips position is just below the eye of these baits. The irony of this is, these are the first 2 sectioned swimbaits I have made, had I made my usual 3 sections baits with no weight they would swim fine. I may just go and drill the ballast out of some of my 3 sectioned swimbaits and have done with it.

They sell it in a roll as gift wrap in Hobby World.