swimbait joints

[mark poulson]

Has anyone tried reversing the male/female joints on a swimbait, so the concave face is on the front of each section?

I'm thinking about trying it, but was hoping someone here might have some experience that would smooth out my learning curve.

[Mountain Man 26]

That is what spro did with the BBZ1. Check it out.

[matt duarte]

thats the bbz shad if im not mistaken right? that shad bait has awesome action!

[mark poulson]

That's where I got the idea originally. I just wondered if anyone here had tried it.

I threw the 4" shad for the first time Sat. am, and caught a nice fish on it. I threw the slow sink, in grey back, white sides and belly, and it swam great, slow, fast, and on the rip/pause/rip retrieve that I got bit on.

[matt duarte]

right on that cool! ive been meaning to pick one of those up.. but i think im gonna go for the triple trout and the lunker plunker

[mark poulson]

matt,

With your growing skills, you can make yourselrf a Triple Trout and a Lunker Punker. Give them a try before you buy.

I down loaded pictures of both, printed them, then used my dinosaur-era copier to blow them up to the size I wanted to make.

Close counts with both these lures.

I won't even try to make a BBZ 4" shad knockoff. The hinge hardware and joints are just too small for me to fool with.

Plus Bill Siemental is a lot bigger than me.

[matt duarte]

haha i just saw some of his videos... that guy sure knows how to work that bbz! ive been messing with a few trout bodies... so far i got a 3 piece and a 4 piece trout 8" long including the tail... now that i got the idea on the water proof and the top coat steps i can get these prototypes on the water. the lunker plunker is another story for some reason thats a hard bait for me to get right..

[mark poulson]

Matt,

The Punker is just a surface glide bait, like a big spook.

The front 1/3 of the belly is flat and angled down, to get the bait up and gliding over the water quickly. Try to weight it so it sits just a little tail down.

I just made a quick one in the garage this afternoon, 4 1/2" long and about 1 3/4oz., and it took about two hours, including painting.

Of course, I rushed the paint job, because sometimes I'm an impatient idiot, but tomorrow I'll add the shad dot (it has a sexy shad paint scheme), eyes, glitter, and the first coat of epoxy.

I have a cheap tupperware filled with water next to my work bench, and I float test small lures in it. A punker needs to float with 2/3 of the back out of the water at rest, with the tail down just a little. Typically, the center of gravity is just behind the mid point.

And it's important to round the back two thirds of the bottom, from the ramped "chest" back, because it makes it easier for the lure to turn in the water and change direction. Too square a cross section will make walking it much harder, due to increased water resistance.

[matt duarte]

mark you sir are a wealth of information and i thank you for it.. ill have to give it another try... a lot of the time i think i go overkill, i like big baits even though i never catch a bass on these big boys theres always that chance!

[mark poulson]

Glad to help.

You won't get bit if you don't throw them, so I always have at least one swimbait rod on my deck, rigged and ready.

Winter is a great time for catching big fish.

[matt duarte]

since the subject is swimbait joints... what do you think on the space between the joint? you think the distance matters? like the swimbaits i made theres a little gap compared to others where theres little to no gap... i mean how good can bass see? i would think its a reaction strike so there not paying "that" close attention...right..

[mark poulson]

Matt,

I think you're right, the joint size isn't that important in terms of looks to the fish, because it is a reaction bite most of the time.

Hit it, or miss a meal.

After all, unless a bass has been caught on a jointed bait already and can remember it, they don't know what joints are.

I've seen lures here whose joint faces are colored red, and so they flash red as they swim, and I think that would be an additional triggering mechanism. Wounded prey.

I would say that a rule of thumb is, if you're throwing a swimbait where there are big bass, if a bait swims well, and resembles a prey species, it will get bit.

Big bass are supreme predators, and so are pike and muskie, and they would rather spit out an unpleasant morsel than miss a meal.

So I let the joint spacing be governed by the action I need in a bait, and the physical requirements for clearance to allow free movement of the sections.

I think we lure makers sometimes get caught up in trying to make the "perfect" lure, but that's to impress ourselves and other lure makers, not fish.

A lure that doesn't swim right, whose sections bind and stick, will never get bit, unless it lands right on top of a bass who strikes defensively.

Edited December 11, 2008 by mark poulson