Crankbaits That Hunt....why?

[Vodkaman]

Sorry Rofish, My mistake. I remember having discussions with someone who was studying fluids at the time, 2 - 3 years ago.

The action that I have experienced, is a zig zag pattern. The lure swims of at angle, then changes direction. The pattern is symmetrical about the line of retrieval. I built about fifty lures, varying the lip angle and geometry. They all hunted, but to different degrees. The hunting that I have seen in my lures varies from the slightest movement offset from centre to a swim so wild, you might think that the predator could not possibly catch the bait.

I find that the hunter is a combination of lip angle, geometry and ballast location.

Dave

[MR KNOW IT ALL KIND OF]

Rofish, yes I am convinced that their are more causes for hunting. True, I have only found one of them, but up until Rookies post, I haven't been tempted to look for more.

So far, I cannot get my rudimentary knowledge of fluids to explain a hunting action from Rookies gills. This probably just means that I need to learn more. What are your thoughts, as you studied fluids, if I remember right?

Dave

Dave the Gill thing is just a theory. I dont know how the heck I did it but something throws that design off balance yet keeps it in the water if that makes sense. But you were right its a square bill lip that hunts the best on that body.. However some of the deep divers I have made out of the same body hunt just not as dramatic as the square shallow runners do. not going to post any pictures.. but if you look at my site im sure you will figure out the bait it is.. you have seen it before in the gallery.. However the HOOCHIEMOMMA is still my favorite! So you all can take your huntin happy crankbaits and go kill a duck,bear,deer or possum with them... I got hogs to catch and those big girls already know about your JEDI WAYS that make crankbaits HUNT. BUT, THEY CANT RESIST SOMETHING as PURDY AS A HOOCHIEMOMMA that goes clack a lacka hog moetacka!

Edited July 28, 2010 by The_Rookie

[mark poulson]

From my experience, moving some additional ballast up on top of the crank, which affects the wobble or roll, not the wiggle, leads to the kind of instability that, if borderline, leads to hunting. I know there is a proper term for the axis I'm talking about, but I don't know what it is.

I play around with suspend dots on stock cranks, putting them on the top of the lures near the bill, and slightly off center, and sometimes, only sometimes, I can get one to hunt.

I also have a few shallow running jerkbaits with narrow bills that will hunt if I use a fast retrieve. Great over submerged grass.

Chatterbaits hunt, too, when burned back to the boat.

Has anyone here put a chatterbait blade in front of a crank? Hm....now let me think.....

[crankbait321]

It seems it's a combination of body shape, bill size/shape, but probably most importantly ballast. Prime example would be the old bagley baits.

[Mags]

I think a fast retrieve is critical to getting a bait to hunt and getting more strikes with a crankbait. If you can retrive the bait fast enough so it's just about ready to roll you'll get it to hunt, although not all baits will do it. Some track straight as an arrow no matter what. I think some weight up high also helps, as it causes instability from the center point of the wobble. Rick Clunn has always been a proponent of cranking square bills fast. He in fact says that the guy that invented the first squarebill (the Big O) showed him how to fish it and it was as fast as he could reel it. Here's a link to the story on it http://www.fishingworld.com/pro-rickclunn/crankbaits/

Pretty interesting stuff.

[blackjack]

First and foremost a hunting crankbait is not some magical crankbait that will catch you a 40 pound limit everytime out.There are days when a fish will not touch a hunting bait and want the "William Tell" bait that comes straight back to the boat in a perfectly straight line. You don't need a PHD or have recieved enlightenment from the Dalai Lama to make a hunting bait.

There are quite a few factors that can contribute to making a bait hunt. The angle of the lip, the shape of the lip, line tie placement, wire harness placement,type of wire used for the line tie, shape and profile of the bait, and placement of the ballast weight.

The easist way to start experimenting is to adjust the placement of the ballast weight in a bait. The attached 3 diagrams will get you started in the right direction. Most bait makers will not tell you directly how they can get a bait to hunt. With the diagrams you must assume that all three of the baits are properly made and as close to identical as a handmade bait can be. One of the hardest parts of designing a bait that will hunt is to accurately mark where the horizontal centerline of the bait is. I am certainly not going to lay it all out here on this forum so you are gonna have to do your homework. I figured it out on my own you need to do your homework to recieve enlightenment!! This by the way is my Big O Diagram!!

Edited July 29, 2010 by blackjack

[Lure--Prof]

I like hunting lures, as do many experienced fishermen. Dave, to add to what you said about instinct, predator fish like bass also learn through conditioning, which is pretty obvious to anglers who fish highly pressured water. Of course which actions works best is a large can of worms, having to do with many factors such as seasonal behavior patterns, primary forage at any time, and water temperature and clarity which can determine how a predator like a largemouth bass tracks his prey, which can be any combination of eyesight and lateral line stimulus. An erratic lure action as produced through the rod tip is often a trigger in clear water and less so in murky water where a more normally swimming "unsuspecting" prey which can be easily tracked with the lateral line may be the best trigger. Fishing water which is normally clear, and fishing water which is normally murky, are very often two different things.

As far as Rick Clunn's cranking lesson goes, one has to remember that "burning" a crankbait is much different in 2010 than it was in the 1970's, when there was not a baitcasting reel on the market which would retrieve a lure as fast as a modern "slow" or "power" retrieve cranking reels do now, much less compared to the "high speed" reels of today.

Hunting is mostly about weight distribution in reference to centerline. Weight distribution is most easily manipulated with ballast in lightweight wood crankbaits that have a bit of belly to them, or area below centerline and a normal corresponding area above.

Hunting action in most mass produced lures is a "happy accident" normally caused by some deviation from specifacation; while hunting action by a good custom luremaker is done by adhering to the specifications he knows will cause the action to repeat in all his lures, as Dave and Blackjack and others have learned. Yes, repeating hunting action can be designed into the lure. If a custom lure builder misses his spec. mark slightly, then the lure may blow out, or have a more normal single wiggling action. Hunting action is not at all exclusive to shallow running square-billed lures. It wasn't very long ago that some anglers thought it was the brass wire that caused this action in certain baits. For anyone who still thinks so, it is not, but it is a good example of convoluted logic.

[Mags]

I agree on the brass line tie. I don't think that had anything to do with it, yet on Ebay Bagleys with the brass tie were going for outrageous prices. It was probably more that when bagleys was making them with the brass tie they had a lack of consistency with making their baits and some of them had the ballast off-center or higher in the bait and they hunted when cranked fast. Most of the squarebill afficianados will tell you that maybe one out of every ten baits back in the day would hunt. Some of the guys from Missouri that fished Truman a lot advocated bending the line tie down on the bait closer to the bill to make the bait hunt. I don't know if this really works on a squarebill, but on a bagleys bang-o-lure you get a whole different action when you bend the line tie down. The bait swings much more left and right. It is a lot more erratic. I crank with a 6:1 Curado and I usually turn the reel handle about as fast as I can with a squarebill. I do the same with big deep diving crankbaits, most of the time, but especially in the summer. A fast moving bait triggers strikes, even when they don't really want to bite.

[Travis]

When I first read the topic I had feeling that we might see a post or two from some seasoned crank guys.

[mark poulson]

Bending the line tie down makes sense, because it lowers the centerline of the lure, effectively raising the center of gravity.

[MR KNOW IT ALL KIND OF]

I like hunting lures, as do many experienced fishermen. Dave, to add to what you said about instinct, predator fish like bass also learn through conditioning, which is pretty obvious to anglers who fish highly pressured water. Of course which actions works best is a large can of worms, having to do with many factors such as seasonal behavior patterns, primary forage at any time, and water temperature and clarity which can determine how a predator like a largemouth bass tracks his prey, which can be any combination of eyesight and lateral line stimulus. An erratic lure action as produced through the rod tip is often a trigger in clear water and less so in murky water where a more normally swimming "unsuspecting" prey which can be easily tracked with the lateral line may be the best trigger. Fishing water which is normally clear, and fishing water which is normally murky, are very often two different things.

As far as Rick Clunn's cranking lesson goes, one has to remember that "burning" a crankbait is much different in 2010 than it was in the 1970's, when there was not a baitcasting reel on the market which would retrieve a lure as fast as a modern "slow" or "power" retrieve cranking reels do now, much less compared to the "high speed" reels of today.

Hunting is mostly about weight distribution in reference to centerline. Weight distribution is most easily manipulated with ballast in lightweight wood crankbaits that have a bit of belly to them, or area below centerline and a normal corresponding area above.

Hunting action in most mass produced lures is a "happy accident" normally caused by some deviation from specifacation; while hunting action by a good custom luremaker is done by adhering to the specifications he knows will cause the action to repeat in all his lures, as Dave and Blackjack and others have learned. Yes, repeating hunting action can be designed into the lure. If a custom lure builder misses his spec. mark slightly, then the lure may blow out, or have a more normal single wiggling action. Hunting action is not at all exclusive to shallow running square-billed lures. It wasn't very long ago that some anglers thought it was the brass wire that caused this action in certain baits. For anyone who still thinks so, it is not, but it is a good example of convoluted logic.

AND THAT IS WHY I HIRED YOU DINO! Cause your slightly off center...."At this time I would also like to thank the Dalai Lama for his advice and help too!"

[

[blackjack]

AND THAT IS WHY I HIRED YOU DINO! Cause your slightly off center...."At this time I would also like to thank the Dalai Lama for his advice and help too!"

You know what the Dalai Lama says,"Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-lagunga"

[BobP]

Bending the line tie down will increase the amount of yaw. That's the left/right movement around the bait's center of horizontal rotation. You can see it most easily on trolling lures and guys who troll lures have been doing it for decades. It may amplify an existing tendency to hunt by bringing the pull point of the lure closer to the level of the ballast. But that alone isn't sufficient to make a hunting crankbait. Look at a Lucky Craft RC 1.5. Its line tie is right down on the lip surface but they won't hunt (nor will most Japanese baits). And since they catch lots of fish and are one of the more popular shallow crankbaits around, who cares? I don't understand every crankbait dynamic that causes hunting behavior so won't be coy about it or slyly suggest there's some secret available to only the cognoscenti. I don't think there is. Like a lot of builders, I have a couple of shallow crankbait designs that will hunt reliably. I build them alongside other designs that never will - and I don't want ALL crankbaits to hunt. The hunters are built of buoyant wood with slightly oversize lips (not square in my case) set at about 45 degrees, ballast shifted somewhat forward from "normal" and the line tie sitting right down on the lip surface. Everything is built straight and square. They have heavy 'thump' and approach instability - but never so unstable that they blow out, even when reeled fast. This thread has a lot of good info about the why and how of hunting but you don't see any formulas and I don't think you can generalize too much from a specific crankbait design. At least that's my Wild Ass Guess

[mark poulson]

Wild Ass Guess works for me!