Glider/spook Style Bait.... What Am I Doing Wrong

[Matt Moreau]

Man I cant get an action that I like for the life of me on these things... I carved a master from basswood and made a mold out of RTV. I have poured 6 of these thus far with different ratios of floatant. It seems to get brittle if I go much more than 1-1 on the micro baloons so thats where I stopped... then I have messed with tow line tie placement, weighting placement and weight. I can get them to walk somewhat but they all have a tendancy to dive under the surface and roll/rock side to side more than i would like to see.

90-95% of the weight is as far back as I can get on all the models. some have a lil if any at the hook hanger in the mid section just to try to stableize it a little.

I am thinking that maybe I just cant get enogh bouyancy to weight properly to get that nice punker or spook action. My design is about the same volume as a 6' punker and just a classic fish shape.... Any help or ideas would be awesome!

Thanks in advance,

Matt

[RiverMan]

My experiece has been the same............you can get them to work "ok" but not great. I have built several gliders from molds and although they will work none of them have been nearly as good as some of the wood gliders I have built.

Jed

[mark poulson]

I haven't yet poured a lure from anything but soft plastic, so I can't help you with your resin question.

By and large, I think you want a surface lure to be as buoyant as possible, to give you the liveliest action, and the most lattitude in ballasting.

But having the lure sit down in the water moves more water, attracting attention in rougher water, or at night, so that's why I seat them the way I do.

I've made them from Douglas Fir, Pine, Poplar, Balsa, and finally PVC decking. For one piece lures, where water intrusion isn't a big issue, wood works fine.

Take a good look at a similar lure that you like, and see if you can't duplicate how it sits in the water, and it's general shape, so you're not starting from square 1.

I've found that weighting them 40/60, so they float almost level with the front 1/3 to 1/2 of the top out of the water is the ticket, at least for me.

Having the center of gravity just past midpoint makes the rear want to keep moving after the front slows down, which is what you need in a walking/gliding bait. I do a preliminary test by balancing the lure blank over a pencil on my workbench. I adjust the weighting of the lure until the balance point is just past the center point. If I had to give a formula, I'd guess 40/60 is about right.

Bigger walking/glide have a lot of water resistence. So the deeper the tail sits in the water, the harder you have to work to get them up and walking, and to keep them walking. Smaller lures, like spooks, can still walk with the tail down, but big ones need some help.

I make my shorter 4" lures hang with the tail slightly lower. That way, they walk the dog better, but they don't glide as far or as easily.

A tip for deciding how to weight a lure is to consider that the longer the lure is, the more water resistence it has, and so the higher you'll want it to float at rest.

My balance point is just back of the mid point, and, taking a cue from the Lunker Punker, and the Pupfish and Dog X before that, I make the shape of the bottom like a flat banana, with the front "chest" flatter, to help get the lure up and walking, and the rear 2/3rds more rounded, to reduce water resistence on the change of direction.

Hope this helps.

[Matt Moreau]

Lots of good info for me to test with. Thanks for taking the time Mark. Looks like i gotta play around a bit when i have some time.

[diemai]

@ LKN4DDB

Very thorough and informative explanations made by Mark !

I have also made a few wooden spooks after the traditional "cigar" shape , ........I had found out , that the more you put the weight to the rear , the sharper offset , but less far the sideward darting action would be .......the more positioned forward(within the boundaries that Mark has stated) the further the the sideward glide after each jerk or flick of the rod would be , ........if ballast is placed too much forward , the lure would tend to just glide forward without any pronounced sideward tendency .

Off course also the shape of the body has to be taken into consideration , with a strongly tapered tail not so much ballast could be placed into it , thus the glide might also not be that pronounced , ....in particular without a streamlined front portion .

I never made much experiments about such shapes , for me the old "Heddon Spook" cigar-shape works best !

good luck , diemai

Edited May 21, 2010 by diemai

[RiverMan]

It has more to do with the physics of the resin than anything. I can make almost any wood shape walk the dog but take that same shape and mold it out of solid resin and it's almost impossible. You can get them to work "ok" but not great.....it's really weird.

Maybe vodkaman can explain why this is....................I have made lures of wood that work perfectly. Mold them, then make a resin blank that weighs the exact same amount as the wood version and it won't work at all.

Jed

[mark poulson]

It has more to do with the physics of the resin than anything. I can make almost any wood shape walk the dog but take that same shape and mold it out of solid resin and it's almost impossible. You can get them to work "ok" but not great.....it's really weird.

Maybe vodkaman can explain why this is....................I have made lures of wood that work perfectly. Mold them, then make a resin blank that weighs the exact same amount as the wood version and it won't work at all.

Jed

Jed,

That is weird! Maybe the wood has a spirit of it's own......

[Vodkaman]

The only explanation can be a difference in density. Resin mixed with MB's is a lot denser than the woods that we generally use. If you are weighing the resin blanks and they weigh the same as the original wood, then I cannot offer an explanation.

Dave

[gunnie3035]

I made a copy of a discontined topwater spook type bait out of a 50/50 resin mix. I had to lighten up the hardware and use light wire hooks to reduce drag, but I didn't put any weight in it all and it swims great. Of course this is a 4.5" bait maybe that is the difference.

[Matt Moreau]

Ok, playing with the weights has made a differance but still cant get that great action I was hoping for. I think it does boil down to the resin and just cant match the density/bouyancy of wood. I would love to hear others thoughts too.

[gunnie3035]

Ok, playing with the weights has made a differance but still cant get that great action I was hoping for. I think it does boil down to the resin and just cant match the density/bouyancy of wood. I would love to hear others thoughts too.

Dont know what kind of mold your using, but how about this idea; pour the bottom1/4 of the bait with a 75% resin 25% Mb mix. Then pour the other 3/4 of the bait with the normal 50/50 resin/Mb mixture. This would even out the ballast over the length and I would think it should swim great.

[BrownPigs]

Here is another way to get the buoyancy you want. It is easy to do with walking baits since they are just one piece. You use a hard resin shell and then a 610 foam inside. Here is a video explaining it a little more.

[Matt Moreau]

Here is a pic of the glider in question...

[RiverMan]

Dont know what kind of mold your using, but how about this idea; pour the bottom1/4 of the bait with a 75% resin 25% Mb mix. Then pour the other 3/4 of the bait with the normal 50/50 resin/Mb mixture. This would even out the ballast over the length and I would think it should swim great.

This is a good idea and worth a try.

Jed