Round Lip Vs Square Lip

[BobP]

Round versus square: Here's a Sisson P-20 deep diver which has an essentially square lip but dives and swims nicely. Come to think of it, it resembles the lip on a Hellbender except for being square versus scalloped at the end. No doubt different lip shapes tend toward different swim characteristics and it's worthwhile to take that into account if you want the whole design to come together harmoniously. But don't get too focused on one design element. Everything counts: shape, length, angle, line tie position, thickness, and how much the lip width exceeds the width of the bait body. I'm leery about "rules" concerning lip shape because I see so many successful exceptions. But as usual, Dave's experiment provides useful information that you should consider in your own designs.

Edited August 12, 2011 by BobP

[LaPala]

Round versus square: Here's a Sisson P-20 deep diver which has an essentially square lip but dives and swims nicely. Come to think of it, it resembles the lip on a Hellbender except for being square versus scalloped at the end. No doubt different lip shapes tend toward different swim characteristics and it's worthwhile to take that into account if you want the whole design to come together harmoniously. But don't get too focused on one design element. Everything counts: shape, length, angle, line tie position, thickness, and how much the lip width exceeds the width of the bait body. I'm leery about "rules" concerning lip shape because I see so many successful exceptions. But as usual, Dave's experiment provides useful information that you should consider in your own designs.

I'll second that Bob. When we change lips on a lure body and keep all other factors constant then that would reflect what different lip shape's effect on that particular body and no more. When I am designing lures, I always treat each as a complete system. Although prior knowledge and experience with what particular lip shapes can do will influence the choice and act as a starting point; keeping an open mind is important to keep us from being stuck in the perceived function of a particular lure shape.

[Vodkaman]

BobP and LaPala – valid point about designing the lure for the lip. I did acknowledge this fact in post No25, but the mammoth task of developing four lures was more than I was prepared to take on. This exercise was more of a spin-off from what I was already working on. When considering the videos, the above point should definitely be kept in mind.

Continuing from the previous video (round square lip comp), in this video I compare four lip profiles: round (7) square ( coffin (9) and shaped (10). Sorry about the length of the video, I crammed it as much as I could. Even the music track was not long enough.

Visibly, the round (7) and square ( were very similar and had a much wider action than the coffin (9) and shaped (10), whose action was rather thin. The shaped lure had quite an erratic action, as can be seen in the under water clip.

As for feel or thump, I spent quite some time on this and concluded that the square lip had more thump than the round, but there was not that much difference, but still noticeable. The coffin lip was a distant third with very noticeably less feel. The shaped lip came in fourth with slightly less than the coffin.

It is tempting to introduce a discussion about the various features of the lip profiles, to determine or theorize about what exactly causes the action and the thump, but maybe better saved for another thread.

I will have to add to my list of future projects, some way of measuring the ‘thump’, as this important characteristic was quite difficult to assess manually.

I am now officially sick of flat sided baits and looking forward to moving onto another project.

TaTa

D

[littleriver]

Thank you Dave.

Your work has not gone in vein. I for one

now know considerable more about the lips

I am gluing to baits. And have a much better

idea which bill to use on a lure depending on

intended use. Thank you........Vic

[MikePaintsBaits]

Laughing @ The Adult Videos ,

Thanks For The Laugh & Great Info On The Lips.

Mike P.

[diemai]

Though I don't really have something to add to it , .........a very nice thread and discussion , ......thanks a lot for sharing your experiments , Dave !

greetz , Dieter

[Big Bass Man]

Awesome video Dave, Thanks for sharing!! I will definately be looking over this thread, the next several days, trying to figure out what lips to use on the baits I carved.

Patrick

[sambennett]

Hey Dave-

Playing catch-up on this thread, thanks for posting. What type of wood are you building these baits from? Very nice video, thoroughly enjoyed the music, sir.

-sam

[Vodkaman]

Glad you liked the vids, I have been having fun experimenting with the music.

The wood that I settled on is abache. It is a medium density, around 0.5 specific gravity. It has good strength around the hinge pins, shapes nicely and seems to swim not so bad either. This wood is readily available to me, being a common building material locally.

The type of wood that you choose has no effect, it is all about the density, but I have found that even this does not have a significant effect on action. The beauty of a heavier wood is that less room is required for ballast. Don't get too heavy though, as ballast is required.

Dave

[A-Mac]

good vidz for sure