Ultralight Minnow Wire Choices

[Stonepointer]

A while back, I carved a couple of small minnow lures from some firewood scraps and did not really know how to go about putting hook hanging hardware on them.

 

 

The minnows are 2  9/16" long by 5/16" thick, one piece minnow lures and I eventually decided to have some kind of through-wire riding under them deeper in a saw kerf on the bottom of the minnow and then epoxy over the through wire.

 

I am not ever sure about how to go about setting up hook hangers on the shorter carving.
 

My first mistake was how the wire was to be twisted and I subsequently made a closed wire eye loop at 2 ends with a twisted hanging loop at the bottom and epoxied the wire in the kerf with the barrel twists on the outside ends.

 

When I first did this, I was guessing on how this should be done and I guessed wrong because when a fish fights they will bend and weaken the wire at ends.

 

My second and much bigger mistake was the kind of wire I used which was just happened to be convenient to at the time.  It is jewelry craft wire about .026" thick and it bends too easily.

 

Although there are ways to strengthen it with different twists, this stuff is not really suited to every fishing application.

 

I suppose it might be a little stronger if I epoxied the barrel twists into the kerfs.

 

I am wondering what would be the best kind of wire for an ultralight lure this small?

 

It might be too late for one of these potential lures, but I might try to salvage it if possible, by placing epoxy over the ends. 

 

I don't want to make the same mistake on the other one.

[Stonepointer]

Correction on wire size it is about 22 gauge I think.

[stretcher66]

here is a good link from one of the treads here on this forum that might help get you started in the right direction, or do a search on here for "thru wire" or "through wire"

http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/topic/25937-proper-assembly-for-pre-cut-flat-sided-balsa-blanks/?hl=%2Bthru+%2Bwire

[A-Mac]

I purchased some torsioned stainless steel wire from luremaking.com a few years back.  That stuff is crazy strong in comparison to anything you buy in the store.  

 

http://luremaking.com/catalogue/catalogue-index/catalogue-items/wire_shafts.htm

[Stonepointer]

Thank you for the answers.

 

I have been thinking about ordering some of that McMaster-Carr SS soft temper wire, that I found using the search engine here.

 

I am not sure, but It seems as though jewelry craft wire has a different gauging standard than most other types of wire.

 

I can't really decide on what gauge to use from McMaster-Carr but I think most lure wire sizes are somewhere close to .041", so maybe I will try that.

 

The .032" and down is probably too narrow for my purposes on this.

 

I have some 6" SS closed loop wire for making inline lures at .031", but I think it is too narrow and probably too stiff for my uses in a wooden lure.

 

 

[RayburnGuy]

I use the .032" soft temper wire from McMaster Carr on my bass sized lures for line ties and hook hangers. Since I started building lures the largest bass I've caught on one of my own is 7 1/2 lbs. and there were no problems handling one that size with the .032" wire. Unlike the lures in your photo at the top of the page the eye in my hook hangers fit close to the body. This cuts down on the amount of leverage a fish can put on the wire.

 

Ben