Flat Bait Shapes

[flipper2]

I'm new to building baits and was wonder why some of the flat sided baits have an arched back with the tail section angled downward instead of straight. Also, how does this affect the action? I am trying to get more of a thumping action out of mine if possible. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[saltwater]

Good question flipper2, the experts here at TU will have their opinions for sure.

I'm not an expert but I am a keen observer.

 

You will hear how injured/dying fish tend to swim up towards the surface and drop down tail first as they are dying. This could be why many flat baits are designed to sink tail first.

 

Most sport fishing fish are wider at the belly, the health ones anyway. So one could assume an arched back and thin belly bait would appear as a sick/injured fish.

 

Keep in mind most artificial baits are designed for fisherman not fish. 

[BobP]

I make flat sided baits, both shallow runners with various lip shapes lips and medium runners with coffin shaped lips.  Of the two, the medium runners are much more tricky to get to thump properly.  I believe that any change, even small, always has an effect - but how a down turned tail versus a more straight tail design affects performance is unclear to me.  And that's after hundreds of baits.  So unless someone has an opinion based on testing you can believe, it's up to you to draw your own conclusions.  Personally, I doubt that anyone can satisfy my idea of what constitutes valid testing on this one design point - but I'd be very happy to be proven wrong.

 

All I can say for sure is that the medium running flat side with coffin lip that I build has a drooping tail and after many experimental batches and years of trying, I got one that works the way I want.  So yep, every future batch will have the same drooping tail.

[flipper2]

Thanks for responding Saltwater and Bobp. I was just curious,  personally I love the appearance of the coffin bill and curved tail. I just hope these north Florida bass will find them appealing...... 

[BobP]

I think (and this is partly conjecture) that a drooping tail tends to stabilize the bait versus a straight tail because the weight of the tail hanger hardware and the treble/split ring is lower relative to the bait's center line.  If you look at successful commercial wood baits of this type, including the Zoom Tapp and many others, most of them have at least moderate tail droop.  These baits usually have a tight wobble and some body roll at the same time, which I like.  Some guys only fish such baits in early spring but I like them year-round.  In my experience, the lip size, angle, and especially the location of the line tie are critical to good performance.  But of course there are no unimportant details.

[RayburnGuy]

Ballast location, and how much ballast is used, also has a dramatic effect on the action of a lure. I haven't come up with a way to figure out the optimum location for the type of action I want without building a couple of baits and testing them. Some of the guys may have figured a way to do this, but I still have to test different body shapes, lip shapes, size and angle, amount of ballast and location, etc. etc.

 

Anything you do to a lure has an effect on it. Some more so than others. Once you build a few you will start to get an idea of what it will take, but so far I haven't been able to say I'm going to do this, this and that and the bait is going to react a certain way.  And that's not a bad thing in my opinion. Sometimes you'll stumble onto something that turns out even better than what you originally had in mind.

 

good luck,

 

Ben

[Don-Art]

I agree with all the points discussed in the previous responses. I might add that in certain circumstances, a curved tail section is used to keep the rear hook in a more level plane to counter the dive angle.

Don

[mark poulson]

Does the curved tail with the hook on the underside, like on a Wiggle Wart, make a crank less likely to snag?

[BobP]

I think the lower the tail hook is situated, the more it will tend to snag, all things being equal.  I think it's a minor thing because snag prevention is mostly about the rest of the bait - the attitude of the bait and the degree to which the lip protects the underside of the bait while it swims.

[Vodkaman]

This is a fascinating subject and is bringing out a lot
of relevant ideas and opinions.

 

I have spent a lot of time over the years doing tank
test, experimenting with lips, body shapes, tow eye positions and various
ballast ideas.

 

My opinion is that the ballast, other than keeping a
central grouping, is the least important. It satisfies static shape in the
water, so that the bait sits upright and the lip gets a good start with the
retrieve. The central grouping of the ballast promotes a wide action. If you
want a narrow action, spread the ballast and/or use a denser wood.

 

The most critical attributes are the lip width/length,
tow eye position and body back width/length.

 

I have mentioned this before, but it also happens that
these three features are all connected very closely in the dynamic or moving
attitude of the lure, which is quite different (usually) than the static
balance. This is because the forces due to the moving water are far greater
than the effects of ballast.

 

If the lure swims correctly then the lure is in balance,
between the water forces pressing on the lip which rotate the lure nose down,
the water forces on the body which rotate the lure nose up and the tow eye
which is the pivot point between the two forces.

 

If you make a second identical lure, but with the tail
curving down, you effectively reduce the forces on the back. The lip forces
will cause the lure to dig deeper at the lip and possibly give more thump. The
lure will still swim shallower than it did before, as the lip would be getting
closer to vertical in the swim attitude. This is assuming that the lure still
swims of course.

 

The same effect can be had by increasing the lip length
or moving the tow eye upwards. It is all about three separate features which
all affect the same function.

 

Another thing that will be noticed, is that the faster
the retrieve, the more effect the lip has compared with the effect of the body.
This is because the lip is a knife edge compared with the rounded body. As the
velocity increases, the vortices or water effects increase at a higher rate
than those around the rounded body.

 

Eventually, as the speed increases, the lure will start
to hunt, as the lip passes through the vertical. Much faster than this and the
lure will likely blow out.

 

This is not theorizing, but my interpretation of my
experiments in the test tank. It is open to discussion or disagreement.

 

Dave

[mark poulson]

Dave,

Does this mean that a deep diver with a lip more aligned with the center line of that bait, front to back, dives deeper because it takes longer for it to reach the point where it is vertical in the water and no longer dives?

[Seeking 56]

I've noticed the action differences in ballast location on my hardwood gliders but not so much on my hardwood lipped baits. Prior to this thread I never really gave it much thought as my main concern was to keep the lure upright and suspending. 

 

There is a noticeable difference though when using different wood density especially when I switch over to Ash from Mahoganey.  As Ash being more dense it produces a more subtle action and is not as lively as Mahoganey.  These wood characteristics make a big difference in the fall when the water is colder.

 

Another factor to consider is hooks.  For example, going from a 3x to a 6x 5/0 treble really dampens the action on some musky lures. 

 

s56 

[Don-Art]

This is very interesting discussion. I like to think in terms of the body to lip pivot point as the fulcrum point. Would there actually be a secondary pivot point in the opposite direction, that controls the body rotation in the left to right direction. This might explain the difference in action, when changing treble size. In effect each variable is changing the lures C.O.G. to a degree?

Don

[Seeking 56]

Could be in left field here but, wouldn't an arched back cause a lure to run horizontally as opposed to a 30 - 45 degree angle?  Would it be a fair assumption to say that water is to lures what air is to automobiles.  A downward force on a sloped back would keep both back ends down?

 

Dave?

[robalo01]

I think I will now have install a spoiler on my next diver

[robalo01]

My opinion is that the ballast, other than keeping a
central grouping, is the least important. It satisfies static shape in the
water, so that the bait sits upright and the lip gets a good start with the
retrieve. The central grouping of the ballast promotes a wide action. If you
want a narrow action, spread the ballast and/or use a denser wood.

 

The most critical attributes are the lip width/length,
tow eye position and body back width/length.

 

 

 

Dave,

 

So, by this reasoning, would it be possible to have multiple baits with identical shape, materials and ballast perform effectively but differently by changing the one or more of the other factors such as lip size, shape, angle, lure tie?

 

Stephen

[HAWGFAN]

So, by this reasoning, would it be possible to have multiple baits with identical shape, materials and ballast perform effectively but differently by changing the one or more of the other factors such as lip size, shape, angle, lure tie?

 

 

 

I routinely use the same body style and ballast weight/location to achieve different diving and action characteristics.  These are basic rules of thumb, and there may be some exceptions, but here's my thought process:

Shallower-line tie in bait or steeper bill angle, Deeper-line tie in bill or flatter bill angle

Tighter Action-flatter bill angle or square bill, Wider Action-steeper bill angle or round bill

 

As you see, some changes can have multiple effects.  When you put the line tie in the bill, then that gives you even more freedom to experiment.  Bill length and line tie position will have an effect.  It's a balancing act to get the depth and action you want.  

 

I usually don't get too aggressive with bill length when trying something new.  You may wind up with a tighter action than you want, but at least it's a functioning bait that won't blow out.  Since this thread is referring to flat baits, they are more forgiving in this area, in my opinion.  I've put some really large bills in my flatsides, in what I considered to be fairly aggressive configurations, and they always seem to run true.

[BobP]

My thought is the fore-aft position of the ballast may not have as much effect in shallow divers as for deep divers - but I do feel a noticeable effect and in general the more forward the ballast, the more and the sharper the thump in shallow baits.  For super deep divers, I've varied the position of the ballast and felt a big difference in how the bait feels and performs.  Too far forward, it felt like the bait was staggering and the thump was irregular - not good.  The bait felt best when the ballast was at the center of the body's rotation.  It also cast better, which is not unimportant for deep divers that need long distance casts without tumbling.  I like to feel a sharp regular thump from both shallow and deep baits because in my experience, that gets more bites.  A regular thump in deep divers is especially important because otherwise you can often not detect a bite except for the fact that the thump cadence changes or disappears.

 

Is the lip configuration also critical?  You bet!  I just don't think there is any unimportant design aspect if you want a bait to have the best performance.  Little details can have outsize effects.

[Vodkaman]

Mark – whatever angle the bait is going to swim at, happens instantaneously.

There is a critical angle that achieves the maximum depth. Either side of this critical angle and the bait swims shallower. A good analogy of this is throwing a baseball for maximum distance. There is a critical angle for maximum distance, either side and distance is reduced.

This depth critical angle is controlled by a combination of the pivot or fulcrum of the tow eye position, lip length and body length.

Seeking 56 – Gliders are a different animal and outside my experience. Good points about the density of material and the effect of changing hook size.

Don-art – a very interesting point that I haven’t thought about in relation to the swim angle theory. I think that the roll axis must pass through the fulcrum too. This explains the off center action of the swim. If you study a few videos, you can visualize where the axis of rotation is, and it is rarely down the middle of the lure body.

Seeking 56 – regarding the automobile analogy, if you are thinking in terms of laminar flow then the answer is no. One of the first experiments that I did was to arch the back of the lure to achieve lift. The result was right as predicted, but the cause was not aerodynamic laminar flow lift, but merely as explained in my post above, reducing the area of body, causing the lip to dig deeper.

There is no laminar flow, even though the body may be a laminar flow friendly shape. The turbulence vortices are created at the lip. These vortices continue well beyond the lip and prevent laminar flow around the body. I can’t prove this, just opinion.

Robalo01 – Exactly. You can adjust one or all of the variables to achieve different results. Careful though, you could adjust two or all three and end up with the same result.

I already patented the lure spoiler

Dave