Big Shallow Cranks

[gliders]

Hello guys, I normally make gliders and jerks however have made small cranks and jakes in past so understand symmetry etc.Water here about to freeze so getting round to making some big meaty trolling lures.Never made cranks of this volume so appreciate your opinions.Made several blanks and lips to try and will try various tow points starting with position on lure pic.Being big and time consuming to carve I thought I would run them by you all for opinions. The timber is western red cedar 34 mm at widest point.Trying to achieve similar depth as lure in pic which sits at attitude of black line , half of body out water slightly tai down.This floating lure can be trolled slowly I.e. 2.5 knots, 75 feet line out at 4-5 ft deep.That is what I am trying to achieve. As a starting point I am wondering whether to ballast to just cocked or aim for similar attitude to lure pictured? That lure has ballast low and pretty much centred.Am using 12mm diameter ballast as pic.Aiming for good wobble at slow speed, minimum depth, Opinions appreciated.

[Vodkaman]

The bodies look great.

 

2.5Kt is 1.3m/s which is around 3 cranks of a reel handle per sec. I realize you are trolling, I am just getting a 'feel' for the speed. This may be slow for trolling but still seems very fast, but I have never been trolling.

 

The issue, as always, is going to be the lip length and tow eye position. The faster you go, the stronger the lip effect, so careful not to make the lip too long, especially if there is a possibility that the troll speed might rise.

 

The tow eye position is going to be a trial and error thing, so it may be worth finding some water to test the swim, winding as fast as possible.

 

The waggle speed I calculate to be 4.5 cycles per second, this means back and forth 9 times a second, based on a 34mm lip. If the lip width is narrower, the rate will increase. These numbers are based on experiments with much smaller cranks, but shouldn't be far off.

 

Dave

[gliders]

Appreciated vm,will be test swimming , trying to get prototypes made and tested before water freezes.Aim to be able to troll /retrieve very slowly. Based lip surface area to front of lure surface area proportions as a start, so made several ranging either side of this, thus going from 2cm long to 3.5cm, also made some narrowing toward lure body giving a shape more like pictured lure to see if wobble increases, will be trying various tow points, again based on lure in pic .Any opinion about what I asked about ballast starting point, regarding attitude of lure at rest?.Realise will be ballance between stability and depth .Again,target is to run very shallow, your views much appreciated vm.

[Vodkaman]

You have a solid plan and I am sure you will achieve your goals.

 

Dave

[SW Lures]

I myself have been working on trolling baits. I have a 3" bill setting out in front of the nose of the bait. The lip is at approximately 5°. Mine is set up for deep water and I found that this design performed better with the tow eye out on the bill about 7/8" from the nose. Weighting for me is to the front of the bait to help it dive and fast.

The body is not a minnow but a slab shape. I had some trouble to keep the bait from going belly up at the speed of trolling but still give good action while casting. I found this by accident. It took moving the weighting apart just a little, fractions of a inch.

I was trying to mimic the forage baits in the areas that I fish. I also use fluorocarbon line that I would be using normally. I found that at that depth and speed was damaging the line. I went up in the diameter in the line. Trolling put stress on the line so I had to adjust. Will this hurt the amount of fish I catch, that's to be seen.

Testing was a l..o..n..g process and trial and errors. I wish I could give you the measurements in metrics, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to cross reference the numbers.

Hope this helped,

Dale

Edited January 13, 2016 by DaleSW

[gliders]

Cheers guys, not looking for exact measurements, never made cranks of this volume so thought I'd run it by you for opinions, cheers.

[barr5150]

The plugs look great! Nice work man! 

 

Unfortunately I can't be of much help with your ballast question but I know plugs that size can take allot of lead and still float easily. I'm more of a build one and try it guy. At least then you have a baseline to make changes from. I would think the more weight you could get in it the better to help with "blowing out" at higher trolling speeds. With 75 or 100' of line out I doubt hitting 4 - 5' will be too hard. You could always switch to lead core line too, I love that stuff! 

[gliders]

Thanks input barr,I have made several prototypes with slightly varying dimensions, lip size etc.To achieve attitude of pictured lure will take 2-3 oz of lead so will start with that and vary .Like I say I am trying to achieve very shallow running at slow speed. Cheers

[gliders]

Tested big cranks today guy's, action spot on.Made several in 2 thicknesses and 2 shapes /sizes.various lips.got 2 actions I was after and shallow running.dragged fast in moving water also and no sign of instability, very pleased, cheers input dave and others.may try and film them in white before adding colour if of use to anyone.

[Vodkaman]

Good job.

 

Dave