Triple Point Hunting Theory – the Wild Thing

[Hillbilly voodoo]

Side view 

[Vodkaman]

Very Australian style.

Dave

[Hillbilly voodoo]

6 hours ago, Vodkaman said:

Very Australian style.

Dave

I find the thin banana style make good trolling cranks. 

My designs really vary depending on what I am building for but lean towards minnow shape vs short fat shad shape because of the forage fish in BC and Alberta 

[Vodkaman]

I finally got a response to my emails and have agreed a price for the 3D print, so things are finally moving along again.

I have done several more tweaks to the mold design to help with the demolding operation. The problem is that the mold material will be a hard filler type rather than a silicone, brand name San Polac, similar to Bondo filler. The reason for this is that I cannot get a silicone stiff enough locally, the thin walls of the lure body collapse under the lightest clamping pressure. Postal is out of the question due to excessive import taxes and general corruption.

This means that I am breaking the basic rule of casting; hard cast, soft mold.

I have added a 5 degree draft angle to every surface including the front face of the lip. I have also added tabs that I can grip with pliers to pull/lever with, and several wedge slots to help with the initial parting.

I think I have done all I can, this is going to be stressful. But if it works, the mold material is very cheap compared to silicone.

Dave

Edited June 22, 2019 by Vodkaman

[mark poulson]

4 hours ago, Vodkaman said:

I finally got a response to my emails and have agreed a price for the 3D print, so things are finally moving along again.

I have done several more tweaks to the mold design to help with the demolding operation. The problem is that the mold material will be a hard filler type rather than a silicone, brand name San Polac, similar to Bondo filler. The reason for this is that I cannot get a silicone stiff enough locally, the thin walls of the lure body collapse under the lightest clamping pressure. Postal is out of the question due to excessive import taxes and general corruption.

This means that I am breaking the basic rule of casting; hard cast, soft mold.

I have added a 5 degree draft angle to every surface including the front face of the lip. I have also added tabs that I can grip with pliers to pull/lever with, and several wedge slots to help with the initial parting.

I think I have done all I can, this is going to be stressful. But if it works, the mold material is very cheap compared to silicone.

Dave

Good luck!

 

[Hillbilly voodoo]

Best of luck 

[SlowFISH]

Hey Guys - 

  Starting to lineup my winter projects!!! So on top of new softbaits, kayak mods and everything else in life - I felt the needed to take a crack at the "hunting" crank bait.  While I like to think I have a very technically sound understand of engineering principals... half of Dave's posts started to go over my head!! LOL!!!  Being a more visual person.... I put together a small diagram based on a crankbait that I cut in half.  Figured I'd start with something that's know to work perfectly - then see what I can do to screw it up!! 

Just looking for a little feedback regarding if I've read the posts/assumptions correctly and if I'm heading in the proper direction.  I would like to utilize a deep diving bill... which from what I read could be more of a challenge - I may back off that a bit and angle it down a little - but if at all possible I'd like to make this bait dive down a solid 8 feet.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.  My plan is to CAD up this bait and run the halves in ABS through a 3D printer.  Thinking about screwing the halves together at first which will allow me to open/move the ballast around as necessary.... might even make the lips attach in a manner I can just remove/replace as well instead of trimming so I can be more precise in knowing how much I've taken off, etc.  Plus I can just run a bunch in the machine and know exactly what is different on each.

Any feedback would be great and when I get further along through the fall/winter I'll post up my progress.

Thanks! J.

[SlowFISH]

Little more info on the bait I dissected...

B1 is the large ballast and fixed in placement - it weighed 2.1 Grams

B2 is a "rattling" ballast - able to move back and forth laterally across the bait - .095 grams

B3 was a very small ballast weight... did not remove it - but couldn't be more than - .1 -. 2 grams at most.

The bait is 86mm long - measuring tail (not hanger) to end of lip - the lip is approx 27mm in length.

[whitaker201]

Cool project for you both. Keep us updated on your progress!

[Vodkaman]

In my experience, hunters are shallow to medium swimmers with lip angles around the 50 - 70 degree. The water I fish is 4' deep, and at the start of the retrieve I have to keep my rod tip up to stop the lure scraping the silt bottom, so I reckon around 6'.

This post is about triple point, something beyond hunting and at this point is still an unproven hypothesis as I have not worked on this project for several months.

To keep the instructions simple for you:
Use a shallow swim lip design.
Make the lip too long.
Slowly trim back the length until it hunts.

Dave

[SlowFISH]

33 minutes ago, Vodkaman said:

In my experience, hunters are shallow to medium swimmers with lip angles around the 50 - 70 degree. The water I fish is 4' deep, and at the start of the retrieve I have to keep my rod tip up to stop the lure scraping the silt bottom, so I reckon around 6'.

This post is about triple point, something beyond hunting and at this point is still an unproven hypothesis as I have not worked on this project for several months.

To keep the instructions simple for you:
Use a shallow swim lip design.
Make the lip too long.
Slowly trim back the length until it hunts.

Dave

Appreciate you responses Dave....  the cliff notes help!

  J.

[RPM]

Tripple Point Hunting crankbait? Vodkaman

Dave sorry it's been a while since I've contributed, been busy, life, family, work and lures. 

I really enjoy your work,  insight and opinions, and Yes I've been able to build a Hunting Style Crankbait using your original thoughts of the Bill starting longer, trimming it to shorter length per lure. I've stumbled onto a lure design that seems to have a few characteristics, deep center section, weight low, shallow runner 5' or less. Now you have my attention again with the Tripple Point Hunting?

One thing I would like to clear up for myself is the difference between your thoughts and a few others? You seem to think this can be acheived with everything stationary in a lure, but a few others have the idea it may take a moving mass, weight inside the lure, kinda like the Pre Rapala Wiggle Wart from storm? I have experimented with the later and have used a slowed weight transfer insde the lure to acheive an eratic swimming action, it's hard to replicate becasue so many varibles. I have gone back and re read your posts many times, still trying to learn / understand the theroy? 

One thing I would like to ask or see is could we all agree on a few peramiters: Body shape, design, material to be balsa, weight of lure and lip design? I'm sure there are others but that would at least get us started in the right direction. The Lure I have built has proven to be a hunting action and duplicatible or at least for me and has proven to swim in an eratic action, the thing I'm missing is I've never tried to acheive the S Style swimming action, I consider that more a swimbait action, not a crankbait action? 

I would be more than agreeable to use my lure for comparison purpose, so we need to have some consistancy where all the lures, built in the same generic shape are tested and disected to see the similarities as well as the differences in hopes of gathering information to help us get closer to closing the questions of the Hunting Crankbait. I'm really good at developing my own design to my liking but until we determine some sort of standard that we are trying to acheive, it seems there is a distance between all lures and the end result we are trying to acheive? If my reasoning is out of line I opologise and mean no disrespect, just trying to add some leymen terms to a subject close to my heart and would love to get to the bottom of the question, can we make, build and reproduce a Tripple Point Hunting Crankbait on a consistant basis! I for one would love to be able to and I'm sure the fishing world would love to see teh Crankbait Unicorn!

I hope you are doing well, and staying safe in these trying time.

Best wishes

Rich  

[Vodkaman]

RPM – congratulations on building the hunter, makes me feel good.

Yes my designs are always stationary/static designs. The reason for this is that they are based on an idea/hypothesis and developed through prototype into theory. I have not given much thought to lateral moving weight systems. They obviously work as you and others have managed to get results.

Maybe I will give lateral transfer more thought one day in the future, but I have too much on the go at the moment. I am currently working on a solar hot water system, a drinking water from humidity system and a low cost hospital ventilator.

The ‘S’ style swim action I actually stumbled on by accident. It was another ten years before I figured out what was actually happening. I was living in a one room apartment in Sweden on a work contract. I had no workshop and just a few hand tools. I was experimenting with ballast, trying to find an easier solution than the strips of copper that I was using. Lead simply was not available.

I glued a Swedish coin into a slot in the bottom of a piece of balsa square section and added a lip. The ‘S’ motion was the result, as simple as that.

For you to find the ‘S’ motion, I suggest a 15mm wide lip at 70° for a shallow swimmer. You will have to design a crude adjustable ballast adjuster. I would start about 10mm below the lure centerline, adjust up and down until you get a result.

Dave

Edited May 9, 2020 by Vodkaman

[RPM]

Thanks Dave, I'll see if I can come up with the S action using your peramiters, have a great weekend.

Rich 

[jigmeister]

Great reading guys . Probably around 15 years ago I made up a balsa prototype crankbait copying an original big O with a built in adjustable ballast system to solve the mystery of hunting cranks (or so I thought ). I adjusted the weight up and it hunted , moved the weight down it hunted . 

Seeing not much of a difference regardless of ballast position I removed the ballast weight from the bait entirely and to my amazement it still hunted ? I had to figure it was just my luck to spend all of the time making up this adjustable bait that turned out to be useless for it's intended purpose .    I contemplated the resonance factor in hunting baits and my thinking was that the bill , line tie .hook placement , lure shape , and retrieve speed all contribute to the frequency at which the bait oscillates while the density of the body material will have a set resonant frequency .

Nicola Tesla performed a bunch of experiments relating to resonant frequencies . A major discovery was that any object had one and only one frequency where resonance occurs .

If the frequency was then raised above or dropped below this resonant frequency of the object resonance ceases . If the oscillation frequency of a swimming crankbait body matches the natural resonant frequency of the lure body it should become unstable and hunt . Predicting the natural resonant frequency of a blank lure body was a problem though . 

I dreamt up an idea for a vibrating table that wood lure bodies could be placed on and slowly ramp up the frequency until resonance occurs (indicated by the lure wildly dancing about on the table ) and go until it settles out  and record those frequencies . If you know the crankbait oscillation frequency with a given configuration and matched this to a lure body that resonates at this same  frequency in theory you should have a hunting bait when resonance occurs and the bait becomes unstable.

Could it really be this simple?

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by jigmeister

[Vodkaman]

Jigmeister - Resonant frequency is one of my favourite subjects, from collapsing bridges, to waving tall structures. If you look at a flagpole in a strong wind you will notice that it sways from side to side perpendicular to the wind direction rather than in the same direction of the wind as you might expect.

The resonant frequency of the pole is how fast it naturally sways. The side forces on the pole are given by the frequency of the vortices formed behind the pole in the wind. If the frequency of vortices and the pole resonant frequency match then the pole will sway wildly. So, even flagpoles need to be designed properly.

Also, if the resonant frequency is 1/3rd or 1/5th etc of the vortex frequency, then the sway will multiply.

The frequency of the vortices around the pole, or for that matter, the lipped lure, can easily be calculated using the Strouhal formula which I won’t go into here. This would give the frequency at which the lure swims. If the retrieval speed increases the frequency increases (it waggles faster), if the lip width is increased then the frequency reduces. This is all about the vortices and NOT resonant frequency, but very good, impressive thinking.

To understand how lures hunt, you need to read my post Hunting Cranks - theory, design and build. This explains what is going on and how to build a hunter.

Dave

Edited May 11, 2020 by Vodkaman

[mark poulson]

So, as I am home, Covidizing and not venturing out in public, I've reread this thread, and had a thought you guys might be able to help me with.

I use PVC trimboard to build my cranks, so they are totally waterproof.  In thinking about how to get an erratic movement in my sliding ballast, I am now wondering if I put something like vaseline into the crossways bore for the moving ballast, would it offer enough resistance to get the ballast to move at a different "frequency" than the rate of X ing of the lure?

I am definitely going to try it in a test piece to see if it does make the ballast move differntly.

Of course, it might just become a lubricant, or freeze the ballast completely, but I won't know until I do a test...tomorrow.  I'm fighting allergies, so no more shop work today.

[Vodkaman]

Mark - The frequency will be 4 - 6 cycles per second, possibly even faster depending on lip width. Keep in mind that a cycle is back and forth. Even if you injected a little water into the cavity, I suspect that the movement will be killed.

This is just an opinion, so you need to go ahead and test.

Dave

[mark poulson]

2 minutes ago, Vodkaman said:

Mark - The frequency will be 4 - 6 cycles per second, possibly even faster depending on lip width. Keep in mind that a cycle is back and forth. Even if you injected a little water into the cavity, I suspect that the movement will be killed.

This is just an opinion, so you need to go ahead and test.

Dave

I'll do one test with vaseline, and another with water.  Those damn square bills wiggle so much I doubt the ballast can kill their movement, but I hope we'll see tomorrow.

[Vodkaman]

Good luck with it, and I look forward to the feedback

Dave

[Vodkaman]

Mark - I have just been having a think about the lateral weight dry transfer. I don't know how you picture the weight movement in your head, but this is how I see it:

1 - Lure waggle to the right (start of motion). Due to inertia, the weight will stay almost static until it comes in contact with the left end of the tube.

2 - Lure reaches end of waggle, fully right. The weight will shoot to the right and strike the right end of the tube. The waggle may have already started moving to the left.

3 - Lure waggle moves to the left. The weight stays in contact with the right end of the tube.

4 - Lure reaches end of waggle. The weight moves to the extreme left of tube.

Steps 2, 3 & 4 are continuously repeated with the weight motion slightly lagging behind the waggle. The longer the tube then the longer the lag time. Introducing a damping material; Vaseline, oil or water, will extend the lag time.

A short dry tube would give a short lag time, and could possibly enhance the waggle.

A long wet tube with a long lag time, may take several waggle cycles for the weight to reach the end of the tube. This means that the weight's cycle would be much slower and erratic. Whether or not this is enough to disturb the lure enough to change direction or not will be down to experiment with tube lengths and different levels of damping. But, the criteria for an erratic hunting action is there; namely something that happens every 3 - 4 cycles.

I hope I did not make this hypothesis too complicated, but feel that you just might be onto something here.

Dave

[mark poulson]

On 5/16/2020 at 5:10 PM, Vodkaman said:

Mark - I have just been having a think about the lateral weight dry transfer. I don't know how you picture the weight movement in your head, but this is how I see it:

1 - Lure waggle to the right (start of motion). Due to inertia, the weight will stay almost static until it comes in contact with the left end of the tube.

2 - Lure reaches end of waggle, fully right. The weight will shoot to the right and strike the right end of the tube. The waggle may have already started moving to the left.

3 - Lure waggle moves to the left. The weight stays in contact with the right end of the tube.

4 - Lure reaches end of waggle. The weight moves to the extreme left of tube.

Steps 2, 3 & 4 are continuously repeated with the weight motion slightly lagging behind the waggle. The longer the tube then the longer the lag time. Introducing a damping material; Vaseline, oil or water, will extend the lag time.

A short dry tube would give a short lag time, and could possibly enhance the waggle.

A long wet tube with a long lag time, may take several waggle cycles for the weight to reach the end of the tube. This means that the weight's cycle would be much slower and erratic. Whether or not this is enough to disturb the lure enough to change direction or not will be down to experiment with tube lengths and different levels of damping. But, the criteria for an erratic hunting action is there; namely something that happens every 3 - 4 cycles.

I hope I did not make this hypothesis too complicated, but feel that you just might be onto something here.

Dave

Apologies to all.

I slacked off today and didn't make my ballast tests.  It will have to wait until Wednesday.

[Big Epp]

So far none of my lures have turned straight from solid to gas.  I must be doing something wrong.

Now that I'm done being smart-alec, I'll go back and read the rest of the post/thread...

Edited May 28, 2020 by Big Epp
typo

[Vodkaman]

3 hours ago, Big Epp said:

So far none of my lures have turned straight from solid to gas.  I must be doing something wrong.

Now that I'm done being smart-alec, I'll go back and read the rest of the post/thread...

Clever post

Dave