Salt vs fresh buoyancy

[Hand Crafted Angling]

I got a few new saltwater baits I’m making but I’m wondering about weight. I only have experience with floating baits in the salt. I was wondering how much it really affects the sink rate. I’d rather avoid making the hour trek to the bay just to test it out. If I make somthing that’s slow sinking in freshwater it won’t suspend or turn into a floater is basically what I’m getting at.

[Flaswimbaiter]

Yes, I have made baits for salt and if it sinks very slowly in my pool it will suspend in salt. Glides are harder, they need to sink just a bit faster in faster. 

[Travis]

4 hours ago, Hand Crafted Angling said:

I got a few new saltwater baits I’m making but I’m wondering about weight. I only have experience with floating baits in the salt. I was wondering how much it really affects the sink rate. I’d rather avoid making the hour trek to the bay just to test it out. If I make somthing that’s slow sinking in freshwater it won’t suspend or turn into a floater is basically what I’m getting at.

Considerable difference. 

If you have a kitchen scale at home you can make salt water for testing.  3.5 grams salt then add water to reach 1000 g total.

Brackish water, heavy rains, temperature, etc.. will also all play into effect.  I personally would make a batch of ocean water and float test and take suspend strips when fishing to make any slight adjustments that may be needed if you are wanting to get a slow fall rate.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Travis

[Hand Crafted Angling]

Thanks for the input. I guess I’ll be mixing up some saltwater in the future. I wanted to make a relatively quick sinking lipless crank bait. I’m not thinking that would be too hard as the sink rate on that bait isn’t as important to me. I just want to be able to hit the depths I need to in a reasonable amount of time. On the other hand other bait might be a problem. I wanted to make a slow sinking twitch bait but that sink rate is gonna have to be more fine tuned. On top of that the areas I fish have pretty high fluctuations in salinity. It seems like my only option for that is those suspending strips.

[Travis]

The other option is just to make more lures.  

I did this a few times on some cranks I was wanting to slowly rise.  Just weighted them differently.  Didn't make much sense to do just did it.  Suspend strips and dots way to easy to use for those rare times I thought I needed it. 

[LureMaker1000]

I have been making a few stick baits with an empty weight hole in the nose to be filled later on the water. I secure the weights with craftsmart plastilina clay from Michael's. I have a couple other baits that have had the clay in them for a couple seasons. This clay doesn't dry out and it secures disc-shaped lead pretty well. Saltwater doesn't seem to degrade it. The clay can be picked out of the hole with a hook and a new weight added then the clay repacked and made flush with the body of the bait. 

 

I think if I were looking to make something that had to suspend perfectly and had to make adjustments on the water I would do this. Then could finalize it later. 

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by LureMaker1000