tc-lures Posted December 17, 2005 Report Share Posted December 17, 2005 Hello All This is my first post, I live in Indiana and fish Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. I have started making a few cranks to get through the winter but have started to really enjoy it. My main question is how much weight do I need (do I want to sink the bait then remove weight until it floats?) and does water temp affect how much weight you put in one (will if float at 50 deg and sink at 70 deg.) thanks in advance for any info and this is a great site with a wealth of knowledge, and to Skeeter I noticed you lived in hopkinsville a few years Do you have any good tips for the smallmouth on KY. Lake they are killing me, just can't figure them out. Thanks Todd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muskie magnet Posted December 18, 2005 Report Share Posted December 18, 2005 Todd It sounds like you are trying to achieve a neutral buoyancy thing. I do jerks and glides where sometimes neutral buoyancy is desired but I believe with cranks the main purpose of weight is to alter action. I might be wrong on this but usually the less weight the better I would think if the bait is balanced properly just enough weight to keep it vertical is optimal. Water temperature has little effect. 39 degree water is the most dense so technically this is the temp that your bait will float the highest anything higher or lower the bait will not float as high but the variance is so small as to be insignificant. Welcome to the world of baitmaking it can be fascinating. phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeeter Posted December 18, 2005 Report Share Posted December 18, 2005 Todd, The colder the water gets the more dense it is. What that comes down to is that if a bait rises slowly in 75 deg. water then it may suspend or sink in 50 deg. water. So we can get into all kinds of discussions about the weighting of your bait. It just depends what you want it to do and when you want to use it. If you just want an all around good crankbait then that can be done without alot of trial and error. Most of the smallmouth that I caught were caught on a suspending rougue in late march and april. The fish were 2 or 3 casts off of the bank over deep water. It was a very slow jerk, jerk, pause presentation. I have also caught some on buzzbaits believe it or not. Skeeter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc-lures Posted December 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2005 Thanks for the replies and sorry for taking so long to get back, been busy with the holidays, work and such. The crank I am looking for is an all around crank. What I guess I'm asking is how to get the greatest amount of weight (= casting distance)without adversely affecting the action. thanks for all the help and happy holidays Todd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tally Posted December 22, 2005 Report Share Posted December 22, 2005 if I were you, I would do a search on weight in the hard bait section. I just did it and there were 371 matches. Yes, you might have a bunch of reading but you might just get a good education on the weighting of cranks. Once you have read and understand the direction you want to go, then you will have the trial and error process to get it down. Although weight might play a factor in action.........there is more to it than that. Tally Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc-lures Posted December 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2005 Thanks Tally I will try the search. Todd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeeter Posted December 23, 2005 Report Share Posted December 23, 2005 Make your bait out of balsa. It is very forgiving as far as weighting goes. You can add alot of weight to balsa and still have it work properly. Skeeter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
