blackjack Posted May 17, 2007 Report Share Posted May 17, 2007 Well this past weekend got onto the water and the fish were not biting so I perforned a little experiment with the help of a friend. The experiment was conducted as scientifically as possible without being in a lab. I found an ideal location which was at a beach club where they had just anchored the swimming area buoys and robes. I anchored up next to the outside of the ropes and buoys and used one of the sides as the right side limit and set up 3 of my marker buoys. Basically I set up a casting course/lane approximately 4' wide by 60 feet long. Let me tell ya it was a pain to cast the the bait in the lane(water temp.64 degrees, wind 10mph, air temp 68 degrees ,water clarity crystal clear). My partner ended up on the shore line and I would cast the bait close to him then he would manually place it in the lane for casting. Our observations were as follows,the shallow running bait would cycle through 3 distinct major oscillations or movements for this particular bait, 2 were always to the left side of the lane, some times the left movements were at the begining of the retrieve and sometimes it would be towards the end of the retrieve. We did observe several mini-movements at the begining of a major movement and at the end. It was as the bait was building some sort of momentum at the begining of the movement and then winding down at the end of the movement. Each major oscillation would move the bait off the center of the lane approximately 16" to 18". The minor oscillations before and after a major were approximately 6" to 10". We did not observe any herky/jerky movements such as the deep divers that I make that have a nervous twitch. It seems that right before the bait reaches its maximum depth it begins a series of smaller oscillations the one large oscillation again followed by several smaller ones before the bait would track back to the center of the lane. I will be following this up with another test when I get a free weekend. I hope you all can understand all of this jibberish as I am not a scientist. Here is the chart to physically reference the baits movements that we observed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doomdart Posted May 17, 2007 Report Share Posted May 17, 2007 approximately 16" to 18" that's the part I found most interesting. That's a tremendous sidestep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack Posted May 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 17, 2007 Gotta remember that this was done in the field by use of 4 old trusty eyeballs, could have been off by a couple of inches:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaddoxBay Posted May 17, 2007 Report Share Posted May 17, 2007 Nice work Blackjack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spinner Posted May 17, 2007 Report Share Posted May 17, 2007 Interesting. One went right, one left. Were you able to determine why this happened? Were the baits similar in design? Spinner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack Posted May 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 17, 2007 Only one bait was tested it had the same number of movements to the left but the difference was when the oscillations occured, it either occured at the begining of the retrieve or the end of the retrieve maybe current created by the wind not really sure but the same results were observed approximately 30 times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tally Posted May 17, 2007 Report Share Posted May 17, 2007 Nice work Blackjack.....can't wait for the next test results. Interesting that you only had 3 big moves in th 60 foot span. Now that there is an actual graph for "ALL" to see what a hunting bait does.......maybe some of the mathmatical wizards care give some reasoning. I find it hard to think that current was the culprit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hughesy Posted May 18, 2007 Report Share Posted May 18, 2007 Awsome work Blackjack! Now thats what a true hunter really looks like. The next hunter you make might do something totally different. Thats what I love about custom made baits. I have made some that run true for about half the retrieve then hunt like crazy. Some hunt right off the bat and continue to hunt the whole retrieve. You just never know what they are going to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vodkaman Posted May 18, 2007 Report Share Posted May 18, 2007 Great article Blackjack. Looks like hunting to me. Thanks for making the effort and sharing the information. A complete breakdown of the lure geometry would be nice, but I am not cheeky enough to ask. What is your success rate for manufacturing this lure, if you make ten, how many would you expect to hunt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack Posted May 18, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2007 I can't say for sure what the percentage is for hunting baits but I would guess that it is low for the volume of baits that I make. I don't get to test run alot of the baits that I make as most of my business occurs during the winter season. I have alot of repeat customers so I fathom that there is something that they keep coming back for. I will say that it is nice to make up a bunch of baits for myself to fish with and get a couple of baits that are unique. As far as the bait, the bait is a shallow runner that is 1/2" thick and 2 inches long, it is not a through wire bait and it has a circuit board lip, Not much different than any of the other baits that i sell. I am making a fresh batch of 16 in the shop right now and hopefully there will be some kickers in there. V-Man the bait is made the same exact way as the D-Bait schematic that I posted a few years ago here. All of my baits are made in a similar fashion. On the graph each square box represents 1' foot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
