Designing lures

[Al Agnew]

I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about fishing.  And one of the things I think about is coming up with different, or better, lure designs.  Usually it's something that I've seen or read or heard about that sets me to thinking.  It's how I came up with my homemade Subwalk, a lure that sinks slowly and walks the dog from 6 inches to 2 feet under the surface.  It's how I came up with simpler design for my homemade crankbait than the commercially available version, which isn't available anymore anyway.

One of my holy grails of lure design is a deep diving crankbait that runs at least 7 feet deep, but that has the same kind of wide wobble as my homemade shallow running version when you put some skirt material on the belly hook.  I've tried just about every commercially available deep diver on the market, adding the skirt material and seeing how it wobbles.  In nearly all of them, the skirt tames the wobble into something that isn't very wide, and that just makes the skirt itself kinda wiggle, not sway widely the way I want it to.

There are, however, a couple of commercially available ones that come close, as long as you keep the skirt fairly sparse.  One is the Norman Middle N.  The other, and the better of the two, is the Rebel Deep Wee Craw.  

This weekend I decided to play around with some designs, one goal being to see if I could come up with a deep diver.  First, I went to the local tackle shop, looking for smallish, deep diving crankbaits that I hadn't yet tried with the skirt.  Ended up getting a Bandit 300 series, and another lure, the name of which escapes me at the moment.  Both had big bills somewhat similar in shape to the Rebel, though not exactly like it.

Back home, I first switched out the belly treble for one with a skirt attached, and then went out to the pond by the house to try them.  Neither worked...that same problem of the skirt barely wiggling.  Okay...back to the basement garage, take the Dremel tool, and grind off the bills so that they are the exact shape as the Rebel.  Back out to the pond.  Slight improvement, but still not close to what I was looking for.  Back to  the garage, study the lures side by side with the Rebel.  Hook placement...the belly hook on the Rebel was significantly farther back.  Kinda tough to change that on those hollow plastic lures, but I figured out a way.  Back out to the pond...another very slight improvement, still not close.

At that point I was out of ideas.  Could it be the body shape of the Rebel?  So I carved out something with a similar, but simpler shape out of a wooden dowel rod.  I had some circuit board bills that I could shape into the Rebel bill shape, but you can't put the line tie in the bill on a circuit board bill.  But I figured out a way to make the line tie somewhat close.  In the pond...nope, not even close.  It was time to surrender...guess I'll just have to buy some more Rebels.  But I had another project in mind...

Here's the thought process...Bass Pro makes a lure that has the head of a popper, in hard plastic with a treble hook attached, to which to afix a big tube.  It's kinda goofy looking, and I would have probably never bought one, but they sent me one to use in one of the catalog cover illustrations I did for them.  I had taken it out to the pond just to see if by chance it was any good.  I was surprised that you can actually get the thing to walk the dog pretty well,  That was one genesis of my idea.  The other was that the problem with typical walk the dog lures is that bass blow up on them without getting hooked, seeming to instantly reject them when they strike.  What if you had a soft (or mostly soft) walk the dog lure that the fish could take well into their mouths and maybe not reject it instantly?  Hey, that Bass Pro popper kinda fits the bill.  But how about a more typical walk the dog lure shape for the head?

So I turned out a couple of ideas on the lathe.  Added hook and line tie, afixed a tube, and went out to the pond.  The first prototype worked VERY well!  The second, with a shorter, smaller diameter head portion, did not.  But now I had one that did work.  I turned out a duplicate, more or less, and painted them.  It'll take another day to finish the paint and finish, and then a day to let it all dry, but this one looks like a winner at this point.

[fishinwrench]

The Ghost

http://mannsbait.com/product/all-lures-and-baits/ghost/

 

You can also shove a Zara Puppy up inside a flippin' tube.  

[Mitch f]

The next step is a laser scan and a Cad model ?

[Al Agnew]

I've used the Ghost...really nice bait for lily pad areas and weeds, but I don't like the shape for river fishing, nor do I need the weedlessness.  As for slipping a Puppy into the tube...guess it might work, but would be a pain to reattach the hooks.  Anyway, Wrench, don't rain on my parade

[buckcreekmike]

On 3/6/2017 at 1:27 AM, fishinwrench said:

The Ghost

http://mannsbait.com/product/all-lures-and-baits/ghost/

 

You can also shove a Zara Puppy up inside a flippin' tube.  

That is what I was thinking. There also used to be something called a phish stick. Think Solid rubber Zara puppy rugged Texas rugged without the weight. 

[fishinwrench]

On 3/6/2017 at 8:14 AM, Al Agnew said:

  As for slipping a Puppy into the tube...guess it might work, but would be a pain to reattach the hooks.  Anyway, Wrench, don't rain on my parade

You don't reattach the belly hook, just leave it off.  The hook hanger loop keeps the tube anchored.   I guess you could reattach the hook, but I didn't when I used it.    

I'm actually thankful that you caused me to remember that because I did pretty well with that thing way back when...And there are way better tubes available now.

[Guest]

The Spence Scout was the precursor to the strike king lure company. It caught so many big bass around cypress trees back in those days. I still have a bunch with melted rubber skirts.

[fishinwrench]

56 minutes ago, TrophyFishR said:

The Spence Scout was the precursor to the strike king lure company. It caught so many big bass around cypress trees back in those days. I still have a bunch with melted rubber skirts.

Actually SK began as a Spinnerbait company. Bill McEwan. Charles Spence was the second owner of the company, and he turned it over to Ray Mersky in the mid-90's. 

The Spence Scout was a Bill Dance endorsed knockoff of the old original Clark Water Scout that dated clear back to when Calvin Coolidge was the president.  Calvin's collection of Water Scouts and other assorted lures are in a museum somewhere.  

Closed mouth Cal' was quite a fisherman.  

[Al Agnew]

The Scout is a shallow runner...my shallow runner is WAY better

Problem I see with removing the belly hook for the tube on the Puppy thing is that most of the fish on walk the dog lures are hooked on the belly hook.  I'm far more comfortable with a lure without the back hook than one without the belly hook.

[fishinwrench]

1 hour ago, Al Agnew said:

The Scout is a shallow runner...my shallow runner is WAY better

Problem I see with removing the belly hook for the tube on the Puppy thing is that most of the fish on walk the dog lures are hooked on the belly hook.  I'm far more comfortable with a lure without the back hook than one without the belly hook.

Well the deal was that the skirt of the tube pretty much kept the hook out of trouble, so you could just about work it anywhere. Over cables and stuff.  If it was a fish like one we were looking to catch then the whole bait was in its mouth so the little #6 tailing treble managed to hook up fine. 

Several of us tinkered with it for quite awhile (bass club days).  If you don't shove it all the way to the nose then it has a wider walk.   Of course this was back in the days before we had these sweet walking hollow bodied frogs....which are way better than playing proctologist with a flippin' tube.