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I hate to always be the wet blanket when it comes to screw wire vs thru wire, but in my opinion, if you are making a premium lure for muskies or pike, it should always be thru wire. Screw eyes are plenty strong when new, but after fishing with a lure for a year or two, almost no amount of finish will be able to withstand rocks and fish. If there is any moisture ingress or if the threads 'crack' loose from the glue that's holding the screw, it can pull out. Sorry, it just bugs me seeing musky lures that go for 100+$ dollars, and they have screw in hardware. This is the result. A lost lure and possibly a dead fish. This was from a big pike that crushed the lure boat side. Set the hook and out came the large screw eye. Hopefully the fish chucked the lure. This is from a 'well made' well known lure manufacturer (I won't name names or anything). This is the second time that it has happened to me, so I can only imagine with all the people fishing, how many times this may happen. This would not happen with thru wire. I'm tough on equipment, I fish a lot, and if there is a weakness, musky fishermen tend to find it. I'm headed out this weekend, freezing temps, and lakes icing up to go bash some other lures around on the Canadian shield hoping for another hog.

Godzilla, Most of the guys here who make large wood baits don't use screw eyes. They either run wire all the way through the bait (called "through-wire construction") or the cut 2-4 inches of SS wire, bend it in half, twist it leaving a loop and glue it in hole in place of a screw eye. These methods are both stronger and less expensive than screw eyes. I believe Janns Netcraft carries larger SS Screw eyes. Stephen