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Vodkaman

project hunter update

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Over the last year, I have concentrated my efforts investigating the hunting phenomenom. This is a vid of progress I have made since my last video post, a few months ago.

I cannot show any details yet, as more work still has to be done. I believe that there is a lot more action available than shown here.

th_bullridermpeg1.jpg

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John. Yes, the bait wiggles and rolls as well as zig-zagging. Unfortunately, the body material is quite dense, consequently, a lot of the wiggle action is dampened out. If the bait was balsa, you would see a lot more wiggle action.

Rofish. What is hunting action? As far as I know, there is no official definition, but it seems to be the general opinion that, the bait steps out of line slightly, one way then the other, usually a subtle movement, but no further explanation of what causes the movement was available. The Skeeter post was the reason I started this project. Something considered desirable and difficult to attain.

I formed a theory that explained exactly how hunting works. To back up the theory, I built prototypes to explore the movement further. Now, there is nothing subtle about the movement in the video, so I can understand why you would not like to call it hunting. In fact I agree with you, it is more than hunting. There is an entire range of movement that has not yet been tapped by the lure designer, of which ‘hunting’ is the outside edge.

I explored your solution of the offset lip. Although it kind of worked, I figured that there must be more to it than this. Your average angler would probably be wanting his money back. The work is not finished yet, there are many variables that take part in the hunt equation and all have to be explored and explained. The main variables are lip shape and ballast distribution.

If you want to find some hunting action yourself, experiment with wide, flat bottomed lips. Hunting is not as difficult to find as some people would have you believe, if you know where to look. The lips do not need to be huge, in fact the lure lip that made the last two passes in the video was less than half an inch long on a 3 inch long body. I was retrieving at a rate of 4 cranks per second (roughly 2 meters per sec), to test its stability, as you can see, it did not roll over. The rest of the passes were at 2 cranks per second.

I am confident that I can make a trawling lure that will keep the zig-zag movement at high speeds. What sort of speeds do you require? The problem is that I will not be able to test such a lure, but it is a project that I fancy taking on.

Will it catch more fish? Don’t ask me, you are the guys who said you wanted hunting, I’m just the designer.

Anyone who wants to make a lure hunt and would like some help, just PM me, I would be very happy to help.

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Hi Dave, I really like the way that bait swerves/swims off course with its smooth fluid side to side movement. Looks like you are well on your way to having it under control. :worship:

Keep feeding your think tank the brain food, I have always enjoyed your thoughts and ideas.

John

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I think this thread would be a nice reading for everyone interested on the subject. I have not seen yet a crankbait that hunts in action, but from what I understand from this thread, a hunting crankbait would go off track from time to time (you cannot predict when this would happen) after which it would come back to the center, and NOT to the other side.

This doesn't mean that other actions of a lure cannot be better than usual actions in triggering fish strikes.

http://www.tackleunderground.com/forum/hard-baits/543-crankbaits-hunt.html

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Thankyou all for the generous comments and ancouragement, I'm sure that anyone who has tried experimenting will understand the downers, when nothing seems to work. But these are more than made up for, with the occasional eureka moments.

Pete, the water noises are the pool overflow. I never noticed it before, as I never have the sound switched on. I'm just glad I didn't mutter something as I was recording!

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Great work Dave! shoot me a PM!

For those not up to speed, "hunting" action is a term coined by I believe Rick Clunn to describe a bait that will sometimes randomly track to one side, return to normal, then track to the opposite side, etc. Certain baits tend to hunt more than others, especially wood. Many think it's a softer line tie, but I believe that the OLD Bagleys were better made and to better tolerances, and these happened to have a brass line tie, thus the error. Other thoughts of some are speed of retrieve, rear hook, groves in bait, etc. etc. A Crank tuned right up to the edge of instabilty seem to hunt more. Hunting action is not always desirable. I.E. if you are trying to hit a piece of structure it can be a detriment. However, I believe the triggering action is just that; an erractic change of motion that sugguests the bait is in distress. If you hit an object, (normally the ideal of good crankers) it will richochet, hopefully triggering a strike. Similarly, a hunting bait will randomly veer, thus making it seem to be more vulnerable. This is similar to doing a figure eight at boatide trying to trigger a follower for you muskie guys.

Hope this helps any having a hard time imagining it!

Craig

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