Swimbait Action

[Manny]

I have been lurking here for about a week...

I have read a lot and I have a couple hard baits under my belt now.

The first I made of pine and added only obout 1 oz. weight with a rattle it was about 9 " long with the bill.

Tested it in my koi pond and it had good action but when not cranked it jumped out of the water. Lesson learned and noted.

The second was a broken crankbait about 8" long and had 3 oz. weight in it.. I moved fine but sank slowly. I was going for a suspending.

Now I have built What I believe to be a dragon fish swimbait that I had seen on U-tube. But down sized it from 10" to 8". It has roughly 2 oz. in it now not counting all the hinging wire. All my baits are wire thru style. sealed it tonight in epoxy thinned with DA. Hopefully I will test it tommorow sometime.

The first section has 1/4 oz. the second has 3/4 oz , the third has 3/4 also, and the last has 1/4 oz. I tried to buil it light in order that I can add weight if needed.

By the way Im using Aspen wood from Lowes ( The small precut hobby pieces in the trim section )

To the questions..

#1 Is there a rule of thumb on swimbaits as to where you should place the weight ?

#2 Is there a rule of thumb on the throw of each section ?

#3 What the best way to work the lure to get the best action ? Slow , fast, twitch , etc.

If there is anything you might add to help me out please let me know.

Thanks

[atrophius]

As far as the questions....I have made swimbaits and weighted them so that they float or sink evenly. So there is a little play factor, but I weight them according to the size of the section. I dont do molds of them so nothing standard as far as weight. What you describe in your weighting sounds about right. I have seen some people on here talk about weighting the tail or not and if you dont it produces more roll. I am not that experienced myself to know all the mechanics. I have just done 3section swimbaits and weight them accordingly.

Not sure what you mean by the throw of each section.

As far as retrieval of the swimbaits, I am not sure on the slow and fast. i think it depends on what and where you are fishing. I do know however that a twitch here and there should make your swimbait do kind of like a "C" turn 180 degrees. This is a normal instinct of baitfish to do this maneuver when attacked or evading.

Here is an article on crankbaits, which I am sure a lot applies to behavior of fish when using any lure.

http://crankbaitcentral.com/CrankbaitABCs/Strikes.html

[mainbutter]

Here's my take on weighting(with limited experience mind you):

Each segment should be weighted so that the overall buoyancy of each segment is relatively similar. This will mean that any buoyancy, (negative, neutral, positive) will affect all parts of the lure equally. If you have a sinking lure, this means that the lure sinks flat (not head first or tail first).

When weighting a segment, I like my weight to be low and centered, perhaps a slight bit weight forward. For a natural presentation you obviously want your lure sitting belly-down.

The biggest issue for a good S-swimming action really is just head shape. A more rounded and less pointed head will throw off better and stronger low-pressure vortices which cause the swimming action. However, this is certainly not 100% a rule, as any volume of mass sitting in a flowing fluid will throw low pressure vortices.