Flawed Swimbaits...

[TOPFLiTE1994]

I have a bone to pick...

 

As many fishermen know, modern soft body swimbaits, especially higher end stuff, are not durable. Sure they catch fish, but is it really worth the money you put down on a lure that loses it's tail or rips apart beyond repair after a few fish? Several if you are lucky.. 

 

I bought a few STORM Live Kickin' Shad a few years ago which are made with sheet mesh through the center of the entire bait. These swimmers are still completely in tack today, even after vigorous use, and still lay in my tackle box. WHY DON'T ALL MANUFACTURERS DO THIS???!!!!!!!!!! I am dumb-founded by this issue. Obviously price or simplicity of manufacturing process is not an issue or STORM would not be selling them for under 5 bucks.

 

Anyone care to share opinions on the proposed topic?

[smallmouthaholic]

OK- if you like to use Storm live Kickin' shad then stick w/ them. Just don't throw  them  in trees,ledge rock and weeds w/ that exposed treble hook

 

I manufacture high end swim-baits w/ various ,weighted hooking options for open and snag infested water.I insist on balanced swim-baits that have excellent tail action on the" do-nothing drop" (since that's when most bass hit them) and they must fall w/out rolling over on their side( central balance)

 

Have you priced live shiners plus the cost/ expense and inconvenience to obtain them?

 

I have no intentions of adding internal mesh to my swim-baits since it would stiffen the action and end up costing more time to manufacture.. BTW- Storm baits are made in Japan

Edited February 8, 2015 by smallmouthaholic

[TOPFLiTE1994]

I understand the skepticism, and I'm sure adding a mesh feature would affect a small sized manufacturing process much more than a large business. Although the mentioned STORM lures were just an example used for mesh construction, they have much more action than most would expect. The mesh seems to add zero stiffness to the lure, and honestly the thing just plain feels like jello in your hand. It has superior action and flexibility to almost any other soft swimbait I have picked up, so I would not be concerned with that.

 

Popular large swimbaits like Savage Gear, Huddleston, and Mattlures could greatly benefit from this. I stay away from them simply because of the durability issues; those who have the money to throw, thumbs up! But what about the rest of the world? It simply is not practical for most fisherman to buy these lures, which is sad, because they are great fish catching lures. They would sell like hotcakes if not for lack of lifespan imo.

 

If anything I would recommend experimenting with this. Those swimming stone catties of yours are pretty interesting, looks like a long thin tail that would certainly be more durable with mesh. Good test subject?

Edited February 8, 2015 by TOPFLiTE1994

[alsworms]

I can relate to the Storm issue as I've used them for years on our river.  The durability is exceptional and they flat out catch fish!  Certainly not knocking home made swimbaits (some of the talent I've seen is INSANE!), but paying upwards of 20/30/40 bucks for one bait is kinda scary to me.......when you can still get a pack of 5 Storm lures for like 6 bucks, right?  LOL 

 

Probably the reason they are so cheap.......as mentioned.......being made in Japan.  Personally, I didn't know that. 

[IronBass]

Storm Live Kickin Shads get the action from either a lip (like a crank bait) or mutable sections. MattLures and Hudds are tail driven. Adding a mesh the these types of baits will effect action, just changing hardness of plastics will effect the action of the bait and the bait would need to be redesigned to work with the more durable stronger plastic. The limitations of plastisol takes over here. Savage Gear Line Thru and baits like the Castaic have mesh center and imo add nothing to the longevity of the life of the bait other than around the hinge section. These types baits are simply limited to the material they are made out of. Baits like these are easily glued and repaired to work like new, if you have ever fished a Savage Gear or a Catch 22 with mesh you will be glueing them together also if you are truly catching fish on them.The cost of these baits will never make most anglers happy about buying them, but those who find success on higher end swimbaits would never spend less. I justify it like this, if I go fishing and get on an all out Ring Fry bite. I can easily go through 4 bags, 4 bags = $25.00. One good soft bait like a Savage Gear cost about $20. This bait will make the day and I can glue it back together again and again.

[smallmouthaholic]

If anything I would recommend experimenting with this. Those swimming stone catties of yours are pretty interesting, looks like a long thin tail that would certainly be more durable with mesh. Good test subject?

 

Mesh would not fit inside those thin tails and would negate the action. I've used Storm swim-baits years ago and they sink too fast for shallow water. We hammer bass in pad beds going dormant( just a few stalks and pads remain) in late October using a 3.75" River darter swim-bait rigged weedless w/ a 1/16 oz. flutter head.

Most swim-bait would fall lifeless w/ that light weight.

 

I think you need some hands on experience manufacturing soft plastics in custom CNC molds before you make suggestions that simply are not feasible.

 

Stick w/ your Storm baits since price is your main point vs. versatility w/ productive options.

[djs]

I still cannot believe what some will pay for soft plastic swimbaits. http://m.ebay.com/itm/151553022983?nav=SEARCH

[IronBass]

Unless something has change, Storm products are made in China not Japan. 

[IronBass]

The cost is something most anglers will never understand. But if you are really into Storm baits, you will catch fish on them, but you also know the limitations of the baits. Limited sink rates, tail selections, less than par color patterns, if I want a top hook storm the real only option is the Wild Eye Shad, the Wild Eye Shad sinks like a rock and really cannot be fished in shallow water and the boot tail design demands it to be fished it at higher speeds to get any type of kick out of it, the higher speed needed to get tail kick out of the Wild Eye shad also comes from the harder more durable plastic. If I want a boot tail that gets kick at slower speeds I need a bait that has softer plastic. This type of bait comes from a bait maker that understands a softer less durable swimbait with different sink rates are going to catch more fish for his customers. These baits are hand made from harness to hand painted. Something I think many angers forget when looking at something on an online store is the time it took the maker to build it. Most don't care about the craftsman ship, origin of country made, just cost. A $5.00 swimbait that sits at the bottom of my box is not a value to the $25.00 swimbait I pound fish on. The old picture in my aviator was caught on a Storm Wild Eye shad, I quickly learned the bait is one trick pony that is only good for dragging hard bottom areas. I'm not a swimbait snob, but the swimbait better have a a place in my box or I wasted my hard earned money. As many of you see as you look around, higher end swimbaits like MattLures, Hudds, Deps ect. ect. are coming much more common with average week end anglers around the country just looking to put more fish into the boat on the weekend, many of them are seeing the value of hand made hand tweaked made to customers specifications swimbaits or baits makers that have spent the time on R and D that have earned a place in to the anglers box.

[TOPFLiTE1994]

 

 

Mesh would not fit inside those thin tails and would negate the action. I've used Storm swim-baits years ago and they sink too fast for shallow water. We hammer bass in pad beds going dormant( just a few stalks and pads remain) in late October using a 3.75" River darter swim-bait rigged weedless w/ a 1/16 oz. flutter head.

Most swim-bait would fall lifeless w/ that light weight.

 

I think you need some hands on experience manufacturing soft plastics in custom CNC molds before you make suggestions that simply are not feasible.

 

Stick w/ your Storm baits since price is your main point vs. versatility w/ productive options.

 

Seems like you took my comment as bashing; it was not. I brought the topic up out of interest, looking for opinionsandr knowledge, not because I am seeking an argument with those who have knowledge on the subject.

 

I recommended what I thought to be a valid recommendation. Your input is appreciated, I'm learning things I didn't know.

 

The cost is something most anglers will never understand. But if you are really into Storm baits, you will catch fish on them, but you also know the limitations of the baits. Limited sink rates, tail selections, less than par color patterns, if I want a top hook storm the real only option is the Wild Eye Shad, the Wild Eye Shad sinks like a rock and really cannot be fished in shallow water and the boot tail design demands it to be fished it at higher speeds to get any type of kick out of it, the higher speed needed to get tail kick out of the Wild Eye shad also comes from the harder more durable plastic. If I want a boot tail that gets kick at slower speeds I need a bait that has softer plastic. This type of bait comes from a bait maker that understands a softer less durable swimbait with different sink rates are going to catch more fish for his customers. These baits are hand made from harness to hand painted. Something I think many angers forget when looking at something on an online store is the time it took the maker to build it. Most don't care about the craftsman ship, origin of country made, just cost. A $5.00 swimbait that sits at the bottom of my box is not a value to the $25.00 swimbait I pound fish on. The old picture in my aviator was caught on a Storm Wild Eye shad, I quickly learned the bait is one trick pony that is only good for dragging hard bottom areas. I'm not a swimbait snob, but the swimbait better have a a place in my box or I wasted my hard earned money. As many of you see as you look around, higher end swimbaits like MattLures, Hudds, Deps ect. ect. are coming much more common with average week end anglers around the country just looking to put more fish into the boat on the weekend, many of them are seeing the value of hand made hand tweaked made to customers specifications swimbaits or baits makers that have spent the time on R and D that have earned a place in to the anglers box.

I agree, the sink rates of Storm lures is certainly fast. I only use them in weedless areas or along steep ledges. They have brought in countless fish for me, but I also agree that versatility isn't there, so I usually end up using paddle tail flukes and such variably weighted.

 

Maybe 4, 5, 10 years from now the high end swimbait makers will have the materials to make them durable too. Until then, craftsmanship is not a fit reason to put these in my tackle box. Unless I win the lottery 

[IronBass]

Real Prey Swimbaits imo figured this out with the material they use to make his baits. The problem is the material cost about 5 times more than plastisol. The bait are very durable and can be repaired any 100% silicone. The other beauty of his products is the paint is the same material as the swimbait itself so it pretty much stays on the life of the bait. Real Prey looked outside the box but with at a cost of higher price materials. Someday someone will figure out stronger materials at a less expensive price.

[smallmouthaholic]

TOPFLiTE 1994-

                            I never took your post as a bashing or ridicule- just in-experienced dock talk which seems at times to run rampant here @ TU.Unfortunately you won't learn the versatility of various swim-baits and weighted head designs since there's a durability and price issue in your mind.Try somethin' new- whatcha gonna do?

 

                             Storm swim-bait are ok and relatively in-expensive but fall far short of a versatile swim-bait for all seasons and most certainly-varied structure and weedy situations.Bass metabolism becomes much slower in colder water w/associated barometric changes/ post weather frontal conditions and Storm swim-baits are worthless I.M.O. & experience.So tell me,how much money are you saving after you drive to the lake ,launch your boat and find out the bass want a much slower,sinking swim-bait with excellent snag resistance qualities?

 

                            Compare the cost and versatility of swim-baits vs. crank-baits- but that's for another discussion.Swim-baits are dirt cheap compared to Lucky Craft $15.00 spinner baits and Mega bass hard body baits. There is no durability issue when a $17.00 L.C. SBJ gets bit off on the 1st cast by a hungry toother . You are most certainly entitled to decide where you spend money on your fishing hobby.

[Anglinarcher]

OK, I probably should not get into this, but ...... I am too stupid to stay out of it.

 

I don't find Storm lures all that good.  I have probably 10 to 20 various styles of them, and while they are durable, they get stiff as a board in colder water.  OK, why do I still have them?  I hate to throw anything away and I figure that in time I will find a use.  Perhaps now that I have moved to the south I will find that the warm water will be more there style.

 

For the colder water I was use to in the Northwest, I made my  own swimbaits in various styles using softer plastic and they worked much better.  I still find they work very well in the warm/hot water, so I sure won't stop making my own baits.

 

Now, as for mesh, well you can have better plastic then Storm has and still have mesh in it.  I have experiment with it, and if I actually sold lures I might actually consider adding it, but for my use, I just don't feel the added time making work is worth it, but ......... the my cost per swim bait is so low that this becomes a factor.

 

I guess what I am saying is that I understand TOPFLIGHTs desire for a less expensive and more durable bait, but I sure would not hold the Storm Swim Baits up as the model to follow.

[IronBass]

I agree with you Anglinarcher and TOPFight. Even the guys who buy high end swimbaits want a more durable bait that don't break the bank. 

[Basseducer]

Looking at it from a soft bait manufacturers point of view, if a bait is too durable it won't sell as many as one that tears easily. I manufacture baits for other re sellers and I had one complain that my worms were too durable. He wanted me to make them softer so that they would tear more easily. So from that perspective you will never get those big companies to bolster their baits.

[mark poulson]

TOPFLITE1994,

"The only dumb question is the one that is unasked"  No one really knows who said it first, but it is true.

 

Sometimes older TU members forget that sharing our own experiences here, and asking questions when we don't know something, is what this site is all about....shared knowledge.  It is how knowledge is passed from one generation to the next.

I know, for me, most of what I've learned about lure making I learned here, for others who shared their hard earned knowledge and experience with me.

Anyone who says everything they know they learned on their own, by themselves, with no help from others is either a liar or a fool.

 

Modifying a production method to include something like a mesh center is a very complicated and challenging proposition.

Most soft bait manufacturers are not interested in reinventing the wheel if it is too expensive and time consuming.

The larger soft swimbait market is so competitive that having something unique, like a mesh core, can make the difference when it comes to separating your swimbait from the others, and carving out a piece of the market/being successful.  

From what I've read here on TU, mold design and production is expensive.

If you're designing a production mold from scratch, and plan to use the mesh as part of it, it has to be much simpler and cost effective than trying to modify an existing production mold.

 

I fish the top hook Storm 4" shad swimbaits like a jig, letting them fall to the bottom in deeper, colder water during the winter, and then dragging them uphill over the rocky points here in our SoCal lakes.  There are other soft swimbaits with different, sometimes better, actions, but none I would drag through the rocks like that.  At 35' deep, the bass don't seem to know they're eating a $5 bait.

[CNC Molds N Stuff]

There are lots of things one can try if making your own. Strands of silicone skirt material, light mono line, etc. More effort... More money.

[mjs]

I love the mattlures eastcoast walleye for pike. But like most plastic options I only pull it out for big pike, and I keep the mend-it handy. I`ve made them survive a long time by taking them off for fixing religiously. I rotate three or so. The price does limit my collection to just a few though. It`s a bad feeling when a tiny pike shreds the thing.

[SlowFISH]

TOPFLITE1994,

"The only dumb question is the one that is unasked"  No one really knows who said it first, but it is true.

 

Sometimes older TU members forget that sharing our own experiences here, and asking questions when we don't know something, is what this site is all about....shared knowledge.  It is how knowledge is passed from one generation to the next.

I know, for me, most of what I've learned about lure making I learned here, for others who shared their hard earned knowledge and experience with me.

Anyone who says everything they know they learned on their own, by themselves, with no help from others is either a liar or a fool.

 

Modifying a production method to include something like a mesh center is a very complicated and challenging proposition.

Most soft bait manufacturers are not interested in reinventing the wheel if it is too expensive and time consuming.

The larger soft swimbait market is so competitive that having something unique, like a mesh core, can make the difference when it comes to separating your swimbait from the others, and carving out a piece of the market/being successful.  

From what I've read here on TU, mold design and production is expensive.

If you're designing a production mold from scratch, and plan to use the mesh as part of it, it has to be much simpler and cost effective than trying to modify an existing production mold.

 

I fish the top hook Storm 4" shad swimbaits like a jig, letting them fall to the bottom in deeper, colder water during the winter, and then dragging them uphill over the rocky points here in our SoCal lakes.  There are other soft swimbaits with different, sometimes better, actions, but none I would drag through the rocks like that.  At 35' deep, the bass don't seem to know they're eating a $5 bait.

 

 

There are lots of things one can try if making your own. Strands of silicone skirt material, light mono line, etc. More effort... More money.

 

  All good points - and when we talk production - let's keep in mind scale and speed needed by any bait maker who sells real quantities to keep up with demand..... as that might be the bigest driver of cost than any technical challenge of the bait, mold or the cost of the inserted material.  It's really easy to say - put a strip of mesh in-between the mold halves and shoot.  Honestly - I could modify my swimbait mold to do this in about a half  hour and be shooting away.  I'd be pretty sure with even the same mold and not modifying the design I could find a material on McMaster Carr or some composites site that would work and not effect the flex/action to any noticeable degree.  But that's a hobby mold that produces 1 bait every couple minutes and has one monkey operating it (That monkey is me!!! LOL!))

 

 In reality - even if a production mold is modified to do it and the bait is unchanged from an action standpoint.... how to you get that strip into every cavity in any sort of reasonable production tool.  And not only how do you get it into every cavity - how do you do it accurately and in split seconds, every single time perfectly to minimize bad baits.  You can do it with a robotic arm  - super fast and accurate - but from the work I do, most of these arms start at hundreds of thousands of dollars - guess where that cost goes.  And then you'd need a way to hold the mesh in the mold as it's closed... vacuum on mesh-HHmmmm?  A feature/action in the mold... can the injection machine or operator handle this?  Another tricky piece...

 

  As a consumer - we'd love everything to last forever and work perfectly for a minimal cost.  Reality is - even when that can be delivered - most of the time it's the process and speeds needed by manufacturing that holds these types of innovation from the market. Smaller bait makers MAY have more flexibility to a degree... but even if it takes someone 10 seconds to load up a tool by hand with inserts and then shoot it on a mold that they typically turn over every minute - that's close to a 18% reduction in manufacturing speed alone - never mind the cost of the material.   10 seconds of me in my basement is nothing - non exisitant - seconds in high speed manufacturing can be a killer.

 

 I have a soft bait I've been working on and sharing with friends - and it's awesome so they say.... they all tell me to go market it... but the mold is nuts from a complexity standpoint and knowing what I do know about hi-speed manufacturing - my guess the reason there isn't something like this out there is due to that complexity in opening/closing the mold parts.  So it's not the bait cost that will kill me as it uses the same amount of plastic another typical bait of it's kind would use - but the time/complexity of opening/demolding/closing the mold that will likely keep this design in my basement forever!! LOL!!

 

  J.

[Mattlures]

The biggest reason I don't use mesh or a harder plastic is the baits simply wont swim as good. I will take a bait that produces big bites over a bait that is more durable but doesnt produce as well every single time. Real prey uses silicone. That works with his style of wedge tail. It would not work with a boot style tail. Most of my soft baits require very soft plastic to get the right action I am looking for. If you lube your baits while fishing them they will tare a lot less often. If you use Mend-it you can make them last a long time. My #1 priority is for my baits to get bites and specifically big bites. Everything else is 2nd. For me its not a matter of cost its a matter of fish

[RayburnGuy]

Really and truly there should be no "bones to pick" if you can't find the type of tackle you want at a cost you want to pay. This website is about building tackle so if what you want isn't available at what you consider a fair price then all you have to do is build it. And who knows, you might become an overnight success and get rich in the process. And if you get rich then maybe you won't mind paying a little extra.

 

just my

 

Ben