Bill Angel And Depth

[Chaser320]

How to determined bill angle and depth of cut on a crankbait

[SW Lures]

The flatter the angle from the nose to tail center line, normally the deeper the bait will go. However the ballast location and the lure shape can have a say in this. That center line is the X line. The Y line is another imaginary line running perpendicular to the X line. Some here may give you more info describing these lines like this. If you know this, all the better.

A example is, I made a bait that has a lip at 5°'s down from that center line and with the ballast forward in the bait. When the bait sets in the water the tail comes out of the water. This bait dives to 30'-40' deep.

Another bait that looks similar to that one. I put the lip in at 30°'s and change the ballast location. The lure swims at 15'-20'. This lure lays level at the surface. Both of these depths are at a slow trolling speed, which this bait was created for.

As far as how deep to cut them in at. My opinion is how much stress is going to be generated at that point. Trolling creates great stress on the bill and line. Therefore I cut it in about 1/2" on these deep diving baits. On a normal 15' deep cranking bait of 2.5" long I may cut it in at 1/4". The size of the bait and lip changes the stress factor to me. JMO

Hope this helps,

Dale

[BobP]

I cut most bill slots 10mm deep and that has worked OK for me. Lip angle is a complicated problem. There are very general guidelines but there are a lot of factors that influence how a bait will swim and you have to get them all working together for the best results. The simplest scenario is a shallow running (2-5 ft) bait with the line tie on the nose of the body that is ballasted to swim in a a straight ahead attitude parallel to the surface of the water. A general guideline is that a lip set at about 45 degrees will give you a good combination of depth and wiggle. A greater angle will dive shallower but will have more wiggle, and vice-versa. Like Dale pointed out, if the bait swims with a head-down attitude, that changes the "effective angle" of the lip as it moves through the water. It gets quite complicated since the lip shape, width, and length interact with the body's shape, size and ballast positioning to determine how the whole bait will perform. The best advice I can give is to model your bait on a commercial bait whose action you like. Most of them have been tested and tweaked extensively. Take your copy on the water, test it out, and then you will have a starting point from which you can then begin to experiment and tweak your bait to perform to your expectations.

[SW Lures]

All of what Bob stated is in my opinion correct. When I started designing baits I was looking for a specific shape, paint scheme and depth. I couldn't find this by a manufacturer so I gave this hobby a try.

When I got to a point I realized that I had to test what I designed and it took some time and quiet a few tries to get it where I liked it. These failures tho help me to understand a lot about ballast location, ballast weight, lip angle, lip length, lip width and of course lure shape and size. With that said Bob gave you some good advice in, copy some lures and that will help you to understand this better.

Take care,

Dale

ps, forgot something lip thickness. There again Bob is right. Many factors.

Edited October 10, 2016 by DaleSW

[robalo01]

Reviving this thread. Line tie placement is also really important. As I am tinkering with design, I made several baits of the same size (3.25" Poe-like design), shape and ballast (3/16 oz in front of the front hook) and will be installing the same lip and line tie placement with different lip angles to test the difference in performance/action. There is a Bagley design that I really like with about a 30 deg lip angle. I will let you know what I found.

[SW Lures]

I differently should have remembered that one Robalo. Your are on point with that. I tinkered moving the tow out on the lip. I went to far out at first. Then put it on the nose, I still couldn't get the depth (20-30') and the action I wanted. I found that just under the nose to about 3/16" on the lip from the nose was the best. I settle with under the nose. I need to make me some more for spring stripers. Did pretty good last year. That reminded me I got to get pic for Jigginpig.

Take Care,

Dale

Edited November 29, 2016 by DaleSW

[BobP]

Talking about medium to deep cranks with the line tie on the lip, you have to be careful. Generally, the closer to the nose the tie is, the more wiggle you will get. But at some point, the wiggle will overpower the bait and it will begin to spin. A very general rule of thumb is to place the line tie a little less than half the distance from the nose of the bait to the tip of the lip on deep divers. It is striking how much you can change the action on a deep diver by adjusting the line tie position by just a millimeter or two. On baits with the line tie in the nose of the bait, the closer down toward the lip surface you place the line tie, the wider action you will get from the bait. For instance, a trick used by some guys who fish Rapala Husky Jerks is to bend the line tie in the nose downward to give the bait a wider harder wiggle. If you look at many shallow runners like square bills or custom lures like the D-bait, their line ties are right down in the nose next to the lip surface.

[SW Lures]

You are right Bob. If you could look at the movements I did with the eye, it was mm's. I didn't state it in the last post but I even went to above the nose. This was my first wooden bait I did. It took me 1 completely destroyed bait and a couple more pretty drilled out baits to start to understand this.

This year I may tinker with moving the tie even a little more just to see what it may do. I ran out of time last year. To be honest the bait does pretty good now, it may not be worth it. The bait looks like a sub going down at about a 40° angle and the tail out of the water, at rest. Funny looking as heck. But when the pull starts.... game is on.

Dale

[BobP]

Guys (including me) don't experiment enough with ballast position, imo. One of the best fish-catching baits I ever made was a flat sided shallow runner which had chest ballasting that made it float entirely head down. In its first day on the water, I cast it out and noticed a 4lb bass turn and look at it as it rested on the surface. On the first pull, he rocketed 10 ft and smashed it. The next day, I caught 20 lbs of bass on it in 10 minutes on a very tough lake. Why did it work so well? Not entirely sure but I think the bait's very distinct and sharp thump when retrieved was the main attraction. Ever since, I've gauged similar shallow crankbaits' action against that bait. And I'm not happy with any bait until I get it out on the water and feel it's pulse as it is retrieved. Pay attention and you can pick winners and losers just by the tactile feedback.