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mark poulson

bluegill wake bait with prop

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1 hour ago, Hillbilly voodoo said:

You seem to really like your top water baits 

too bad you did not get the buoyancy you were looking for. But it sounds like it should still be a fish catcher

Guilty as charged.

If they'll eat it, there's no more explosive strike than a big bass trying to kill a topwater lure.

My heart just about jumps out of my chest every time, because it's so random.

I hope this lure will get blasted, too, since it's only an inch below the surface on the retrieve, and it really active and loud.

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That’s a nice paint job.  Would it have worked to spec if made from balsa vs Azek?  The first wake bait I tried was with basswood and it was hard to get the flotation I wanted with the additional props and shafts installed.  Then I switched to balsa or paulownia, no problem. 

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5 hours ago, BobP said:

That’s a nice paint job.  Would it have worked to spec if made from balsa vs Azek?  The first wake bait I tried was with basswood and it was hard to get the flotation I wanted with the additional props and shafts installed.  Then I switched to balsa or paulownia, no problem. 

It might have worked with balsa, but I don't think it would hold up.

Even when I've strengthened balsa with super glue, I wouldn't trust it for a jointed bait.

I guess I'm just chicken.  It would break my heart to have a big bass destroy something I'd made and then swim off!    Hahaha

I'm going to make another, but leave it thicker so it's more buoyant.  That works on the rat wakebaits I make with Azek.  I just got carried away with trying to make this bait "sexy", and it came back to bite me.

Edited by mark poulson
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Great Idea Mark.  There's not much in fishing that beats a topwater strike!  And the uncertainty of it just makes it that much more exciting.  I caught my first muskie (40") fishing a Storm Chug Bug for bass over a reef.  At first I thought it was the biggest bass ever!

What angle do you like for a wake bait?  It looks like it's just about 5 degrees short of 90. Any advice here would be appreciated...

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36 minutes ago, Big Epp said:

Great Idea Mark.  There's not much in fishing that beats a topwater strike!  And the uncertainty of it just makes it that much more exciting.  I caught my first muskie (40") fishing a Storm Chug Bug for bass over a reef.  At first I thought it was the biggest bass ever!

What angle do you like for a wake bait?  It looks like it's just about 5 degrees short of 90. Any advice here would be appreciated...

I just tried to cut the lip slot far enough from the nose that it had some material/strength, and then make the lip's tip line up with the nose of the bait.  It wasn't scientific.  I have made wake baits before, and found that it isn't that critical.  On a fast retrieve, most wake baits go sub-surface, so I just went for close.  The reason it doesn't wake isn't the lip angle so much as the fact that it sits too low in the water at rest.  I made the bait so thin that there isn't enough buoyant material to overcome the amount of ballast I needed to keep it upright on the pause.  The next one I make I'll keep it fatter, to try and overcome that, like I do with my rat wake baits.

 

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Have you ever thought about angling the bill backwards just a tiny bit to get a wakebait? It seems that might give it just a tiny bit of lift, and you could keep the same slim profile you want.

Think of a Jitterbug lip. You wouldn't want to go that extreme, but it's angled backwards like that.

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8 hours ago, osutodd said:

Have you ever thought about angling the bill backwards just a tiny bit to get a wakebait? It seems that might give it just a tiny bit of lift, and you could keep the same slim profile you want.

Think of a Jitterbug lip. You wouldn't want to go that extreme, but it's angled backwards like that.

I haven't, yet.  I'll have to give it a try.  Thanks.

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