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Illini Nate

Tail swimming hardbait

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Nate,

I've played around with placing the diving bill towards the tail of the bait.It does change how the bait swims....it's the tail moving,and pushing the head,instead of the head moving pulling the tail.The farther back you put the bill.the shallower the bait will dive.I even tried putting a bill on the very back of the bait at a 90 degree,and ran my rear eye screw through it.It made a interesting waking bait with all the action in the back.

The problem you run into is the hooks catching on the bill,or the bill reducing your hook up ratio....some day I'll play around with this again..I really think there are some good options..Nathan

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One thing you could try is using a longer screw eye and putting an ege sinker before you add the tail. The extra weigh in the back of the body should stop it from moving. But on the other hand it is going to maybe track strange.

I have not tried it so let me know if you do and it works.

-Corey

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I'm no biologist but there's a wealth of info in the web for fish locomotion and basically different fish swims differently.

locomotion5.jpgHere's an excerpt:(full text here:http://www.fisheriesmanagement.co.uk/Fish%20Studies/locomotion_study.htm)

"The rainbow trout can be classified into the group of subcarangiform fishes. This defines the type of body movement the species experiences when swimming. Most fish species swim with lateral body undulations running from head to tail. These waves run more slowly than the waves of muscle activation causing them, reflecting the effect of the interaction between the fish's body and reactive forces from the water (Wardle et al.1995). The undulations of the side to side movement in the body are slight in the anterior but there is a significant increase in the rear half to third of the body. The snout of the fish does not travel in a straight line but tends to oscillate at small amplitudes along the mean path of the fish (Hoar & Randell 1978). Figure 4 illustrates this type of movement and clearly shows that no part of the body travels in a straight line, but tends to follow a curving path through the water"

The point is; it would be unnatural for a fish to swim without any oscillation in the head as well. My suggestion for a natural swimming hardbait would be to keep the lip in the head for generating the movement but play with jointed tail end (specifically with multistrand SS wires) which will in turn mimic the natural body movement of a fish swiming naturally. Makes sense to you?

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LaPala is exactly right! Swimming in fish begins with head movement which starts a vortex rolling down their side which they then push against their tail. A fish swimming without head movement is totally unatural. See attachment especially the animations- http://www2.biology.ualberta.ca/jackson.hp/IWR/Content/Anatomy/Swimming/Information/index.php

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Interesting info LaPala and MagicBob.

I guess the other thing to consider is how different is the swimming action of a wounded fish from that of a healthy fish. A lot of my surface swimming baits have more of a wobble with some roll while slow waking on top. Stripers clobber them! Seemed to me like you would expect from a wounded bait struggling to get out of harms way, i.e., easy target.

Andrew

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I was thinking, to get tail action, why not make the tail bigger than the main body? Thus making it bigger and more water resistant, probably more buoyant in some cases. Imagine, jointed rapala with tail section removed (cutoff) and bigger re-crafted tail section added. I haven't tried it, but I was thinking along the same lines (getting more tail action). It's kind of the same concept as adding feathers to the rear hook to get that sway. I really like the new 3 section jointed baits by jackall bros/lake police and the tsunami floating jointed walking minnow. You might wanna check those out.

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On the jointed plugs that I've done, I've found that having the tail section a little shorter than the front creates more action. My guess is that the heavier front is keeping the plug anchored while allowing the lighter tail section to swing more.

Andrew

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Those two fins look like a good idea. I wonder if you could possibly make the joint in the opposite direction that you usually do. Meaning that you cut it so the V points toward the head. If you did that you could cut one side shorter than the other kind of like the creme little fishy is made. Just a thaught. I havent had much time to do anythign lately but maybe today I can give some ideas a try and figure out something.

Nate

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