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O'baits

My "Weedless Swimbait"

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While my Trout spoon is drying, I'll go on with my other design, weedless swimbait. 

Weedless in a sence hooks are on the backside, kind of what you'd do with your soft baits.

Hooks are attached to line, which runs along the backside of the bait, kept in place with small bits of silicone. 

Trying to get that perfectly balanced, three section swimbait. This is a small design, only 10cm (4") long, so it's going to be nitty pitty operation to get this swim right. 

But if I get this right, it's going to be one of the best hard baits I know. Cast, wait for it to slowly sink to bottom, then walk it slow or fast. You can get this where the big fish are, very close to bottom, with greatly reduced risk of getting it stuck on weeds etc and losing it for good.

Although, I have to say, this might end up to be an epic fail... :P

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Carved and ready for the next steps

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After making the channel for the wire and hooks to attatch, and sealing the bait.

Updating this as often as I get something done but it's probably going to be a slow project. 

 

Cheers, Jarmo from O'baits 

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Adjusting the weights. Have to say, this is the fun part as much as it is the pain in the a** part, trying to get every peace not just to sink in horizontal level, but to sink at the same rate. 

I always do this with my segmented baits, make a sink test with each part individually rather than connecting the peaces together and weighting the whole bait at once.

Using bismuth as weight, doing my small good deed for the environment by leaving the lead out of it. 

Edited by O'baits
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I like your design ideas. You are definitely on the ball with your swimbait design; balancing each segment to sink horizontal, a key factor for success. I talked about this idea many years ago.

Your 'across the back' hook mounting is a novel idea. But, the wood looks strong enough to take a barrel twist eye, rather than inhibiting the hinge action with a third line. Also there is the risk of the full length line being stripped out of the slot with a decent weight fish.

Still, I like it. Hoping once again, you come back with some video.

I did a lot of work on swimbaits, not for myself but for research and information for publishing here on TU. I have never fished any of my swimbaits. I have a plastic bag full of various segments.

You should look up my video on V-shaped joints, you may find it useful.

I look forward to reading about more of your projects. You are progressive and open to sharing. Love it :)

Here is the video link.

Dave

Edited by Vodkaman
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51 minutes ago, Vodkaman said:

I like your design ideas. You are definitely on the ball with your swimbait design; balancing each segment to sink horizontal, a key

You should look up my video on V-shaped joints, you may find it useful.

I look forward to reading about more of your projects. You are progressive and open to sharing. Love it :)

Here is the video link.

Dave

Vodkaman... I finally went a looked as some of  your vids. done several years back. The ones with the various hinge styles in the pool were very interesting. I've made a few hinged baits, some with double point hinges too. I love watching them in the water and seeing how the hinges if done right can make the wood lure look  like rubber. But.... even though I still make multi-hinged baits, when I look at them the smooth action, to my eye, doesn't look natural. And, again to my eye, a single hinge looks more fish like to me. A two or more hinged bait seems to look more serpentine. A single hinged bait appears to me a more natural fish swim look to it. When I look at a fish swim, the muscles seem to make it look like it's a more of a center driven bowing, and less snake like. Anyway, knowing this, I still make 2-3 hinged baits just because I like creating that effect.... I wonder if the fish think so too?

 

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DG - I agree with you. My aim in my swimbait series was to show what movements were available.

I found that ballast made little difference other than the advantage of a level fall.
Hinge shape was important and could control the width of the swim action.

I also watched fish swim; head movement was minimal and the action was all in the rear third.

But as with all lures, trying to fool a fish is like fooling a tiger with a video of the Keystone cops, it can never be 100% convincing. But by providing water sounds/vibrations that clearly do not come from static, lifeless objects, at least suspicion of a meal can be generated requiring further investigation by the predator. This is the best we can hope for.

I did a lot of work developing a swimmer with minimum head movement, this was a difficult task, but I got there in the end.

Regardless of swim action chosen, the most important feature is freedom of hinge movement.

In my experience, the static head can only be achieved with a double pin arrangement, allowing each segment to be acted upon independently, without any one segment affecting the movement of another.

Yes, swimbaits are complex, mostly in the planning and the build. But I found that the success rate was favourable and no more difficult than a crank.

There is more to talk about, but I do feel that we are off subject in this post.

Dave

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6 hours ago, Vodkaman said:

I like your design ideas... 

I watched your videos and they confirmed my initial thoughts, you my fellow luremaker have done a tramendous efforts in a way of research to give us all very good information.

I've been studying various hinge types also, and double pin just gives that beautiful, almost real fish like swimming action.

If this bait really works, I'll update my second version to an double pin variation. It's kinda big brother to this one, as seen in the photo.

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I got an PM asking how do I get the proximal weight and depths of the holes I melt the weight in. 

One important step I didn't tell or take pictures and now I'm kinda bummed because of it. But I'll explain the steps. 

 

I'll take the block of wood which I'll use to make my bait from. I'll measure and weight it, as shown below, before carving an bait out of it. 

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This is just some scrap I'll use for and a ample. Using weight and dimensions to get the volume and the density of the block. 

Volume in cubic centimeters equals the amount this block has to weight for it to be neutrally buoyant, just before it starts to sink.

So to super easy calculations, for density I need the weight and volume. To get that volume multiply width with length with height, W x L x H, which with this block is

4,55cm x 12,01cm x 1,31cm = 71,586 cm³

To get density, I need to divide weight of the the block with volume which is

32,12g / 71,586 = 0,449 g/cm³

 

Now that I have that density, I'll carve my bait from this block of wood and after it is carved, I need to know how much it has to weight for water displacement, to get it either neutral, slow or fast sinker. And to do that, I need to know the volume of the carved bait. And now I'll get that with one measurement and one easy calculation. No need to seal and sink it etc.

 

I'll just weight the new bait and let's say it weights something like 17 grams. I'll take that 17 grams and divide it with that density, calculated previously.

17 / 0,449 = 37,862 cm³

It gives me the total volume of the bait in cubic centimeters which is 37,862 cm³. 

And because we're talking metrics here, we can change that cm³ directly to grams to get the weight needed for bait to be naturally buoyant. Add 10% from the weight that it weights now and it's a slow sinker. 

So this needs to weight, after rounding calculations up, 38g + 2g = 40g to make it an slow sinker. And this is after all the hardware etc.

This is an very easy way to measure everything, throw the carved bait to scale, add hooks, rings and weights etc and then just assembly everything in place. 

Edited by O'baits
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Weather is acting up so no testing yet for my lightened spoon. It means, I'll go forward with this design.

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Kinda mimicked an Roach fish here. Pretty basic color scheme, just a tad of fluoriscent red, blue and green on the sides which shows depending the lighting.

Next step would be obviously epoxy coating but also making the stinger setup. Not sure how much it inhibits the swimming action but we'll see. Have to test with fluorocarbon, leader wire and Kevlar thread would also be one option.

I know all of these are being used in these kind of baits so just have to test which is best for so small bait as this one. 

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12 hours ago, stretcher66 said:

something like the roman made negotiator has a assist type top hook setup.

pictrmmother-001.jpg

I like that hook arrangement because you do have a hook on the rear section, but it puts all the strain of fighting the fish on the front line tie, and not on the hinge joint.  How are the hooks held in place?

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3 hours ago, AZ Fisher said:

There is a recessed groove in the top of the bait that the hooks and assist line are pressed into  and it fits fairly snug. There is enough slack line in between the sections as not to hinder the glide. 

How do they keep the line and hook in place during the cast, and when the bait lands?

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3 hours ago, AZ Fisher said:

The red things on the assist line are something similar to shrink tubing that keeps the line snug in the groove. I've never had an issue with the line pulling out on mine. I even have a Negociator bottom hook that was converted to a top hook, homemade version and it holds well.

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Cool!  Thanks for the pics, and the explanation.  That is a massive amount of hook rash!  I see why you changed it to top hook.  Clear fingernail polish will protect the rashed wood without changing it's looks, or affecting the action.

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