Ballast Needed On Homemade Crankbait????

[Indiana Bass1]

Ok, here is the situation. I have been carving crankbaits for 3 yrs now and I have been using the small plastic bill from janns on them and have not had any issues with them. I have not added any ballast weight to them and they still run true as long as I get the bills on true. Now for the problem, I bought some circuit board bills to use and now the bait wants to just roll to one side or the other and stay there. Do I need to drill and add ballast weight to correct this issue? Or if not,what is wrong? All of the screw eyes are dead center on the bait also. Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

P.S. I am using western red cedar for the crankbaits.

[Fishwhittler]

Yes, from what it sounds like, you need to add ballast to your lures. The molded plastic bills from Jann's are much heavier than circuit board, and if you switch to the lighter material you may have to compensate by adding weight in another area.

[Indiana Bass1]

How do I figure out where the weight needs to be added? And how much weight would i need to add?

Thanks for replying fishwhittler.

[Fishwhittler]

If you look at some factory baits, you'll see that most if not all of the ballast is located in the belly. The location varies by manufacturer, but the weights are generally in front of and/or directly behind the belly hook hanger. On some wooden lures such as Bagley's, a lead weight with an integral screw eye is used as a combination ballast and hook hanger. I don't use them myself, but if you look around you can probably find some.

The amount of ballast for a given lure style varies. The shape, body material, size, and other factors all affect how a lure behaves in the water. For example, a round lure requires less ballast for its size than a flat-sided crank bait, and a deep-bodied lure will need more ballast than a lure with a low profile.

I would start by getting some different weights and experimenting. BBs, ball bearings and split shot are all readily available and work well for ballasting lures, and can be easily installed by drilling a hole in the lure, sticking the weight in, and filling the hole with epoxy.

I hope this helps.

[BIG M]

take the bait with the circut board bill and put a split shot on the belly hook and test it. If still not running true add two split shot. Should no take more than a couple of small weights to get

that bait running right.

[Indiana Bass1]

Thanks both fishwhittler and BIG M. Man I hate to drill thru the finish on the 4 completed crankbaits,dang it. Oh well gotta get em runnin straight. At least these are for me. I wish I knew how to post pics on here I am still old schoolin it with the rattle cans,but I have some awesome lookin baits that flat smoke the bass! Looking into buying me an airbrush soon,that way I can do some finer details on the baits. Thanks again.

[BIG M]

You may not have to drill into those baits. You could wrap lead wire around the shank of the belly hook.

I'm thinking 1 small split shot will be enough ballast.

[Indiana Bass1]

I will try that first BIG M,thanks.

[Indiana Bass1]

Well since I just had rotator cuff surgery, I had my wife go with me too a local pond and I put a split shot on the front hook and it ran perfect. So what I did to the three baits is put a few suspend dots halfway between the bill and the front hook. They run great. I will make another one soon and drill a hole between the bill and frt hook and put a split shot in and epoxy it over and see how that works. Thanks for your help guys. I really like the action of these baits as compared to the baits with the plastic bills.