RES do different colors have a different sound

[WRB]

Paint changes the color, would 1 layer of paint be different than 3 layers regarding sound...yes.

Does the slightly muted sound make any difference to bass? If you painted 12 lures white with 12 different suppliers of white all 12 would be identicle to a human eye and all 12 would look different under UV or IR light. Is sound more important than color? I catch bass on both wooden crank baits and hollow plastic crank baits with rattles, don't know before trying both first.

Tom

[Cgolf]

44 minutes ago, WRB said:

Paint changes the color, would 1 layer of paint be different than 3 layers regarding sound...yes.

Does the slightly muted sound make any difference to bass? If you painted 12 lures white with 12 different suppliers of white all 12 would be identicle to a human eye and all 12 would look different under UV or IR light. Is sound more important than color? I catch bass on both wooden crank baits and hollow plastic crank baits with rattles, don't know before trying both first.

Tom

 

This is where tossing the bone copper head RES where I have one with stuck rattles and another with them free, will give me an idea if it makes a difference. If I had a fully rattling bait last vacation would the musky have jumped at the bait as I was pulling it out of the water? All I know is they killed that bait, this summers test will be more telling because I will know which bait is different. Until last night I had no clue the gill bait had a stuck rattle. 

 

Obviously rattles or no rattles make a difference since SK makes three versions of the RES and XCalibur had two versions. Even saw a new bait on TW that has two types of rattles in one bait. Just not sure if minor changes make enough of a difference, but will be marking the good baits this summer. 

 

If I did buy multiples of certain colors and some were better than others I would want to know why. If I could pinpoint the reason and like someone said with the Cordell spots pick out the good baits in the store that would save me some cash and fishing time weeding out the bad baits. 

 

With a lipless bait I would think sound matters much more than color, just due to the nature of how they are retrieved. A Jay's magic bait is proof of that.

[Cranks4fun]

Regarding those RES with "stuck" weights: Somewhere on these forums in the past someone shared that they complained to Strike KIng about the QC and frequent stuck weights in RES baits. The Strike King rep suggested wrapping them in a towel and smacking them on a table to jar the weights loose. In fishing situations, how often do these baits with "stuck" weights have their weights jarred loose after rattling through water, banging on rocks/ wood, and being shaken in a bass' mouth? Are they relatively stable in their flawed condition?

[Cranks4fun]

While digging through my hoarded baits hoping to find some "glued-up" RES lures, I found two really awesome-looking Rat-L-Trap colors. The one that is red craw/chrome on the bottom looks like a stab at blending the two favorite colors together. Both main forage types (shad & craw) in one bait. I need to get that one in the water. I also found that I have some silent RES. I have never chunked them either. 

[WRB]

No 2 crankbaits fish the same, no rattles, free rattles, stuck rattles, cracked, water filled, etc., keep what works.

Tom

[Cranks4fun]

Yeah, I guess that confidence element is a big part of "what works" too. I definitely have confidence in the plain 1/2 oz Chrome/ blue trap. I would love to have confidence in those Red Eyed Shads but I haven't had any good days with them yet. 

 

[Cgolf]

1 hour ago, Cranks4fun said:

Regarding those RES with "stuck" weights: Somewhere on these forums in the past someone shared that they complained to Strike KIng about the QC and frequent stuck weights in RES baits. The Strike King rep suggested wrapping them in a towel and smacking them on a table to jar the weights loose. In fishing situations, how often do these baits with "stuck" weights have their weights jarred loose after rattling through water, banging on rocks/ wood, and being shaken in a bass' mouth? Are they relatively stable in their flawed condition?

 

They appear to be at least relatively stable, I had one with at least 10 fish on it including a decent musky and it stayed in place. I was able to smack some of them loose as well. Seeing that I have multiple baits that have this issue, they were never able to fully fix the problem, except it might not be a problem.

 

I did get a device to capture the frequency of the different baits, I will need to take multiple readings and try to capture the max value for each bait. It will be interesting, because I have an orange craw that sounds like it has half its balls stuck.

 

I will label the baits and as the summer progresses note which ones do better, stuck or unstuck, or heavy paint or minimal paint.

29 minutes ago, WRB said:

No 2 crankbaits fish the same, no rattles, free rattles, stuck rattles, cracked, water filled, etc., keep what works.

Tom

 

Agreed, but with all the R&D companies put in, I would imagine that the pitch of the rattles definitely plays a factor. The scientist part of me wants to know why one bait works better than the other. If they seem to want a bait with a certain pitch, i can give it to them. What I am finding with the RES is that the variability bait to bait seems to be pretty high. If I am buying them in store, I can of course check, but mailorder sites make it a crapshoot.

 

The other reason for doing the work of finding out what pitch each bait is in the off season, is that it will save me time on the water, I won't have to waste time weeding through all the baits in my box to find one that works, because to be honest, if they didn't hit the RES, I would try a rippin rap or XR 50 first.

[WRB]

I have no idea what your back ground is? High production lures are never the same as pre production prototypes for the following reasons; multiple cavity molds on multiple injection molding machines and automatic fabrication of loading sound devices and ultra sonic welding. The end result is differences in action. A rattle BB may be stuck temporarily due to cold or hot temperatures for example or missing. All these variables affect how a lure performs.

Tom

[Cgolf]

6 hours ago, WRB said:

I have no idea what your back ground is? High production lures are never the same as pre production prototypes for the following reasons; multiple cavity molds on multiple injection molding machines and automatic fabrication of loading sound devices and ultra sonic welding. The end result is differences in action. A rattle BB may be stuck temporarily due to cold or hot temperatures for example or missing. All these variables affect how a lure performs.

Tom

 

I am very analytical, keep a log of my fishing and have a list of baits that have caught fish for me on a couple of different bodies of water. For example when I saw two completely different tube colors work at different times on a clear body of water, with very little overlap, I spent time thinking about why it was, and came up with light penetration in the water and what the prey fish look like under the prevailing light conditions. While the colors are particular to this lake, the thought process serves me well on other lakes. This is why I am trying to figure out the rattles on the bait to see what works when, frontal bass, active bass, etc. I can use the data to figure out when a higher or lower pitch bait works best. Probably more info than I need, but it keeps me thinking about fishing even when I am not out there.

 

I do go with my gut at times too along with throwing random baits to expand my knowledge base and learn new stuff, but I feel the prefishing analysis helps me optimize my limited time on the water. 

[WRB]

Some of just go fishing to enjoy the outdoors, a few a curious why they catch bass. Being analytical is a trait that curious people share to seek answers. I was a curious youngster and one of the things the caught my attention was watching predators hunt prey. Living on a lake with bass population I could observe first hand how these predators behaved.  What I learned was applied to my pursuit of catching bass that evolved to catching the biggest bass in the lake. There are no panaceas, the key is being at the right place at the right time with a lure with movement and the appearance the bass mistake as prey. Sound like clicks are something that is picked up by bass at close range, water displacement forming waves bass can detect at long range via their lateral line nerve system. Bass also have extremely good eye sight, put all this together so the lure doesn't give something negative.

Tom

[scaleface]

I snorkeled a clear Ozark stream several years back .   I would tap a fingernail against my watch and the bass would come  have a look . This happened repeatedly up and down the stream . I would also tap rocks together and get  the same results . What does it mean ? Who knows . My silent Red Eye Shad that makes a similar tapping sound is a killer  bait . A-Jay reports the same thing . 

[Cgolf]

On March 24, 2017 at 10:08 PM, scaleface said:

I snorkeled a clear Ozark stream several years back .   I would tap a fingernail against my watch and the bass would come  have a look . This happened repeatedly up and down the stream . I would also tap rocks together and get  the same results . What does it mean ? Who knows . My silent Red Eye Shad that makes a similar tapping sound is a killer  bait . A-Jay reports the same thing . 

 

I have one of those too that I can't wait to toss this year. I have heard that smallies in particular are very curious fish, maybe because craws are a staple in their diet, especially River fish. 

 

To the results, I found that some baits showed a wider frequency range, while others had a more narrow range. Some baits were centered on the top of the range while others were centered on the bottom. Haven't analyzed the results fully yet, but the biggest test will be on the water. 

 

I will say that comparing the RES, RES 2 Tap, XR 50, Bill Lewis Trap, and a Rattling Rap, they were all in the same frequency range, so that must be pretty important. Now of course some were louder, different rattle sound, but the frequencies were pretty consistent across brands. One thing I didn't do was test multiples of other brands to see if they were more consistent than the RESs.

 

This was a really interesting experiment, now I will let the fish finalize the results:)