How can lure design and size (or weight) affect presentation?

[SENKOSAM]

I'd be interested in you opinions how various lure characteristics dictate various presentations and which lures or lure types you specifically use for various presentations.

Should be interesting...

Frank

[J Francho]

I'll get the ball rolling, Frank.

It can be as simple as a typical jig.  Change the trailer, and change the profile and fall rate.

[Jigfishn10]

I'm not sure if this is the type of answer you're looking for, but here it goes:

I find myself using single spin spinnerbaits more often than not. I find that just by switching blades from big to small or from nickel to gold or colored blade or blade style for that matter will often be the difference for me to catching and not catching.

The past couple of years the buzzbait bite has been non-existant, so I'll be making some modifications for them this season. We'll find out how it works.

[Gangley]

Weightless flukes dart around a lot and can easily be made to break the surface like a fleeing baitfish. Add a weighted hook and you will get a quicker descent. If you tweak the body of the fluke slightly (create a bend in the body), or if you place the hook off to the side a little, you can make it spiral downwards on slack line which can be killer.

Jigs and trailers is opening pandoras box, no limit to the imagination there. For a slow gliding decent, use a light weight and a wide body bait like a beaver or hyper freak. I generally change the weight to create a difference in descent rate. I change the trailer to alter the type of descent: no action, some action, a lot of action, straight fall, gliding fall, large water displacement, little water displacement, etc.

A lot of people dont take into consideration that the color of the lure affects the density of the lure which in return affects action and drop rate when using very light weights. Colors with a high glitter concentration are denser than colors with no glitter generally speaking because the glitter itself is a more dense material than the polymer used for the worm. The more glitter, the more dense the worm will be. Experiment with your lure colors and figure out which ones are more dense than others. Its just one more little thing that might make the difference when fishing.

[Raul]

Let 's take a stickbait, the worm doesn 't have the same diameter from head to tail, classic way of rigging: T-right no sinker inserted by the head, do the opposite, insert the hook by the tail and the bait sinks in a completely different manner, it sinks away from you. Another classic rig for them, wacky rig hooking right by the middle, if you hook slightly to the head or slightly to the tail the bait darts in a different direction when you twtch it. How about neko rigging them ? different presentation.

[WRB]

The lures design can dictate where and how it should be fished successfully, however there are no fixed rules.

Crankbaits with deep diving bills and hanging treble hooks are designed to be fish where the open hooks don't snag often. Rattle traps without the bill can be ripped through snags a lot easier, then a crankbait with a bill. Both have similar reaction strike frantic motion with similar presentation techniques.

Jigs with a heavy Extra strong wide gap hook and weed guard works good in heavy cover fished with strong line. Jigs with light wire hooks, no weed guard work poorly in heavy cover and far better in more open water areas with less cover and fished with lighter line. Both are jigs technically, but presented differently.

The list of lures go on and on as do the techniques and presentations. Fishing a crankbait on a C-rig or drop shot rig or using it as a jig trailer wasn't what the lure manufacture had in mind when developing his lures. Bass anglers like to tinker and that's what makes our sport interesting.

Tom

[CJ]

To answer the first part of the question. If I feel like I'm being forced to change a presentation due to the lure, I've got the wrong lure. Lures need to allow for the proper presentation.

[SENKOSAM]

I sell and use glitter in the soft plastics I make and the amount of glitter I normally use doesn't add much weight. Salt on the other hand increases the weight of a worm by as much as 3 grams. Salt water plastic has more hardener in it and therefore also weighs more. All of which reminds of an example for this topic.

A 5.25" Senko weighs 11 grams, a YUM Dinger weighs 9 grams. The more weight, the less buoyant. Therefore the Dinger would be a slower presentation lure for the horizontal drop when you want the bait to drop slower in the water column and when you would rather impart twitches on the way down rather than let the Senko do its roly poly thing on a faster drop. Shapes and softness are the same; weight makes all the difference.

On the other hand, because the Dinger is more buoyant, once you let it sink to a certain depth, you can work it faster as a jerkworm, with longer pauses while still maintaining the same depth. It's like the presentation and speed differences between a suspending hard jerkbait (X-Rap), a floater (Rapala Floating Minnow) and a 1/2 oz. Rat L Trap.

Now a days, maintaining the same depth seems to be a big part of most lure presentions and manufacturers accomodate anglers who don't want their soft or hard lures to rise or fall fast. For example, the less buoyant a crankbait, the faster the retrieve to maintain the same depth, regardless of action. I guess buoyancy is a big part of certain lure designs.

Buoyancy is not the issue with blade baits and jigs. Like Franco's introduction about trailers. They slow the jig speed yes, but only depending on tail design. Uncle Josh Pork Frog and hair jigs have the least water resistance; Zoom's Speed Craw have the most - thus faster vs slower presentations.

Whether your jig or spinnerbait path is in a vertical fall or horizontal swim, the trailer dictates lure speed just as blade design and size (#3 tandem willow vs. #5 tandem colorado) on spinnerbaits affects speed of retrieve or fall rate.

It seems to me there is no reason to burn a slower presentation lure.

Which are faster presentation lures, the Bomber Fat Free Shad or the Bomber Fat A ?

[CJ]

If the Fat Free Shad and the Fat A were the same running depth then the Fat A would be a slower presentation lure by design.

Nice info Frank.

[Jigfishn10]

You could also add the affects of different line diameters. Bigger diameter = slower ROF and thinner = faster ROF.

Skirt strand count: Less = faster ROF and More = slower ROF.

I would guess that a higher strand count would produce more drag on a swim jig, making it a slower horizontal presentation and less strands would be faster.

The above may not appear to be very significant, but they would add or subtract to the overall presentation, IMHO.

[SENKOSAM]

I would say both are very significant! I tie my own spinnerbaits, some with more strands, some with less and there is a difference in water resistance.

8# test is usually more than strong enough for open water fishing, but the smaller the bait and presentation, usually the less pound test. I could never see myself using a slow presentation shaky worm rig or 20 lb test or an X-Rap on 30# and still maintain a medium to slow presentation.

Here's an obvious one:

Soft plastic lizards have five appendages that slow them down - four curly tail legs and one tail. This is a far slower bait (top or bottom) than a jerkworm like the Dinger or Zoom Speed Worm. The same for most bulky creature baits like the Brush Hog. A heavy sinker will make the design fall fast, but then what after it hits bottom?

[Gangley]

I sell and use glitter in the soft plastics I make and the amount of glitter I normally use doesn't add much weight. Salt on the other hand increases the weight of a worm by as much as 3 grams. Salt water plastic has more hardener in it and therefore also weighs more. All of which reminds of an example for this topic.

A 5.25" Senko weighs 11 grams, a YUM Dinger weighs 9 grams. The more weight, the less buoyant.

Regarding colors and glitter affecting bouyancy: 

Two different colors of the same product can have vastly different bouyancies.  Take the ZOOM Horny Toad as an example.  The bullfrog color will float with an Owner 5/0 Twistlock while the same lure in watermelon red will sink.  This is not an observation of two lures individually, this is comparative between alteast 10 bags of each purchased at various times of the year. 

Secondly, weight does not determine bouyancy, density does.  And glitter is significantly more dense than an equal portioned (volume) polymer, ranging in specific gravity from 1.2 to 2.5 depending on make and type.  When large amounts of glitter are added to a soft plastic polymer lure, the density is affected in such a way that the lure will often times show decidely different flotation characteristics.  There are many variables to consider and account for in the composition of your polymers, possibly you are using a less dense glitter than other manufacturers, or less amounts of it in general.  Regardless, glitter does affect the bouyancy of the worm and is something that an angler might would take into consideration next time he/she is looking for a certain soft plastic to behave a certain way.

[roadwarrior]

Rage Tail soft plastics offer a number of opportunities

for multiple presentations. A case in point is the

Eeliminator. This bait can be fished weightless as

a topwater lure dragged through grass; subsurface

with a weighted hook; or fished on a C-rig where it

really shines!

Other Rage Tails with a wide range of presentations

include the Space Monkey, Rage Hawg, Smokin'

Rooster, Thumper and Anaconda.

8-)

[WRB]

The lures density or weight is only 1 factor on how fast it may or may not descend through the water column. For example a lead spoon may in fact float like a steel ships hull or sink rapidly like a torpedo sinker, shape and water displacement are factors to consider.

I fish with custom hair jigs that glide and swim down through the water column that have 5/0 hook and weigh nearly 1/2 oz and use 4" x 1" custom cut high floatation pork trailers. It's misleading to make statements that hair jigs with pork trailers fall faster than other materials, alot depends on the fullness of the skirt and trailer affecting the water resistance.

Zipper shaped worms that weigh the same as straight body designs sink slowly due to the surface area.

Another factor is the line drag resistance can and does affect how a lure performs.

Tom

[SENKOSAM]

1.What primarily determines buoyancy is the relation between an object's weight compared to the weight of the water the object displaces.

example: scuba divers often wear extra lead weights to counteract the positive buoyancy of their bodies and gear.

example: a styrofoam block floats; a ceramic block much smaller in dimensions sinks like a rock.

2. Glitter, a very thin light flake, weighs the same regardless of color.

3. Horny Toads that do contain some glitter have very little glitter proportional to hardener and salt. The same for Senkos which are loaded with so much salt, they are opaque.

4. Salt weighs considerably more than water and the more salt in a given shape, the faster the fall in water.

5. Hardener in plastisol adds weight and super soft plastisol has almost positive byoyancy (floats) while soft water plastic has negative buoyancy.

I have used 4x the amount of clear glitter to plastisol to add toughness and weight to soft plastic. It does both, but only if used in proportionlly large amounts.

Do you pour your own? Do you have other examples of plastic lures where your glitter color theory floats?

Note: batches of soft plastic lures can vary greatly in weight and bouyancy, as well as softness.

example: I received a bag of Senkos from a friend and every stick was too stiff from too much salt or too much hardener. I noticed the same thing between the first pack of Horny Toads and the last I bought months later.

[Gangley]

1.What primarily determines buoyancy is the relation between an object's weight compared to the weight of the water the object displaces.

Incorrect. The bouyancy is determined by the Density which is determined by dividing the mass (not weight)by its displaced volume. By dividing the resulting answer by the density of water you get the specific gravity which is usually a very close, unitless, value within close proximity to the Density. The relationship between the materials density and the density of the "water" that it is in determines the bouyancy. Weight alone has nothing to do with bouyancy.

2. Glitter, a very thin light flake, weighs the same regardless of color.

Not all glitters are manufactured of the same materials and therefore has a large range of specific gravity, as mentioned previously.

3. Horny Toads that do contain some glitter have very little glitter proportional to hardener and salt.

I find it extremely hard to believe that the amount of salt and hardener is why the watermelon red would sink and the bullfrog wouldnt. DO you think that ZOOM would allow the hardener and salt to be consistantly greater only in certain colors and never in others. Why would ZOOM put more hardener or more salt in their watermelon red HT's than in their bullfrog colored HT's. Please explain that one for me because I don't see the logic in it.

4. Salt weighs considerably more than water and the more salt in a given shape, the faster the fall in water..

Agreed...

5. Hardener in plastisol adds weight and super soft plastisol has almost positive byoyancy (floats) while soft water plastic has negative buoyancy.

Ok...

Do you pour your own? Do you have other examples of plastic lures where your glitter color theory floats?

Yes, I have experianced it with other colors.

As far as pouring my own, I have no need too, there are multiple brands out there to chose from that already fill the niche that I require of a worm.

If you are attempting to downgrade my comments by asking if I pour my own plastics, thats pretty laking. Because somebody doesnt pursue certain aspects in a field, doesn't mean that an individual is not able to comment on VERY BASIC aspects of it. I've met many mechanics who could put a motor together in a day and the motor was stout, but that doesn't mean they understood why. They couldn't tell you the LSA, the lift, overlap, degrees of timing advance or retard, or how the components blended together to make an efficient running internal combustion engine. Being able to do put something together doesnt automatically mean that you know how it works, and it sure doesnt mean that you know more about that motor than the guy standing next to you, it just means that you can put it together. "Knowing" that something works, and knowing how something works, are two completely different topics. It's not a good practice to attemp discrediting others by simply asking if they have poured plastic in a mold before.

[Jigfishn10]

1.What primarily determines buoyancy is the relation between an object's weight compared to the weight of the water the object displaces.

BINGO!

[SENKOSAM]

1.What primarily determines buoyancy is the relation between an object's weight compared to the weight of the water the object displaces.

"Incorrect. The bouyancy is determined by the Density which is determined by dividing the mass (not weight)by its displaced volume. The relationship between the materials density and the density of the "water" that it is in determines the bouyancy. Weight alone has nothing to do with bouyancy."

.....and neither does density alone without taking into account comparable volumes such as between two frogs or soft sticks from the same source or of comparable design from different sources.

An object whose weight exceeds its buoyancy tends to sink. An object with a higher average density than the fluid will never experience more buoyancy than weight and it will sink. A ship will float even though it may be made of steel (which is much denser than water), because it encloses a volume of air (which is much less dense than water), and the resulting shape has an average density less than that of the water.

Generally soft plastic lures are not air-filled but solid, and therefore are always denser than water and you should agree that fact is a constant. Even buoyant soft plastics of certain shapes will sink with the added weight of a hook.

You haven't mentioned volume as a determinant of specific gravity. Let me elaborate.

Specific gravity, as it is the ratio of either densities or weights, is a dimensionless quantity as you said. Substances with a specific gravity of 1 are neutrally buoyant, those with SG greater than one are denser than water, and so (ignoring surface tension effects) will sink in it, and those with an SG of less than one are less dense than water, and so will float. In scientific work the relationship of mass to volume is usually expressed directly in terms of the density (mass per unit volume) of the substance under study.

Again, that pesky unit volume and for this discussion, volume, shape and zero air content leaves

weight as the deciding factor of what and how lures fall faster in water (the original topic).

2. Glitter, a very thin light flake, weighs the same regardless of color.

"Not all glitters are manufactured of the same materials and therefore has a large range of specific gravity, as mentioned previously.

So what you're saying is red coloration weighs more than say blue or black because they are materially different and have significant differences in specific gravity.

Two things wrong with that assertion:

1. Glitter always comes in very thin flakes, weighs almost nothing and always suspends in molten plastic! The larger the flake size (.090 vs .008), the more it suspends.

3. Horny Toads that do contain some glitter have very little glitter proportional to hardener and salt

"I find it extremely hard to believe that the amount of salt and hardener is why the watermelon red would sink and the bullfrog wouldnt. DO you think that ZOOM would allow the hardener and salt to be consistantly greater only in certain colors and never in others. Why would ZOOM put more hardener or more salt in their watermelon red HT's than in their bullfrog colored HT's. Please explain that one for me because I don't see the logic in it."

Okay.

Manufacturers screw up and you'll find hundreds of bags on clearance shelves when they do! Zoom is a perfect example and their defects are sold by Gander Mountain in spring for a buck a bag. Too much softener or too little hardener is usually the case, but also too much salt, not enough softness also makes the bait inferior. Bass Pro brand soft lures suffer from great inconsistency in color and salt content. I've gotten back bags of StickOs and Caterpillar grubs after complaining.

4. Salt weighs considerably more than water and the more salt in a given shape, the faster the fall in water..

[Gangley]

You said:

.....and neither does density alone without taking into account comparable volumes

Your not getting it Sam, or I am not explaining it well enough. Density does take into account volumes because density is the direct relationship between mass and VOLUME. Density is computed by diving the mass of an object by its volume. So yes, density alone is what affects bouyancy.

Secondly, weight and bouyancy are not comparable units. Again, weight alone has nothing to do with bouyancy. Mass and weight are two seperate things, weight is a force, mass is not. Weight has no affect on density and therefore has no affect on bouyancy and bouyancy is what allows something to float.

Thirdly, hulled objects such as ships have extremely dense materials that they are comprised of, but the ship isnt the only thing displacing the water. The air within the ship does not have to be confined, you could simply have the nothing but a hull and it would still float. The air within the hull is also displacing the water because it is occupying the space that the water would otherwise be. So calculating the density of the ship isnt simply done using the volume of the materails it is comprised of, but by considering the entire ship, the air within the ship, including the air that is not confined or inclosed, as one singular unit. When combining the density of the ships materials, the density of the air and all components within the ship that displace where the water would normally be, you get a much lower density. Now to further expand on that notion, lets stretch that ship out an extra 20 meters in length while maintaining the same hull depth, mass of materials, and width of the hull (Basically just thinning the walls while stratching it). By doing so, you have kept the same mass but the density has drastically lessened The volume of manufactured materials is the same, the density of the materials is the same, but the combined density of the materials and air displacing the water create a more bouyant ship. Again, mass has stayed the same but the density has decreased substantially allowing the ship to float more readily, without ever changing the mass. When combining this with gravity, we get the "weight" that you refer too, but the "weight" is still unchanged as well. The ship became more bouyant without a change in weight, proving that weight alone does not affect bouyancy unless the gravitational constant changes for some reason.

Regardless, worms are not hollow or hulled and therefore none of that information is relevant to the issue at hand. Simple fact is, density is the only determining factor in bouyancy with all other environmental aspects being static, and the density is comprised of a relationship between volume and mass, not weight.

You said:

"Again, that pesky unit volume and for this discussion, volume, shape and zero air content leaves

weight as the deciding factor of what and how lures fall faster in water (the original topic)."

Incorrect again, as mentioned above, weight is not a deciding factor in bouyancy, mass and volume are. Weight is a force that can be given in multiple terms such as kgm/s^2, or slugft/s^2. Unlike the force called weight, density is given in terms of a mass and a volume only(kg/ml or however you want to assess it) without any restraints from time. If you were to use "weight" in your calculations for bouyancy, you would still have to divide by your gravitational constant to negate time and distance but even then you are only left with mass which doesnt equate to bouyancy without volume.

The difference in materials (not color) is what causes differences in density for glitter. Again, different glitters are made of different materials and therefore have different densities ranging from 1.2-2.5.

You have read what you have wanted to from my posts but I dont believe you quite understood, or maybe cared to understand, what I was saying. Maybe I didnt explainit well enough whichis my fault. Your use of the term "weight" in reference to bouyancy and density is misplaced and I don't think that you have realized that yet, or I may have been misreading all along.

Your absolutely right about the scientific method. Results obtained through the SM must first and foremost be repeatable under indentical circumstances and be similar to those first tested. I think you might be going a little bit on opinion while being under the impression that it is fact. However, you are right in that this is a fishing forum and we have gone way off topic. I apologize to everybody, including you SENKOSAM, and hope that we can move on to the OP. If you wish to discuss more, please feel free to PM me.

[WRB]

Why do lures move in water? the water is moving or the lure is displacing the water and creating positive and negative pressures as it moves. We bass anglers know this movement by watching lures wiggle or swim with a side to side motion.

The lure movement is another important factor because water movement created by the lure is picked up by the bass lateral line sensors/nerves and tells the bass something is nearby and moving. To bass anything that creates pressure waves gets it's attention. Sound makers like rattles within a lure doesn't produce a pressure waves, it produces sound waves that is picked up by the bass ears, it hears the rattling sound.

Most prey produce some short of under water sound, all moving prey produce pressure waves, both are important to the bass to detect and locate visually what is nearby.

I don't know of any lure that can reproduce the sound prey makes, that is something for the future. We do know that the pressure waves can very greatly between lures of identical appearance and one reason some lures out perform others from the same manufacturer; another factor to consider.

Tom

[SENKOSAM]

We are on the same page Tom!

I thinks as time goes on, more anglers, especially young anglers, will understand the relationship of fish senses to its prey objects within its environment - (prey objects being anything it decides to eat whether it be a diver's weight or chatterbait).

[Deleted account]

Stop! Even though the original post is silly and gave me a headache, I gotta stick up for Senkogeek, unless you are taking your lures to places with different gravitational forces, you can use weight or mass vs volume to derive bouyancy. Indeed, without weight there would be no sinking regardless of mass. (Yes I know the formulas)