Muskie Lip ( Bib) , Building Decisions

Where to place the lip, what angle to use, what type and how big or small of a lip are all decisions that should be determined before we start cutting wood. This is with glued in polycarbonate type lips.

If you chose to use a metal screw on lip there is a little more latitude in timing. Even with a metal lip that is going to be installed in a slot, thought preparation in slot placement is necessary. I have not used a lot of screw on metal lips but they definitely have there place and are easy to use. If you think about it ,as you progress there are a lot of little quirks and preferences you will acquire, good and bad.

This is the selection of lips I will be choosing from to go with my bait patterns.   

My picks will all be an 1/8th inch thick. They do offer 1/16" and 3/16" but the selection of styles is limited.  Unless you are cutting your own lips or custom order, I have not found a supplier for thicker lips with a variety of sizes to choose from in small quantities. The lips here are from the Musk Shop. There are metal and square lips also. Hit the link and you will be able to see all. If you find a better source please let us know.

I have made several copies of my patterns and copies of the lips, They are shown in actual size in the catalog. Then I make and cut out hard paper copies to play with. I will figure out how I want a particular bait to act, slot the pattern and see how the lip size and placement looks. Doing this, helps me in the visual aspect.
Once the pattern is selected I pick a lip for the type of action I am looking for. The angle is based off what you have or know. I have come to prefer a 45degree angle with both round and square lips..    

If you are unsure, take a look at your collection of store bought baits. Pull them out of hibernation and lay them out or hang them up. Use a sliding T bevel ( about $8.00 at the Depot) or your kids plastic protractor to find the angles being used. From that you will be able to decide on what angles you want based on knowing the action of the baits. Remember that bible, this is where it comes in use. Hopefully you are making more than one bait, start writing done what you are going to do with each bait. Also think about sinking, floating and neutrally buoyant.  You don't need to know right now but it can help with lip type selection, just make note of your intent.

Get some measurements on the distance from the nose of the bait to the lip. This will give you some benchmarks to refer to as your selection process continues.
Same bait, same lip,same angle with the lip moved forward or backward from the original point will impart a different action. Some times this may be very subtle and others it can be drastic. I think large mass flat sided baits are influenced the most by this.
The large 14" baits we make has a side to side flop, which is awesome but by moving the lip forward a 1/4" to 3/8" it changes the action to a tight figure eight wobble. Same everything except lip placement and you now have two completely different action. Normally, if we are going to change lip placement we only make a few, then see how they work.The lip angle has been tried with 40 degrees and 50 degrees, action was relatively the same and depth changed.

The depth of a lip inserted into the bait should be enough to secure it soundly but not deep enough to split it the first time it hits something. A lip protruding past the sides of a bait acts totally different than one flush to the sides. You really have to play around a little to see what you want to build. With a little practice a couple of errors and you can trim the sides of the lips to be flush with your bait. It's all about lines and accuracy at that point. It is a very doable task, if that is what you are looking for.
Play around with some patterns and lips now, and you won't be spinning your wheels when it's time to build.

This is where I got to with my bait and lip patterns. Mite be some tweaking before wood , but I am ready.
Now to figure out if I am going to do two or four of each. Just another decision!


( Keep it in the water )





 

Musky Baits: Thru Wire Construction

Through Wire or Screw Eyes?

This is one of many questions that need to be answered while preparing for this years Musky Bait Building Bash. Through Wire Construction means, if the bait was shattered by huge a Musky, you would still land the fish because the twisted Through Wire secures the line tie and all the hooks together.
Here is a little history that played part in our decision making.
Frank and I'd met a Canadian resident in Georgian Bay named Blair, who fished primarily with F18 Rapalas because that was all you could purchase in Canada back in 1988.  Blair had a mid 40" class Musky shatter his F18 yet he boated the fish because Rapala F18 balsa wood baits were made with Through Wire Construction.

The reality of most thru wire constructions that I've examined demonstrates some bait makers are using thru wire improperly, and only for the sole purpose of saying the bait has thru wire construction.  I personally see no advantage to thru wire construction with unsecured open tag ends. To me this defeats the whole idea and security of thru wire construction.  The Garage group has been using thru wire construction with twisted tag ends since we started making baits back in 2000. We choose to properly make thru wire secure with twisted ends, or use screw eyes!  Why waste the time if you don't complete the task.  In my mind, the twisted ends of the wire make it,  Solid Thru Wire construction, otherwise it is just wire that can fail.

Don't, take what I am saying the wrong way. There are a lot of great baits and Excellent Lure Builders out there that use this technique without failures. It is a proven application. Thanks "Remey."

My first Muskie was caught on a 6" Crane Bait unmodified, 20lb mono and a spinning reel (with a great drag). It was an unbelievable 30lb 52" fish. The correlation here is, I don't believe Crane uses twisted ends either. Check out the solid thru wire link above and read what Frank was saying about the thru wire process we use.

As we'd posted earlier, last year was our first experience using all screw eye construction. The lure sizes were 5" to 10" rather than the 14" to 18",  and we were looking to expedite the building process. I have used many a bait with screw eyes and to date,  I've never had one come out or break. We used .072 screw eyes. I will say they're OK for five to seven inch baits, but any larger bait, I prefer the .092. The threads of the .072 are minute to say the best and I am not comfortable with how easy I can break them loose. The .092 thread just seems to grab so much better.

Each of these processes has it's advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I need to do what I am comfortable with, good or bad.

Pros of thru wire construction
 A wire line tie is easier to tune than screw eyes.
 Split rings don"t become over sprung.
 With twisted ends, impossible to loose a fish. ( unless they eat your line ) or something else breaks.
 Twisted Thru wire leaves nothing to chance in a bait.
 It's just cool!!

Cons to thru wire construction  
 Thru wire construction adds quite a bit of time to the building process no matter how you do it.
 Thru wire cost more, when you make !0" baits or larger.
 Difficult adding weight once the wires been installed.
 If you have one offs, you are bending wire by hand, no jig.
 Muskie baits need .040 to .051 wire, this can be brutal at times, but much easier than .062

Pros to .092 screw eyes.
 Cost effective.
 Location placement is simple.
 Ideal for adding lead weight to (Jerk Baits, Twitch Baits).
 Time to install is minimal.
 If one does break, you can add another.

Cons to .092 screw eyes.
 They destroy most split rings. (Must use Bucher's or Wolverine's)
 Tuning is one or two attempts, then screw eyes get fatigued.
 Finding quality screw eyes.(most presses leave two indents at the bend in the eye) fatigue, in metal is bad.
 Drill hole, thread screw eye into hole, back screw eye out, add epoxy and then install screw eye. That is 
  my method of installing screw eyes.
 Open eyes are better than closed eye, for constructing jointed baits.

This is intended to give a little insight to one of the many choices we have when building baits. By no means am I trying to bash anybodies work. What works for any one individual is best.

If anyone who uses screw eyes wants to send us a bait to beat up,  please feel free to do so, drop a line and I will give you an address.  Muskie season is getting real close??

Thanks, to Frank on the co-edit..

( Keep it in the water )    

The Start to a Musky bait building Season

Well, If we have our pictures and thoughts. Harper Musky Show Photos and Patterns. We should be well on our way with some designs. I have some from last year and a couple of new ones to add with the batch.
These are in Picasa web albums also. Feel free to use them if you like.
 From Picasa you should be able to re size and use at your discretion. When you re size start by keeping the
aspect ratio the same. I will use one pattern to figure out the settings I am looking for. Once you have a benchmark ,the others go a bit faster. You do need to print them out to see the actual size,

These are just cardboard patterns at this point, if what is here is excepted we will make wood patterns with them. It makes it easier to use in the processes going forward , rather than using the cardboard.
What you see here has been drawn or traced from an existing bait and re sized to what we are looking for
.
 Now I will figure out what kind of lips ( bills ) I want to put in the different shapes of bodies.
You should take some time at this point and decide where and how you are going to use the bait. This will help in deciding what type of lip you are going to use.
Look at your collection of lures , think about what each bait does and  then think about what you want your custom lure to do.
You can make what ever you desire, at this time , we prefer flat sided baits verses rounded. This is just a preference. I will try to get the video we have of our 14" bait and post it. Then you will see why we like flat sides.
After the patterns and lip selection, start thinking about weight. There are choices here, a deep diver you might want a little bit extra or not. I have been trying to get neutrally buoyant and hit it half the time. Lighter is better, something I have yet to learn. I did not get the opportunity to use the The Archimedes dunk test, but I will this year.When I master this technique I will be happy.

Even for a trolling bait , (other than a bottom grinder) I prefer something closer to neutral than not. A trolled bait at rest, just hovering or slowly rising is what I can in vision.

I want to go for about thirty baits this year, well maybe thirty five. You have to keep in mind , not all custom lures survive. Some turn into " Why did I do That" .Bottom line is to have enough to play with when the real fun starts, PAINT. Then grabbing the one , and putting it in the water for the first time. It is truly a thrill, one that I cannot shake to this day . I may be obsessed but I love it.
If you are looking for more info or actual dimensions , drop a comment , we will get back to you. 
 

 ( Keep it in the Water )