Suspending lures

Ok dont know how practical this is but I would like to know if its possible or anyone makes a suspending lure. I used locally made lures and got the crap belted out of me on an 80+ barra session by a 1.5 mtr suspending 110mm lure imported.

yeah mate I hear where ya coming from but I was thinking a wood type loaded up with sealers and paint that gets neutral buoyancy at certain depth

yeah I get what your saying mate but would you get that much of a variation ? if i could suspend at 1.5 metres give or take 200 that would do the job and put the lure in the zone where it could dive and return. just thinking

I sell suspending Chinese plastic barra lures under the Samurai brand  I just buy the suspending unpainted blanks from china and paint them myself. BITD when I first did the JaySea Mundi moulded lure, which were supposed to be suspending lures even Livily Lures could not get them right over 70% floated. There are just to many variables as the other guys have pointed out to making then in wood, weighted dots are probably the easy way to go, Mo Tackle have them. Good Luck.

Those dots don't do much on timber lures. Better off twisting wire or similar round hook shanks.
Balancing timber lures to suspend (I prefer just to slow them to very slow rise myself which is easier) is much easier than plastic. Plastic has next to no margin for error. A floater can turn to a sinker just by changing one hook. Put a set of ST66s on your mates lure and see how it goes. Timber lures will carry good strong hooks and rings - double rings if that's your go - and they'll still slow rise off of the shit you drag them in to when required.
Ps. I still love plastic lures - but it's horses for courses and knowing what you can do with what you have at hand.
Pps. My timber lures outfished all the suspending Jap lures last weekend. I'm not about to throw out my jackals though.

theres another variable right there as most of us have freshwater test tanks.

samurai wrote: f. BITD when I first did the JaySea Mundi moulded lure, which were supposed to be suspending lures even Livily Lures could not get them right over 70% floated.    Cheers Warren

i got about the same percentages with the poly molded ones i make too Warren, trouble with polyurethane molded ones is all you need is a fluctuation in weather and you've lost or gained more bouyancy. 

Hi Chris If you are using PU then you have a whole lot of extra issues with maintaining SG and density throughout the lure body , post mould expansion and bubble coalesce just a few of them I reconmend air conditioning and turning it on at least 1 hour befor moulding if you have an old fridge that will run at 15deg C keep your Iso & polyole in exspecially if they are in 20 lt drums 

Yeah Glider Im getting it all now. I didnt think it would be so complicated. i understand the temp and salinity affecting buoyancy but thought when a lure had a predetermined profile and weight distribution it would behave in a predictable way and depth variations would be minimul, but obviously not.

Johno100 wrote: Yeah Glider Im getting it all now. I didnt think it would be so complicated. i understand the temp and salinity affecting buoyancy but thought when a lure had a predetermined profile and weight distribution it would behave in a predictable way and depth variations would be minimul, but obviously not. cheers johno

if your not doing a lot of lures its still worth your while mate ,maybe carve your lures from a denser material say brown beech ,white beech,silky oak(yes silky oak)etc,and drill a hole in the centre of the lure near the middle hanger that you can add split shot to,paint her all up add split rings hooks bib etc then give it a test.If your lucky it'll be neutrally bouyant straight off the bat but probably it wont,this is where we add just a pellet of split shot to the hole and keep adding till its neutrally bouyant.once youve got it just add some araldite to keep all the pellets from dropping out. if the hole for the pellets is close to the hanger then it should impact least on the action.

Cheers for that Chris am going to give it a go live in a forest with natives blackwoods and heavy timbers but there is a lot of pine here as well so will be attacking some just gotta rerig some bench tools to make life a bit easier.

hazmail wrote: [QUOTE=Fysshe Salmon] Making a neutral buoyant lure can be very frustrating! Too many variables, density and type of timber, weight of hooks and rings, fresh or salt water. Sometimes you can fluke it but usually they sink like a stone! LOL... There used to be sticky weights you could fit to the belly of a lure until they suspended, called "Suspendots" I don't know if they are still available..

Some good advice here Johno, from everyone. I have had a few goes with small timber lures (for Bream) and as most are saying, very frustrating-  What floats in salt will suspend half way up an estuary and sink like a brick at the back, depends of the salt content--even with advice on salinity (quoted @ 3%) it's still nowhere near it, salt seems usually to be more like 2%.
A jar of water (salt or fresh) a set of scales and ''Archimedes Principle'' is a good quick way to work out how much weight a lure, (wood or plastic) will take before sinking.
Good luck with it--Pete 

Hi Johno, you have all the bad news so thought these few things might assist you with the weight/weighing bits.

being a beginner to lure making and have only popped out around 30 lures I have been using kingbilly pine ,and huon pine lately ,made a few 100mm deep diver lures for barra and jacks ,tested them last week hopeing they would be slow risers as I like this action for snag fishing ,out in salt with huon pine ones they suspended with the tail down ,complete shock for me to fluke that.i swapped over to number 4 6x trebles and they floated up quicker ,one no4 at front no2 at back and they float up tail down which isn't bad,two no2 s and they suspend .I am very happy with the huon pine ,havnt got much of it but it will be used for these lures .very dence timber but easy to use.finding it is hard

Ive noticed some recently that work beautifully but wouldnt like to try and reproduce too often lol