Testing Time Is Over....Time To Go Live !!

If you've been keeping up with my blog you've heard me mention that I've been doing a lot of testing lately.

I have several different designs I've been working on trying to get them to function in a way that makes them efficient both in cover and open water but most of all to make them interesting to the fish.

Each and every bait has little nuances or tricks, you can do, to make them perform at their best, whether its making it cast better, or maybe come through cover with less hangups or sometimes its just making it easier to retrieve. The only way to figure out these little tricks is to spend time fishing the bait.......there is no substitute for time on the water.

Two of these "new to me" designs are modifications of the twin spin spinners I posted photos of a little while back.

Here's a couple pics of the new version twin spin ...... but instead of your standard hair/tinsel skirting these have a replaceable soft plastic swimbait  body.  In addition to the unlimited color options of the soft plastic, I also make the bodies in two different tail styles......a ribbon tail version and a wide tail version.  The different tails project a totally different look in the water. The wide tail version has a very slow, very wide, consistent swimming action while the ribbon tail features a very fast, frantic swimming motion. 

The two baits are shown complete with a few extra bodies.

Other features of these baits are the side by side clevis mounted blades. This configuration gives me lots less tangles than blades that are attached with swivels. They start easy and spin consistently even on a slow speeds......plus they're louder. When pulling these along side the boat you can actually hear the raspy whirring sound that these blades produce. 

The main wire is .062" and the blade arms are .051" so they are pretty heavy duty which should withstand lots of abuse.

The head is 3/4 ounce which stabilizes the bait very well, is light enough that you can fish it shallow, actually wake it with a high rod tip and med fast retrieve but with a slow steady retrieve you can get this down to 10 feet pretty easy. 

Hooks.....the jig hook is a 6/0 and the two belly trebles are 4/0's, all are black nickle. The rear belly treble is actually mounted on a swivel.

I've moved a couple fish already in the testing of the bucktail/tinsel versions of these twin spins so I have fairly high hopes for these swimbait bodied ones this fall.

The second variation of the twin spin frame is in a buzzbait configuration.

These feature the large size, offset axis, counter rotating , aluminum blades. To the ears of these blades I've added some small colorado or indiana blades. The addition of these free swinging blades give the bait more of a sloshing sound instead of the normal slap or plop of the stock blades. A nice added bonus is that they click and clack against each other and you can tune it so the hit the main wire for a chattering sound.

I seem to get more action from blades modified like this because they sound different than your standard buzzbait.  

The wire frame is the same as stated above but these are molded with a 1/2 ounce flat buzzbait  head with a 6/0 hook. The trailer hook is a 5/0.

The black & red one has your standard silicone skirting and the blue & silver has a silicone and tinsel mix.

 If you look close at the blue & silver one you can see I've added a 1/8 ounce swimbait weight to the trailer hook.  This additional 1/8 ounce at the rear makes the very wind resistant bait fly straight on the cast and really improves the casting distance. I was really amazed how that little 1/8 ounce addition made such a difference in the casting of this thing....I will add one to the other bait before I use it.

Both baits have some sort of soft plastic grub trailer.

 I'll change these trailers out, while on the water to fine tune the bait for the conditions at hand.

With a musky only trip coming up very soon I'll finally be able to quit the testing and actually try all these new toys out for real and see if I can stick a fat one or two.

Here's the way my luck normally runs

.....if I've got a new spinnerbait to try out, then the muskies will want topwaters

...or.....

...if my new bait is a soft plastic swimbait then the fish will be biting jerkbaits.

Murphy's law I guess...but for once I'd like to have a trip where I catch all the fish on the new thing....whatever it is.

If I have any success with any of these twin spins I'll be sure to let you all know about it.