Tuning Cranks

[Fin Addict]

Anyone intentionally tune cranks right or left? I have considered this and then marking the lips r or l. My thought is that this would work like a dipsey to move baits away from the boat. Would this ruin the action of the baits?

[night_eyes]

I'm just taking a guess here..but i'd imagine it would be hard to get your lure to run at the correct depth. They wouldnt dive as deep and would run higher in the water column. Also if ran to fast wouldnt you run into a problem with "spinning" lures and line twists...?? On the other hand i have a big jointed rapala that is so old and beat up that i dont think it runs correctly. But yet i can stand side by side with someone using the same lure and this beat up old rapala outfishes the same lure hands down. So i guess all you could do is expieriment

[Fin Addict]

Good point about the bait rolling out at higher speeds. I was thinking slightly out of tune to one side or the other and labeled. I have trouble when long lining w/ the baits crossing if slightly out of tune. By marking them, they would run apart rather than cross.

I rode w/ a charter captain several years ago and he said he bought J-Plugs by the gross and used 5-6 out of the 144, sold the rest. He said he looked for a specific action and they were all slightly different. I know on J-Plugs, I have probably 100 and catch fish most consistantly on 5 of them. 1 is especially hot and even all chewed up, will outfish the others 5:1 minimum. If you have a hot lure, esp a crank, pray you don't lose it. I believe there is a difference.

[FJH1]

No question about it, I have several dozen Storm Baby Thundersticks in metallic rainbow trout and about three of these catch the vast majority of the fish. I also have this with my Rapalas. I still have a number of the chartreuse/white Shad Raps and a couple of them are totally beat up whereas others are untouched.

Best Regards,

FJH

[Mac]

Anyone have even the slightest idea what this difference is? There's no question it exhists. I guess if I knew, they'd be buying ShadMacs.

[aar7]

I don't think that there is much question that some plugs of the same model outperform others. I do think that the difference between them gets exaggerated over time by the simple fact that once we believe one bait outperforms others it becomes our "go to bait" and so we run it more than the others. If one bait stays "wet" longer than the others and all other things are equal, then it's going to catch more fish.

As to the question of trying to tune a bait to run to the side of the bait . . . I wouldn't do it. It's going to be too easy for that bait to "blow out" and come back up to the surface. There are better way to get a bait off to the side of the boat (eg: planner boards).

[Starfish]

I've noticed, even with favorite "hot lures", when they get tweaked out of tune they don't catch as many fish until they're re-tuned. So I'd hesitate to intentionally run one out of tune.
The effect might be mostly because I rely on the full depth of dive on the plugs.