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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | Man, I have broken off the lips of four (14") crank baits just casting and reeling them in, with a few twiches (4-5) in between.
What am I doing wrong ? I'm not hitting rocks with them, just twiching.
I've never broken them off while trolling, but when twiched they don't hold up.
I guess i'll just troll these for now on........ Any suggestions ? The 10" ones work just fine.
Jerome |
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Posts: 1169
Location: New Hope MN | Jerome, You're built like an silver back gorilla. Taps for you my friend not rips.
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Posts: 574
| Jakes?
I think the newer ones have switched the lip material... the lips on the ones I got this winter (new colors came out) look cloudy, and seem barely softer...
I assumed at the time thats why the change was made. Only a guess though.
Havent broke one this year, but havent thrown them a ton either.
Edited by Jason Bomber 8/10/2010 4:32 PM
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Posts: 540
Location: MN | I was told by a guy at Thorne bros that if you push straight back on the lip and it clicks that it'll break. Why they do that I couldent tell you. I broke 2 last fall sent them back and they sent me new ones. |
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Posts: 4053
Location: Land of the Musky | Lips are a tedious thing to get right. Wrong plastic, wrong grade of plastic, lips not thick enough, old oxidized lips or the plastic that was used had oxidized, etc. Many things can make an inferior lip. My Mag Shad lip took me almost a year to get right. The first 4 prototypes all broke. At $500 a pop for lip molds that adds up. My suggestion is email the company and offer to send them back for an exchange and also send them the situation where you broke them. Always helps to have good customers who can help make better lure. Lures get better and better due to constructive criticism from customers.
JMO
James
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Posts: 929
Location: Rhinelander. | It just should not happen! As a manufacturer you should have done enough testing that you knew there was a problem. I'd send everyone back and not buy another tillthey send me one at no charge to try. Then you'd know if they had the problem fixed.
Pfeiff |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | The first 2 that broke , I brought back to Throne Bro's and they gave me 2 new ones.( Last oct.) I haven't brought the others back yet..... I did just check the two that I have left, and there is some movement on the lips,soooo....... since I'm a fiberglass guy, I'm going to beef up the 2 that I haven't broken and see if that works without changing the action..
Dave: I do tend to "rip" them, but that's what causes the fish to strike, not those wimpy little taps. lol.... how do you "tap" a 14" lure?? Rips my friend, rips........
Jerome |
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Location: Twin Cities | I have three with broken lips from casting and ripping, not real happy as two have custom paint jobs...now what. |
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Posts: 1106
Location: Muskegon Michigan | Try making new lips out of Lexan and gluing them in with gorilla glue or epoxy. Man that has to hurt the pocket book, Sorry to hear your troubles with those lures. I got some 13 inch Grandmas and they are tough as nails . They are the only plastic lures I own. We get what we pay for,that's the bottom line. The companies making cheap products are only hurting themselves. Sooner or later you will build your own . Ill tell you what , there is no better feeling then having a musky crush a lure you built. Mike
Edited by Kingfisher 8/10/2010 11:08 PM
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Posts: 540
Location: MN | Kingfisher - 8/10/2010 10:50 PM
Try making new lips out of Lexan and gluing them in with gorilla glue or epoxy. Man that has to hurt the pocket book, Sorry to hear your troubles with those lures. I got some 13 inch Grandmas and they are tough as nails . They are the only plastic lures I own. We get what we pay for,that's the bottom line. The companies making cheap products are only hurting themselves. Sooner or later you will build your own . Ill tell you what , there is no better feeling then having a musky crush a lure you built. Mike
Mike I'd love to owne a few of your 15"'baits but at 60$ each I can't justify that investment when this company will give me new ones at no cost. I hate to say this but I can promise you that I'll break one of your your 15" cranks without hitting rocks. Like I said I'd love to have as many of yours as I do the others but that'd cost me $400 and I ain't got that kind of coin. |
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Posts: 1106
Location: Muskegon Michigan | Try a 13 inch grandma if the 14 inch Jakes break. Like I said I have some of them and you wont break them. I doubt anyone could break a 15 inch Dragon claw just by casting it especially one with screws behind the lip. But like I said the only Plastic I would throw would be a Grandma in that bigger size. My Grandmas dont break when I cast or troll them. I ve never tried casting one of my 15 inch Dragon Claws, man that would take a huge rod, But Ill guarrantee you cant break one without hitting rocks or something else harder then the lure. I got over a thousand of them out there and never had to fix one yet that didnt hit a rock.
Also my 15 inch baits are 55.00 not 60.00 and if you broke one casting I would replace it every time you broke it. If you broke the lip on rocks its another story. I just repair those by installing new lips. Rocks wreck anything but Titanium. Mike |
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Posts: 723
| ive yet to break anything made out of macrolon polycarbonate,
seems baitmakers nowadays make stuff way cheaper n charge a heck of a lot more.
why did a suick 10 years ago cost $14 and now they are $19?
I guarantee parts havent gone up that much in price, heck most of the stuff comes from china, so way cheaper by the dozen there.
tip for the jakes, im assuming youve broke the lip off where it inserts into the body?
Not sure why theyve never reinforced it by actually gluing the lip to the body. ever since ive done that, i dont lose anymore lips.
simply run some superglue "gingerly" around the seam. super glue works good cause it actually softens the plastic to make it bond better, epoxy just flakes off after time. unless you rough it up prior to gluing.
I can understand handmade baits being expensive, i make my own and understand how long it takes, but plastic injection molding, pretty much cookie cutter baits, cmon, they dont need to be that expensive. especially when they break very often.
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Posts: 32880
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 'why did a suick 10 years ago cost $14 and now they are $19?
I guarantee parts havent gone up that much in price, heck most of the stuff comes from china, so way cheaper by the dozen there. '
Because a dollar 10 years ago bought more. Inflation at 3% per year means the lure goes up that much.
Sounds like this bait needs some attention form the builder. Bet they'll get it addressed.
dogboy, some day you might have a problem with a lure, glass houses, man, glass houses.
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Posts: 1207
Location: Pigeon Forge TN. | Steve is very correct and I might add that the cost for paint and thinner goes up at least three times a year.
Gas used to cost less than 19.9 a gallon in the 60's. My "69" Plymouth Roadrunner cost me $4,250.00 brand new and with the extra sports package.
Price of a car today?
Edited by Stan Durst 1 8/11/2010 7:26 AM
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Posts: 1906
Location: Oconto Falls, WI | Quite simply “ripping” baits while casting imparts a whole lot more stress, instantly, to the lip than trolling. Jerking/ripping baits are hard on everything. Rod, reels, baits themselves, and body. I actually have more issues of the baits themselves busting where the lip is inserted. Either below the lip, or the head above the bait busts off.
If using a solid bait I would suggest running a screw through the bait, then lip, and into the other side of the bait. That will help things. If the lip itself is breaking right where it inserts into the body than it is a material issue (i.e wrong plastic).
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Posts: 723
| dude, trust me i have plenty of problems with lures. all the friggn time.
kind of why i quit buying the same ones that keep breaking.
whats with the glass houses anyway? i wasnt slaying suick, just cause i know what i used to pay, n what i pay now. still a great bait, never had problems with them.
wood n metal is tought to beat. even after its got a million gouges in it.
plastic is too wishy washy. they leak, the crack, the hook hangers get pulled out on a fish. theyre all made the same way, yet some work, some dont, some track nice,
some wont even stay in the water no matter what you do.
and the plastic is changing yet all the time. i dont think a plastic injected bait should shatter if you hit something. especially when a lip on an all molded bait busts off.
then what? you waste more time n money trying to get what you originally paid for.
doesnt seem right.
i buy Jakes still to this day, eventhough they break sometimes, they will back their product 100%
and if its a lucky bait, i simply waterjet or lasercut a new lip. whalla, save myself the headaches.
im not rich enough to live in a glass house steve. therefore the stones on my floor bounce off my plaster lath walls n old hardwood floors.
someday tho.... someday. |
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Posts: 1106
Location: Muskegon Michigan | I would have to agree with Stan and Steve, Everything is and has been going up. Even my wood man who used to be lower than places like Menards are getting in on the action. Im paying twice what I used to pay for good wood. No more dollar pieces of Lexan anymore either. I have to buy whole sheets now. Stainless steel eyes and wire costs are up due to shortages of both. Paint and top coats are more expensive then the were even 5 years ago. The Plastic bait industry lost me a long time ago. I lost a big fish to a tail insert that pulled out(tail split at the seam) . I started building my own for one reason. So I would be in charge of the quality. Of course that grew into a small business. Now as a business owner I am faced every day with keeping a lot of Musky fisherman happy with the products. I have not had many come back for repairs or replacement. Once in while I get one that just wont run so we replace it. I had one last year where the wood just exploded and cracked. Replaced it. Most of our cranks are either wire through or we run the screw eyes through the lips into the wood on the other side. This holds the lips in real good. But those longer eyes are twice the cost of standard 1 inch ones. The truth is the bigger the company the more baits you turn out and more problems you will have. I hope to NEVER grow into some huge corporation where I loose that personal control over the quality of our lures. Slow and steady wins the race.
Today everything seems to be about profit not quality. Not just in fishing but so many other things as well. Try to find good tools in a chain store, Guns, pots and pans, and how about boat engines? G.P.S units? depth finders? How did Mercury ever get away with fielding the 115 optimax? We live in a society of too much, too fast and in that mind set we lose site of quality. I admire Amish Craftsmen and Guys like my grandfather who carved patterns and worked wood and metal with their hands. What made our country great was not cheap shortcuts and short term profits. It was hard work and quality , attention to detail and old school craftsmanship . This country as a whole has slipped away from that. I find in this website's basement bait makers forum some of the finest craftsmen in the world today. I believe that this is the way back to the top. Take control of quality and that quality will take care of you.
The bottom line is this, If drifter does nothing to fix the problem the problem will come back to bite them. For a big company like them its cheaper to just replace the defective unit. The problem with that mindset is sooner or later someone is going to build a plastic lure that does not break for the same price. Then they stop selling lures because quality wins every time. With our patent rights sitting in the world trade org. anyone can copy them and get away with it. Its just a matter of time and someone will do just that. Sounds pretty cut throat right? It is.
For us we choose to stay with the slow process of building quality wood baits. No outsourcing, no high production and no huge profits to make us greedy. We have to work to eat and live in a warm house. The way I see it , If I always look to improve the quality of our products my life is more secure. Does that make sense? Mike |
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| unfortunately i do the exact same thing with all my twitchbaits. have ripped them out of cranes, big games, salmos, jakes, grandmas, every twitchbait i've ever thrown i've ripped them out of. unfortunately you just may have to learn to fix them. my friend does it for me luckily but i understand the issue your having. |
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Posts: 2323
Location: Stevens Point, WI | Dogboy,
The glass houses comment referred to your reference to a lure company in the last sentence of your post. On our way to south Dakota...Anglers Insight Marketing tournament.
Sworrall on TJ's Ipad
Edited by TJ DeVoe 8/11/2010 12:32 PM
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Posts: 716
| On the big 14" Jakes the lips generally break from the impact of the cast hitting the water...they are actually designed as a trolling lure and are very durable there but a cast puts stress in a different direction and that cauuses breakage at times. Generally they don't fall out (like on the 10"s) but I usually put a little epoxy around the seam and that seals the bait and takes any chance of that happening away. The big Jakes have a way different action than the big Grama's when ripped and they seem to produce way more fish using that application than the Grama's ..at least in my boat. They do stand behind the broken ones and replace them, they will also send you new lips at very moderate cost.
It sucks that they break...but they do work really well on fish and they stand behind the broken ones...it could be worse. |
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Posts: 2384
Location: On the X that marks the mucky spot | Jerome, Have you thought about laying off the HGH????  |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | Never broke them on the cast, just on the rips..... and they do trigger fish more than other lures.
I'm heading to the barn to reinforce the lips with fiberglass...... I'll let ya know how it works. Later.
Mmmmmm....HGH......!
Edited by Top H2O 8/11/2010 1:28 PM
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Posts: 12
| I am not an expert but do admire quality and craftsmanship. I usually use wooden lures and shy away from chinese made lures not because they don't work but I try to help out the american companies like Suick, Wiley, Leo's and Kingfisher who put out quality. But one plastic lure you absolutely cannot beat,break, or destroy is anything Brian Boyer from Lengend Lures makes. I challenge anyone to break a plow casting it. You would have to twitch it into a boat prop to hurt one. May not be suitable in place of a Jake for a twitch bait but very quality plastic lure. Anything he makes is top notch in my book. |
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| Brandon Sosack - 8/11/2010 5:54 PM
But one plastic lure you absolutely cannot beat,break, or destroy is anything Brian Boyer from Lengend Lures makes. I challenge anyone to break a plow casting it. You would have to twitch it into a boat prop to hurt one. May not be suitable in place of a Jake for a twitch bait but very quality plastic lure. Anything he makes is top notch in my book.
I heard that about Hookers as well, but ended up busting the big brother and several little brothers before I got smart and started running screws into them to re-enforce.
The Plow has been riding in the boat, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet on casting it. This fall perhaps. |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | dogboy,
Read my post, I never metioned a brand name... I'm sure there are other brands of lures that also won't hold up to being ripped. maybe some lures arn't designed for the stress of being pulled real hard ? I just want to find a fix if possible.
Jerome |
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Posts: 723
| like i said, glue them, rough it up before if you use epoxy, 5minute or 2ton,
most stuff will just peel off tho, super glue will soften the plastic so it bonds a little deepr than the surface.
get ahold of drifter, buy a bunch of lips, pretty cheap, and keep fixing the same baits that catch you fish, instead of getting a replacement, that well, might not have "it".
sorry i went off on a rant. i have lots of problems with baits.
kind of like kingfisher, why i started making my own. i still have issues,
but ive never had a lip actually break. its more along the lines of the clear finally lets loose, and it needs a repaint or the lip broke free of the slot.
polycarbonate goes a long way!
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Posts: 1169
Location: New Hope MN | How do you get the old lips out!?! |
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Posts: 723
| i use a dremel, take your time, and then a flat file to square up the slot if things are uneven. put the bait in a vise. take the hooks off too. you learn your lesson once
by trying to drill or work on a bait with the hooks on. |
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Posts: 1906
Location: Oconto Falls, WI | dogboy - 8/13/2010 4:21 AM
take the hooks off too. you learn your lesson once
by trying to drill or work on a bait with the hooks on.
No doubt! Learned the hard way on a suick years ago! |
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Posts: 295
Location: Southern Ontario, Detroit River and Lake StClair | I think what alot people are missing here is that the typical tackle company makes a its baits to hold up to the use of a typical angler at a price a typical angler will pay.
I worked for a large tackle company for a quite a numbers of years and yes we had baits that came back like anyones else but in general these were from some serious hard core guys that beat on everything from their tackle to rods and reels to boats. Sales to these hard core anglers made up less than 1% of our sales as Im sure it does for alot of other companies. If a company was to increase product quality to suit this small % of its customers the price would go up enough that the typical angler which makes up the majority of a companies sales wouldn't want to pay or couldn't afford to pay the price for it. Thats why guys like Kingfisher can sell baits at $55 to guys while the typical angler sits back and says "No flippin' way would I pay that for a bait when these work fine". Its like reels. The ABU 6500C3 is the most popular muskie reel of all time, yet there a plenty of harcore guys that wouldn't touch them becuase the are "junk" becuase they dont hold up to THEIR needs. If youre an above average angler you going to end up paying more than average prices for any gear to hold up to your needs.
Good Fishin'
Tim
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Posts: 716
| FYI they sell lips for just under 3 bucks, unfortunatly they charge you 10 to ship.
So I ordred ten to get the shipping costs to a buck a piece, so if you are a metro guy and need a lip or two I may have a spare. |
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Posts: 929
Location: Rhinelander. | Just think if a company has not fixed the problem by now I'd stop doing business with them and switch to grandmas. They work great and I don't bust the lips on them. Its just that simple.
Edited by Don Pfeiffer 8/15/2010 12:07 AM
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Posts: 716
| Well Don,
It sucks that the lips break, but for me they work way better than the Gramas so I live with it.
Edited by bturg 8/15/2010 10:11 AM
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Location: The Yahara Chain | dogboy - 8/11/2010 5:31 AM
why did a suick 10 years ago cost $14 and now they are $19?
I guarantee parts havent gone up that much in price, heck most of the stuff comes from china, so way cheaper by the dozen there.
Well I can tell you that in 2006 my cost in one of my double 10's was a little over $6 and now it is a little over $10. Everything costs way more now. |
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | I broke a number of lips on a certain 10" crank over the years, some just hitting a piece of water. I also have a number of these with broken lips that were used and abused that I wouldn't think of sending in. I sent in about 6 lures over the years, that broke on the first or second outing, always with great response. A couple years ago I sent two of them in to the new company(that I had either the company or stan paint in custom colors) that broke on my first outing with them. I was sent a fairly unfriendly return letter by a company manager that I was abusing the lures, and that the 'lifetime warranty'(that I was never aware of) from the previous owner no longer applied. I simply decided to buy from others for our lacal Musky club. However, the 10" crank made by this company(actually it is the older ones I prefer) is one of my favorite lures.
Long story short, I broke a lip on a replacement for my lost favorite 10" crank, while fishing with my friend Mike Lewis in Mn a few days ago. It was the third cast with the new lure over deep water. I won't send it in, knowing the eventual response. Perhaps someone here has a stash of replacement lips of a tougher material that they'd want to part with a few of? The one concern is the little piece of lip that is still up in the lure.
Edited by Reef Hawg 8/15/2010 12:25 PM
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| I've busted lips ofd three different 9" Grandmas in the past year and a half. They are my favorite bait and I've had a lot of success with them but they just don't seem to be very durable on the cast. My feeling is they break from the impact when hitting the water. I've had some 10" Jakes >10 years and have never broke one but the fish sometimes seem to like the G better.
I've sent them back to the factory and they been replaced no questions asked - I heard they had a "bad batch" of lexan a couple years ago.
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| Guys,
I am one of the owners of Drifter Tackle and I thought I could shed some light on this topic for everyone. First of all, every one of our lures are made right here in the United States of America. They are molded, assembled and hand painted by our 12 employees. With respect to the Jake lips, we changed the plastic material early this year from a clear polycarbonite to a much tougher plastic. You will notice the change in that the lips are no longer perfectly clear but rather have a milky look.
The lip design of the Jake was intentional in that if the lip is broken, it can be replaced. We all know the stresses these lures are often placed under and we tried to make the lip replaceable thereby allowing the lure to last much longer.
As always, we stand 100% behind our products and if you have a defective lure we will repair or replace it.
Thanks for input guys, it really helps us as we continue to develop and manufacture quality products.
Ted Stechschulte
President
Drifter Tackle Inc. |
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| thanks, Ted.
i've got a few 10" Jakes (sans lips) coming your way from this year.
also, have one or two chrome Jakes that lost their paint after a couple of casts...i'm hoping you've figured out a fix for that too? i love the colors and will keep buying them IF they'll hold their paint like the normal patterns do.
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Posts: 4053
Location: Land of the Musky | Making lips is a challenge. You need to use the correct plastic and grade of plastic as well as under lip support for stress. Took me 4 molds for my Mag Shad lips before I was happy. Not cheap! I made 5 molds of my lip for my new hybrid Shallow Shad lure. You will see that one soon but the lip on it is a tank. Metal is the way to go but even then you have screw holes giving out. Good tricks for metal too is to use long screws and also put screws in with epoxy. James |
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Posts: 14
| Drifter Tackle, in response to field complaints about Jake lips occasionally breaking, has sourced a new material that is almost indestuctable. We are shipping the new material on all new Jakes as of November 1st. If you have broken lips in the past, please contact the factory for free replacements. Drifter Tackle takes great pride in manufacturing the highest quality products on the market and everything we offer is 100% American Made! We thank our customers for their loyal support. You can contact us at [email protected].
Zach Stechschulte
National Sales Manager
Drifter Tackle, Musky Mania, Esox Research Company |
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Posts: 426
Location: Perryville, MO | Roughneck's comment makes alot of sense. I definitely want quality. I've broken a few baits. But for the number I break it's still cost effective for me to live with a few broken baits over against spending $50+. No doubt that many of the guys making small batch, handcrafted baits put out amazing products with super quality. But if I'm dropping serious coin on a bait it's because the bait does something that I just can't get in any other cheaper, mass produced bait. "Built like a tank" quality alone won't get me to open up my wallet and reach that far down. Made soley in the US loosens the strings a bit, though. Jakes and Grandmas get it done for me. I'm not in that elusive 1% group. If I were I would see the need to spend more cash. And I've got no jealousy issues with those that are. I appreciate learning what they're doing with really cool (but really expensive) baits.
BTW glad to see that Drifter (to no surprise as a reputable company) is standing behind their product. Good for them! They'll continue to get my buisness. |
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Posts: 196
| dogboy - 8/11/2010 10:01 AM
plastic is too wishy washy. they leak, the crack, the hook hangers get pulled out on a fish. theyre all made the same way, yet some work, some dont, some track nice,
some wont even stay in the water no matter what you do.
and the plastic is changing yet all the time. i dont think a plastic injected bait should shatter if you hit something. especially when a lip on an all molded bait busts off.
I work at Sony and I'm a tech that deals with the jolly fun of polycarbonate on a daily basis. The same general rule applies to the lures, plastics of any kind are very temperature and moisture sensitive. The plastic can either become too brittle or too flexible and getting the moisture level just right and keeping it there is a nightmare at times. Also the temperature at which the material is heated before it is injected to mold has a major effect on the outcome. I generally work as a print technician and even with all of the quality checks that are performed in molding, we still get brittle discs as well as sometimes a molding defect which is what has happened to your lures that leak. Obviously they aren't going to the extreme on a lure as a cd, dvd, or bd disc, so the quality, I'm sure is probably even worse. I will say that pikemaster is correct as far as I have seen though, I have yet to break a grandma lip, I have one that got a little loose, but never had one crack. I have also noticed that the grandmas seem to have a little better action in my opinion. Anyway, in a nutshell, plastics aren't perfect. Good luck and if you are happy with what you have that's all that matters. I'm sure someone would look in my boxes and say, you don't have an custom made baits, but I'm in the same boat as you, I don't have alot of money to spend all of the time and I can sure deal with leaving a $20 grandma at the bottom of the lake than a $60 custom!
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Posts: 994
Location: Minnesota: where it's tough to be a sportsfan! | I'll add my 2 cents to this array of wisdom. 70% of my day is buying plastic, different kinds for different applications. Polycarbonate is considered an industry standard for strenght. Lexan is a brand as is Makrolon. These "brands" have mulitple grades. There is also packages in the different grades ie: UV to block the harmful rays. There are several makers but Bayer & Sabic ( old GE Polymerland) are the big players. Once you have the right PC the design is absolutely critical. We have a part now that is taking shock levels that would crush most materials but the design allows the PC to distribute the force of the impact. The other factor that is often overlooked is thickness of the lip itself. There is a balance point of thick lip for strenght and how the bait rides at rest. Thats why James had so much fun on his molds. That's why most of us bass tourney fishermen from the 70's would buy 12 cranks & shave lips until we got the right action. (out of 12 we would get 6 good ones if we were lucky!) All in all lips will break, & I'd rather have a lip break off and still have the body rather than have the lip stay in place and crack out the body of the bait. OK 4.5 cents... |
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Busting Lips !