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Posts: 50
| WANT TO TRY TROLLING WOOD TUFF SHADS NEXT YEAR.
WHICH WORK BETTER CEDAR OR MAHOGANY? |
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Posts: 474
| both catch fish, so do the plastic ones but I prefer the mahogany ones
They get deep and stay down even at slow speeds
Have fun! |
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Posts: 968
Location: N.FIB | any way to tell what kind of wood tuff shad you have if ya don`t know,have some but don`t have a clue what kind of wood they are,just that they are wood. |
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| We caught just as many on the plastic Tuff Shads especially during low light. |
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Posts: 50
| thanks guys |
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Posts: 1080
| Thing I get most frustrated with, with the wood Tuff Shads is, after just a short while of trolling, the lips loosen up from the epoxy trying to hold them in place. I'm thinking that when this happens, is the bait loosing a lot of it's potential in regards to vibration from the flat sided bait?
Does anyone have a "fix" for loose diving lips on their wood Tuff Shads? Thought about taking a small drill bit and drilling through the bottom of the plastic lip up into the wood body... then inserting some small finishing screws...but...I'm afraid that I'll botch the bait altogether and ruin it.
Should I not even worry about the diving lips being loose? I just figured a loose diving lip and the bait moving back in forth underwater will eventually start to wear out the area for the diving lip that's cut into the wood body... |
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| Mack, I have reinforced the lips on some of my wooden lures. I will take a piece of Stainless Steel wire in a certain diameter, go to a hobby shop and get a drill bit in the same diameter as the wire, drill a hole on both side of the line tie from the bottom starting in the wood of the lure and go through the lip, be careful not to apply too much pressure so the bit does break off in the lure and watch you don’t drill through the top of the lure. Stick the wire in the hole to see how far it goes in, pull it back out and cut the wire, I usually cut it a little short so it is recessed in the hole. Mix some Devcon 2 ton epoxy and use a spare piece of wire to put the epoxy in the hole, insert your pre cut pieces of wire in each hole and cover the hole with a little more epoxy. I hope this helps.
Jay
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Posts: 360
Location: Algonac, MI | You can drill and use screws.
Loke, Ziggie and many other lures, the dive lips are screwed or brad nailed in, not glued. It does not hurt the action at all. |
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| MACK,
I've done the drill bit thing. It works, the lip doesn't move nor does it affect the action of the the lure. I used #0 4x5/8 wooden brass flat socket head Robertson screws with a 5/64 bit. If your using a drill press go to the fastest setting and drill a little bit deeper than the lenght of the screw. And /or, use a bigger 3/32 bit and apply epoxy to the thread of the screw and screw it in. Make sure you use 2 screws and dont over tighten otherwise you'll break off the head.
Hope this helps. |
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Posts: 35
| MACK - 12/13/2011 12:51 PM
Thing I get most frustrated with, with the wood Tuff Shads is, after just a short while of trolling, the lips loosen up from the epoxy trying to hold them in place. I'm thinking that when this happens, is the bait loosing a lot of it's potential in regards to vibration from the flat sided bait?
Does anyone have a "fix" for loose diving lips on their wood Tuff Shads? Thought about taking a small drill bit and drilling through the bottom of the plastic lip up into the wood body... then inserting some small finishing screws...but...I'm afraid that I'll botch the bait altogether and ruin it.
Should I not even worry about the diving lips being loose? I just figured a loose diving lip and the bait moving back in forth underwater will eventually start to wear out the area for the diving lip that's cut into the wood body...
Just turn the bait belly up and pop two small brad nails through the lip. One on each side of the wire. Dab a little bit of epoxy over the brad to seal it up a little. It will never come loose. The last two years that the wooden Tuffs were made, they all had the lips beefed up this way. |
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Posts: 1080
| Thanks. Will give that a shot. All of my Tuff Shads are all older models...pre-beffened up era. Some have the tar beaten out of them, some have just one good fish on them...but seems they all have "loose teeth." 
Love the baits though! |
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Posts: 35
| Even when it isn't noticeable, the wood baits tend to swell a little when wet, then they will shrink when they dry out. The epoxy just eventually pulls away from the lexan lip. It's an easy fix. But of course, the new Tuffs will never have that problem.  |
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Posts: 1080
| Yeah...I need to acquire some of the new plastic bodied Tuff Shads. Just haven't gotten that far yet.
A few years back...fishing in the Fall...I remember I had a brand new, wooden, 8" Tuff Shad that I was anxious to use. Snapped that bait on, made about 3 casts with it, on the retrieve of that 3rd cast, violent boat side strike, fish thrashed, quickly netted, release the fish, took a look at that bait prior to casting it out again...lip was all loose. Haven't had a fish on that bait since and I think it's due to the lip being loose, the bait doesn't put out the full "thump" that it would with the lip being on there tight, like it should be.
Oh well...that's how it goes. I'll look into fixing these things up this Winter. |
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Posts: 131
| If you are trolling these baits I'd go with the cedar over the mahogany. As a lighter wood, cedar will have superior, more natural and responsive action. Yes, mahogany might stay down a little deeper, but there are other ways to achieve depth. Where the mahogany would shine over cedar, IMO is in casting and twitching the baits. Mahogany, being less buoyant will not rise up as fast on the pauses and will stay in the strike zone longer.
A Tuff Shad-stlye bait that I've had good luck with and is still made with wood, is the 5" Fat Shad from Fish All (Talonz Lures). It's made with cedar, great action and super tough, through wire construction. Never heard of any lip problems with these. |
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