With crankbaits every lure has it's own max depth. If anglers know the correct depth the lure dives it can make all the difference in the world. Learning diving angles and driving curves of a crankbait can catch you more fish. By the same token knowing at what point the lure is about to make its journey to the surface can also make a difference. Visualize this take a golf club putter and hold it at a 90 degree to your body. Notice the head of the putter is pointed to the sky and the back part of the putter is pointed to the the ground. Now bring the putter in a half circle motion by dropping your arm so that the heel of the putter hits your foot. If you notice the underside of the putter is laying flat as it would be if you where about to make a putt. With a wood crankbait which is weighted in such a way so that the bill counterbalances the downward pressure of the tail it makes the lure swim flat like a swimbait at the point just before the lure makes it's upward climb. It is at that point where you want to hit an object or have your bait in the right area that you think the fish might be hanging at. It is also at that angle where a deep diving wood lure will start to search and act like a live bait. If the bait is still sitting tail up because it is plastic or not weighted correct at the same point on your retrieve you do not get this effect. Years ago while tweaking crankbaits I took Lee Sisson Tennessee tuffy and cut the bill. I cut the bill short so that the split ring just hung over the end of the lip. At the time the lip was made of a thick lexan material. I took the bait and tied it to a rod and pitched it into the shiner tank in the back of the bait shop where I was working at the time. As I reeled the lure because of the vibration pattern, the way it searched, the angle to which the lure would swim at, the wild shiners thought my lure was the lead shiner in the school and would follow my lure around the tank. When you make a cast and intentionally put your line over the cover your trying to fish it changes the angle of your lure. Like for example you have a stump and you lay the line over the top of the stump. Your lure will dig nose down until it reaches a point where because of the elevated place where your line is (because it is over the top of the stump)changes the degree or angle the lure is swimming. It lifts the bill and the lure will swim more flat and will search until it hits or deflects off the object. The slower you reel the more time you give the bass to notice and hit your lure while it is doing something magical..while it is searching. This is provided that the wood lure is weighted correct and not to tail buoyant.

With a straight billed lure when it hits its max depth and if the tail is not to buoyant the bait will swim more flat. If the lure bill has an angle to it and if the weight is not weighted right it will never swim flat. With balsa it has a tendency to be able to have action even at a slow rate of speed. Which means even when the lure swims flat it still has action. With plastic lures if you add weight so that the lure will lay flat you can not get the lure as deep as wood. The air is not distributed in a plastic lure it is just one big bubble. Plastic lures achieve its action either because the water pushes down on the tail which brings up the lip or the water pressure is not evenly distributed on the lip which gives you the side to side action or both. If you put enough pressure on the tail you loose depth because it brings the lip up. Plastic lure companies then build lures with heavy lips to counterbalance the downward pressure put on the tail or they add weight to the bill or use more of a concaved bill. The problem with this is that the lure will never swim flat. Even if the lure swims flat the plastic will not swim like wood because it is to heavy and the air is not distributed and can't quiver and search like wood. You will always catch more fish and bigger fish on a wood lure because it can act like real bait if made correctly.

So who in your opinion, correctly makes wood crankbaits for the public to purchase ? I'm weak in understanding on this technique. I have several Poes that I have kept and plenty of Bagleys but don't fish them enough to know what the true differences are.

Take your Poe's for example David Fritts took some of his deep divers and drilled the front so that he could pour lead in the lure so it balanced different. Lee Sisson developed a lead button on the lip to counter the pressure put on the tail which was used by Bagley. Rapala DT was designed by David Fritts and uses a concaved bill to counter the pressure put on the tail along with a how it is weighted, shape to keep the drag of the lure pulling through the water at a minimum. The problem is that most crankbaits when fished is still set in the diving position when they are trying to hit cover. The fishermen think they have hit the max depth but that isn't the case. The max depth is the point where the lure stops diving, lays flat, before it makes its upward climb. Some lures might take more than half the cast just to dig to the depth because it is diving at a shallow rate. Lures that dive steep stay at their max depth the longest. Meaning the lure lays flat and acts like a bait fish swimming the way a bait fish should the longest.