Vanderhoek lures?

[Patudo]

Here's something that I've been pondering for a while. Why did the "conventional" lure end up with an off-center leader hole when it would seem more natural/intuitive to have it in the center? I can understand the rather complex face shape evolving from the South Bend teaser but how did the leader hole come to be offset instead of centered?

Tim... does anyone in Kona still use these things?

Regards

P.

[tim R]

Here's something that I've been pondering for a while. Why did the "conventional" lure end up with an off-center leader hole when it would seem more natural/intuitive to have it in the center? I can understand the rather complex face shape evolving from the South Bend teaser but how did the leader hole come to be offset instead of centered?

Tim... does anyone in Kona still use these things?

Regards

P.

Yes, these style lures are still used and made here, there are some really cool variations that are similar to the Zuker (which is covertly popular).

The neat thing the offset hole provides lure makers is eliminating them having to create perfectly balanced belly weighted lures with perfectly centered holes (which ain't easy)...In short, the Zuker has bigger pops or more extreme rooster tails while staying in the water...(this works for straight runners).

Scooped faced stuff is a different story....This is the part where Jim R. will help and explain the true history of this type of lure...

Yoe Jim....

[Capt. Bart miller]

Aloha Patuda,
THE ENCLOSED JPG IMAGE IS EARLY HAWAIIAN "Chester Kaita"
mirror insert conventional head, red rubber strip cut inner skirt, outer skirt white plastic wing cut shape. Front leader hole below center, dished out face slant, with centered rear leader hole.

Two hook rig, custom made stainless Tuna bend style 12/0. Note trailing hook double twist. This was done to keep the trailing hook leader from a whipping break, also doubled at hook eye to slow down chafe from free swinging hook.

There were three basic shapes at this time, bullet, tube, conventional. The boats were mostly slow displacement hull, Hawaiian built sampans.

Conventional heads trolled very well at slower than todays lures wih faster trolling preferences.

The modern lure hooked up better, fewer tangled lines due to straight trolling modes that they were designed for. Also modern lures allowed for covering more ground, keeping up with the bait fish was also a bonus.

Fuel crisis being what it is today may bring back the old school of slower trolling methods.
Bart

[Fishing Hawaii]

I wandered off while you guys aired out your crocs. Then I got busy doing other stuff.

I don't want to get tangled up in terminology but the answers to some of the questions require making sure we are all on the same page.

The prototype lures Henry Chee made back in 1949 or 1950 (the date isn't absolutely certain) were the first of the resin head models. They had a center-pull leader tube and a flat, slanted face. Lures like these have continued to be made and used successfully right up to today. Since they were the first, they established the convention and have as good claim as any to the term "conventional" lure style. Patudo observed that the centered leader hole was more intuitive and wondered why the "conventional" lure didn't have it centered. If you think of the Chee lures as having established the convention, then the "conventional" lure did have a centered leader.

If you think of "tube" lures as having a constant diameter from front to back (as a tube does), the Chee lures weren't true tubes. They were molded in bar glasses, which had a slight taper. That slight taper is one of the reasons Chee chose bar glasses. The taper made it easier to remove the resin chunk, especially when the inside of the glass had small imperfections. In some cases, Chee picked glasses that had a lot of taper. I've seen several of his early lures that had as much taper as a Dixie cup.

Some scooped-faced resin lures did have center-pull leader holes while many others moved the leader hole back along the axis of the scoop. Their creators may have done this to copy the popular scoop-faced wooden lures (like the Tarp-Oreno), which had off-center pulling points created by the placement of the metal attachment eye. The off-center pull helped the wooden lures dig down and wobble from side to side. Perhaps the original experimenters with the scoop-faced, off-center lures thought they might be creating wobblers in resin -- though it didn't take more than a minute or two of trolling to show them that they didn't.

Or it may have just been that they were experimenting for a different look and the up-the-scoop leader hole was just one of them.

But there is another interesting aspect, too. When I fished with some of the old sampan boys I noticed that they tended to run their lures closer to the boat whether on outriggers or flat lines. This created a higher pulling angle which kept more of the leader off the water. But it also created an even greater opportunity for the scoop-faced lures to turn so the leading edge was down. The leading edge would then dig in and make the lure dive. The up-the-scoop leader placement definitely gives you a lure that hunts more from side to side and digs in deeper. In the rough water common off Oahu and Kauai, that could be a more eye-catching presentation than the path of a lure that just stayed up on top and ran in a straight line.

The main thing to remember is that those lures caught fish -- and still do. I am convinced they still have their place.

Jim
www.FishingHawaiiOffshore.com

[clt_capt]

One think that I have noticed here is that the older style lures tend to have longer heads, while many of the more modern lures have a squatter head.

Is this a function of today's trolling speeds, Materials, or just an evolution of successful shapes?

[Fishing Hawaii]

Regarding Clt_Capt's comments about proportions and evolution, the accompanying image shows Henry Chee's sons Joe Chee, and Henry "Butch" Chee with some of the earliest resin head lures made. These date back to the 1950's and show the proportions Henry started with. The shapes, angles, and proportions have certainly stood the test of time when you compare them with modern models. (Note, also, the bar-glass taper on the lure heads. Relating back to the early messages in this thread about copying, it is interesting to note that the original resin lures were copies -- copies of a bar glass.)

Jim R

www.FishingHawaiiOffshore.com

[El Capo]

Regarding Clt_Capt's comments about proportions and evolution, the accompanying image shows Henry Chee's sons Joe Chee, and Henry "Butch" Chee with some of the earliest resin head lures made. These date back to the 1950's and show the proportions Henry started with. The shapes, angles, and proportions have certainly stood the test of time when you compare them with modern models. (Note, also, the bar-glass taper on the lure heads. Relating back to the early messages in this thread about copying, it is interesting to note that the original resin lures were copies -- copies of a bar glass.)

Jim R

www.FishingHawaiiOffshore.com

I love his shirt.I use all sorts of things for molds,most of them are common everyday household items.I hope that would not be considered copying someones lure design.This is an old post but it is what brought me to this site.Great info.Thanks,el capo.

[canyongear]

Interesting post as I finally had some time to read the whole thing. So if the resin head lure evolved from the basic 4 oz. - 6oz. shot-glass as a mold does that make all the lures today evolutionary copies of bar glassware? or did Koa wood turned heads predate the shot glass resin heads?

Holy Hawaiian lures, sombody deflate the asshat's ego.

[TunaTeaser1]

Awesome thread...