What causes a crankbait to roll

[Scboy29330]

It runs fine until you try to burn it What am I doing wrong and how can I fix it tia

[billnorman1]

Hmmm. Perhaps you have exceeded its design limitations. Of course the eye could be off to one side but if so it should track in one direction only. Any lure will roll if it can't do its thing and is dragged too fast. Also, if the line is too stiff and it doesn't have a split ring it could have an effect on a smaller bait.
Not every lure "works", I just bought some Chinese knock offs that do not work. Period.

[Spoonplugger1]

All my cranks, no matter who made them, have their speed limits, makes no difference if you are casting them, backbouncing them, or trolling them. Bill length, shape or both needs to change to go faster, or maybe body shape.

[D.Moore]

The above posts are correct. Some crankbaits aren’t made to crank fast. An old wiggle wart you can burn an old flat wart you have to slow it way down.

[basscatcher89]

Are we talking balsa baits?

I assume from other replies it's a "blowout" roll not body roll as in action?

Usually on say a diving balsa bait the roll and blowout on the retrieve is the line tie not being on center and just needing to be adjusted to compensate or the lip is a little crooked from glue up and again sometimes the line tie adjustment can be used to compensate for this. Now it if it's running fine and only blowing out when you speed up what typically happens is the bait is running at it's set swim angle determined by the lip and body style, line tie location, etc. When you speed up the bait is probably exceeding this angle and the lip is loosing it's "dig" in the water and blowing out coming up to the surface. If your looking for more speed the immediate thing that comes to mind is try moving the line tie out towards the tip of the lip just a little and see if that settles it down. I follow the rule of thumb that the line tie should be about 1/3 from the nose of the bait to the tip of the lip. My prototypes will start there and then I'll adjust as I'm doing swim tests. The trick is finding a configuration that will allow you to move the bait quick and not exceed that angle.

This is what some theorize is what causes some squarebills to "hunt". They have the ability to exceed that angle just enough to upset the bait and cause it to walk left or right then come back to the proper angle and straighten back out.

This is just my experience with building crankbaits and someone is liable to come tell me I'm full of it, but there are a ton of variables as to why crankbaits do what they do sometimes.

[Scboy29330]

Thanks John I’ll work on that