Vision 110s and other popular jerks- what water temp equals neutral buoyancy?

[Junk Fisherman]

Just curious if anyone has played around with this topic and is willing to share at what water temperature will certain suspenders stay completely neutrally buoyant? Do lure manufacturers make their suspenders with a certain water temperature in mind? We all know colder water is more dense so if you want a jerk to suspend at 40 degree water temps will you upsize a hook? It seems like the times you want your jerkbait to completely suspend is in the 40 degree range. Do you replace trebles in the boat to fine tune this? Any thoughts are appreciated.

[hoohoorjoo]

I'm out. The water temps dont go low enough here for me to find neutral buoyancy!

[Drakestar]

I just take Storm suspend strips with me and balance them out at the beginning of each trip. The +2 gets too heavy for me even with no strips, I usually downsize 2 of the hooks and the split rings to get a tiny bit of rise that I can counter-balance at the lake. A rising jerkbait can always be adjusted on the day, a sinking one is hard to make suspending when you’re on the water… (Unless you bring split ring pliers and a collection of hooks.)

Here in CA the water won’t get to 40 (at least in my fisheries) but in winter I still want perfect suspension. The fish become sluggish and sometimes only bite on 20+ second pauses.

[City17Banner]

The short answer is yes, for instance the Lucky Craft Staysee 90 ver 2 is a fantastic suspending jerkbait down to about 35-degrees F. I'll share that some of the most subtle weight management techniques that can refine the neutral buoyancy of this and other jerkbaits beyond adding suspend dots/strips and changing hooks is to bring along a selection of different size split rings and adjust the baits on the water using your favorite split ring plier.

The iterative advantages associated with this refinement of the more common lure weighting techniques is that unlike suspend dots/strips which rely on an adhesive for lure retention, it's simply to add a split ring to gain a given amount of weight and have great lure retention. Of course, I do actually combine all of the different weighting techniques, it's simply that the split ring is the best incremental means to add small amounts of weight and refine the neutral buoyancy of the lures as needed.

The last and potentially most important facet of this entire endeavor is to weigh your treble hooks, suspend dots/strips, and split rings and label them so you know exactly how much weight you are adding at any given time. This is easily accomplished by purchasing an affordable electronic jeweler's scale from Amazon or any other online retailer.

Lastly, I will say that fishing jerkbaits in cold water in MN and WIS, we typically start using them at water temperatures below 55-degrees F and catch them all the way to 35-degrees F as noted above. Our most productive jerkbaits are in no particular order: LC Staysee 90, LC Staysee 80, Megabass Vision 110 + 1, and Megabass Vision 110 + 2, and almost all bites are on extended pauses up to 30-45 seconds. Color matters somedays and not a bit on other days but we gravitate towards natural hues since the fish spend so much time observing the lures.

[Junk Fisherman]

Thanks City and Drake. Great stuff. I'll have to get some suspend strips. I do have a scale that I use to weigh lures. I'll have to start weighing some trebles and split rings. Granted when I think back to last fall, my hands were so cold on some days I don't know if I could actually replace a treble or split ring in the boat.

[City17Banner]

I'm glad our shared experience and knowledge was useful to you.

I know exactly what you mean about cold fishing adventures too! On November 4th, 2021, my fishing buddy and I launched my boat and we started on our 2-mile journey down to the dam on our favorite electric only reservoir with an air temperature of 23-degrees F and I'd never been so cold on the water before in my life.

Even with a handwarmer full of Hot Hands heat packets I couldn't feel my fingers after launching the boat, so I didn't want to do it so early in the morning, but I reached into my bilge compartment and brought out the Mr. Heater portable golf cart heater and suddenly I was warm again. This unit has a special adapter that can be mounted to a cup holder and on my 2021 Vexus 1980, I have the coin box option instead of the third seat which has two cupholders, so the heater sits very stably in the cup holder and it's great for cold late fall mornings like this, I highly recommend it so you can perform key fishing chores like tying leaders and unhooking fish.

[Johnny A]

Water temp isn’t the only variable to neutral buoyancy. Suspended solids aka water clarity affects neutral buoyancy.