Weedless Fishing Lure Jig with Offset Bait Keeper
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional fishing lures with jig heads often become fouled or snagged in weedy environments due to exposed hooks, and combining a weedless configuration with a skirt to maintain attractiveness to fish has proven difficult.
Innovation Solution
A fishing lure design featuring a jig head with a skirt anchor, helical wire bait keeper, and embedded hook point in a flexible plastic bait, allowing the lure to move weedlessly through underwater vegetation while maintaining fish attraction through skirt movement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the hook is exposed on the lure, then the lure can effectively catch fish, but the hook will gather weeds and the lure becomes fouled
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a soft plastic bait as an intermediary substance that covers the exposed hook. The hook remains functional while embedded in the soft plastic, which acts as a mediator between the hook and the external environment (weeds). This allows the hook to maintain its catching effectiveness while preventing direct contact with weeds, thus resolving the contradiction between hook effectiveness and weed fouling.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If a brush guard is used to protect the hook, then the lure becomes weedless, but it detracts from the attractiveness of the lure to fish
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the physical parameters of the protective element by using soft plastic material with specific properties (flexibility, color, texture) that can be molded into attractive shapes. The soft plastic is configured to move naturally in the water current, creating appealing motion patterns for fish while simultaneously protecting the hook. This transforms the protective element from a static, potentially unattractive brush guard into a dynamic, attractive soft plastic bait that fulfills both protection and attraction functions.
3Ease of manufacture
If a skirt is added to provide movement, then the lure becomes more attractive to fish, but it increases the complexity of achieving weedless configuration
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple functions into a single integrated component - the soft plastic bait. It combines the functions of hook coverage (weedless protection), visual attraction (color and shape), and motion generation (flexibility and water interaction) all in one element. The skirt is integrated with the soft plastic body rather than being a separate attachment, simplifying the overall configuration while maintaining attractiveness and weedless properties simultaneously.
4Object-affected harmful factors
If the hook point is embedded in soft plastic, then the lure becomes weedless, but the hook may not penetrate the fish effectively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamics by making the soft plastic bait flexible rather than rigid. When a fish strikes the lure, the soft plastic dynamically deforms and flexes, allowing the embedded hook to follow through and penetrate the fish's mouth. The soft plastic absorbs the impact force and gradually transfers it, enabling effective hook penetration while maintaining the weedless embedded configuration during normal operation and retrieval.
Data Source
AI summary
A fishing lure has a jig, a skirt and a bait. The jig has a jig head, with a hook extending from the jig head. A skirt anchor extends from the jig head toward the point of the hook point along an imaginary line, so as to be offset from the shank of the hook. A skirt is coupled to the skirt anchor. A bait keeper is pivotally coupled to the skirt anchor. The flexible bait is rigged in a weedless configuration, with one end of the bait coupled to the bait keeper and the other end receiving the hook point. The skirt is coupled to the skirt anchor so that the skirt streamers extend adjacent to the bait when the lure is retrieved in water. When a fish bites the lure, the first end portion of the bait body flexes away from the imaginary line for engaging the hook point into the fish to allow the hook to more easily penetrate into the fish.