The Maiberg Missile (by Dieter Maiberg)
Introduction
This lure came into being by accident, as I can say in all honesty. The first prototype was one of my first wooden lures that I shaped years ago with almost no knowledge about jerkbaits. I just whittled the spindle-shaped body by hand and placed a fin at the tail end. I only did this because I had seen other lures in several American catalogs that had such fins.
When I first fished with this lure, I found that it had a nice zigzag gliding action and it reached a depth of about 1m. I always allowed the lure to rise back up to the surface with its nose sticking out of the water. If I would jerk the "Maiberg Missile" at this stage, it would occasionally slap the surface with its tailfin, creating a lot of commotion in the water.
I had worked that lure for about half an hour already and was about to give up on this 'strange lure', when suddenly a 65cm pike jumped out of the water in full length right in front of me. I was completely shocked and I almost fell on my behind from being startled! Of course I didn't hook that pike because I set the hook too early. But since that day I'm hooked on jerkbait fishing and fishing with surface lures. That's a fact!
By now I have redesigned this lure and named it "Maiberg Missile", after its shape. The first prototype was unweighted, simply because the weight of the tail fin made the tail hang down in the water. Another reason for not weighting this lure was that I used Teak wood, a wood type that is very dense. It's better to use a more buoyant wood type and to add some lead, because it keeps the lure in an upright position and because it has a tendency to overturn when you jerk it. But I think this behaviour can be avoided by proper tuning of the tail fin.
I haven't fished with this lure a lot since, though I had some more strikes of pike and perch on it. There were just too many other handmade lure models that I worked on and fished with a lot of success. I have made some "Maiberg Missiles" for some friends of mine and probably they would do better on them than I have.
Necessary items
- Abachi wood or similar buoyant wood
- 3 screw-eyes of 31mm, 19mm and 12mm
- 1 round headed brass screw of 12mm long and with a diameter of 1.5mm
- A sheet of aluminium with a thickness of 1.5mm of 1mm, and with these measurements: 23mm x 40mm
- Some sheet lead to weight the lure
- 2 splitrings
- 2 trebles size 1 or 1/0
How to build the "Maiberg Missile"
- Turn out the blank on a wood turning lathe.
- Cut the slot for the tail fin.
- Use a jig saw and a wood file to shape the tail fin.
- Locate the position for the screw-eyes.
- Drill pilot holes for the screw-eyes as sketched on the stencil to be able to epoxy the screw-eyes on the lure blank.
- Put the fin in place and drill pilot holes to mark the positions of the brass screw and the tail screw-eye on the aluminium fin. Don't drill through the wood and the fin but stop at the surface of the fin. This prevents the wood from breaking when you are trying to get through the aluminium sheet.
- Take the fin out of the lure and drill holes with a diameter slightly larger than that of the screw-eye and of the brass screw.
- Glue the fin in place and apply the brass screw and the tail screw-eye at the same time.
- Glue in the other screw-eyes.
- Use a drill bit to chisel out some wood to add the lead pouch. The weight should be located as close to the belly surface as possible.
Have a look at the sketch for the basic measurements. The sketch is not the right size.
Make the sketch smaller/bigger untill you have reached the desired size. The Maiberg Missile weighs 45 gr.
Good luck!
Dieter Maiberg