Bibs - Perspex, Lexen or Aluminum?

A common decision when making fishing lures is when to make your bibs from perspex, when they should be lexen and when they should be aluminum.

To a reasonable degree it becomes personal choice, but here are a few thoughts that might help you decide:

 Whilst some lure makers scorn the use of perspex for fishing lure bibs, I use it on the vast majority of my small to medium sized lures. Perspex is cheap, readily available and easy to work with. Despite reading claims that perspex can crack in cold water, I've never had this problem and I'm not aware of anyone who has personally. A disadvantage of perspex is that you generally need to use slightly thicker material when the fishing lure towpoint is attached directly to the bib than you would with lexan or aluminum.

I've seen some pro fishing lure makers advertise that their lures have "bulletproof" bibs (lexan is the material used in bullet proof glass). Seriously though, who cares? I'd buy a lure that will catch fish before I'd buy one that can take a bullet! Jokes aside, lexan is great for making bibs because it is very strong for it's thickness and doesn't have the alleged problem of cracking in the cold. One problem it does have though is it's buoyancy, which can upset the action of some lures and may even stop them diving. If lexan is your preferred material for fishing lure bibs you may need to consider internally weighting your lures near the head end to ensure the bib is underwater when the lure is floating. Of course, cost and availability are the other two deterrents for those interested in using lexen.

The obvious time to use aluminum for fishing lure bibs is when they are going to be thrown into some really tough country or at a tough adversary, particularly if the towpoint is attached directly to the bib. Aluminum has the advantage of adding weight at the front of the lure, which ensures the lure stays upright and the bib is under water when the retrieve commences. This weight forward arrangment also results in fishing lures that swim with a slightly head down attitude, which allows them to bump over logs and snags better without the hooks hitting the snags. Being opaque, it also has the effect of increasing the overall profile of the lure when viewed from below, making the lure look larger and allowing the angler to get away with a smaller lure that creates less drag on the rod.