A wing gives the lure more visual profile in the water and changes the way it moves. Think of a flying fish, with that wide flat silhouette as it travels across the surface. That is what we are trying to replicate. The wing catches the water differently than the skirts alone, and on a clear day especially, that extra movement and flash can make the difference between a strike and a pass.
The other thing worth knowing: wings get bit. When you come in and find a lure hit, sometimes what got chopped first was the wing. When that happens I just replace it and get back out. It is not a disaster. It is just how trolling lures work in real fishing.
Wings are made from a foil material. It is two-sided, with a shiny face and a duller face. That is the only material. For tying, I use wax line, and I prefer a smaller-diameter wax line because it cinches into the notch on the lure head more cleanly. When the wing is sitting right, you should not see the knot after you flip it down.
This is where most people guess. I do not guess. Here are the exact dimensions I cut for every lure size we run:
| Lure size | Wing length | Wing width |
|---|---|---|
| 12 inch | 6 inches | ~1 inch |
| 9 inch | 6 inches | ~1 inch |
| 7 inch | 6 inches | ~1 inch |
| 5.5 inch | 5 inches | ~1 inch |
| 5 inch | 5 inches | ~1 inch |
Width is not a fixed measurement I take off a ruler. I hold the wing material next to the lure head and match it to the head width. On most of our heads, that works out to right about 1 inch. I put the material at an angle to get the tapered wing shape, then mark and cut.
Here is the cutting and sizing on video, from our channel:
This is the step most people skip, and it is the important one. After cutting the wing to size, I fold it in half lengthwise so I have a center fold running the length of the wing. Then I make a small angled cut at each tip, cutting both sides of the folded wing to create a notch at the tip.
That notch is what lets the wing lay flat. Without it, when you fold the wing back after tying, there is too much material at the tip and it bunches up instead of lying down cleanly. The relief cut removes just enough so the wing can fold and lay right.
The fold line also does a second job: it gives me my center reference when I tie. I align that fold line just below the eye on the lure head, and as the line cinches in and sinks, it lands right where I want it.
Wings go on last, after the skirts are already tied. Here is the sequence I use:
When you get used to the sequence it goes fast. The key tension move is step 3: when you go around the notch you need to actually pull on the wing so the line cinches into that gap. That is what keeps the wing from rotating on the head.
Here is the whole tying sequence on video, so you can watch the hands:
Small detail, but always put the shiny side facing away from the lure. The dull side goes against the head. The shiny face is what picks up light and color in the water, and that is the side the fish sees.
I add wings to our skirted lures across the whole range we make, from the smaller 5 inch Aku Bones we run when there is a lot of skipjack around, up through the 9 inch Moke series and the big 12 inch Ante Inverts we run on the riggers when we are fishing heavy. The cut length changes by size, the method stays the same.
If you have questions about winging lures or anything else about rigging, feel free to reach out through the site. We are happy to help.
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I walk you through how we build every lure at our shop in Hawaii, from the balanced lead insert and the star paper inlay to five passes of paint and the tuning box. It is the same process I showed on camera with the H-1 fish head and the 9 inch Ice Blue Moke Bullet.
The blunt bullet is a shorter, fatter bullet head we designed to skitter along the surface. Here is when I run it, why I put two skirts on it instead of three, and the 7 inch skirt trick that squeezes more action out of it on a small boat.
I get asked all the time whether the trailer hook needs to hide inside the skirt. It does not, and there is a good reason: marlin swat the back of the lure first, and a hanging hook that flops at trolling speed looks like a fish tail. I also cover when to size up from 9/0 to 11/0 and 10/0 hooks based on skirt bulk.
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