Fishing lure

Maxwell S. Smith, Madison, WI (US)

USPTO: us-12622420 · published 2026-05-12 · patents · A01K 85/023· A01K 85/021· A01K 85/1851

Fishing lure

Maxwell S. Smith, Madison, WI (US) This is my paper

Pith reviewed 2026-05-17 13:01 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification patents A01K 85/023A01K 85/021A01K 85/1851

keywords fishing lureelastic legsself-propellingline tensionhook attachmentbendable feet

0 comments

The pith

A fishing lure stores elastic energy in bendable hind legs that snap forward to propel the bait when line tension is released.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The patent describes a fishing lure whose hind legs are made of a material that bends under line tension and then springs back to an extended shape. Pulling the line loads the legs by drawing the hook and foot body toward the tail; releasing the line lets the legs unload and push the lure ahead through the water. The design uses the stored elastic energy to move the lure without requiring additional mechanical parts or external power. A sympathetic reader would care because the mechanism offers a simple, self-contained way to animate a lure using only the angler's line action.

Core claim

The lure comprises a head, tail, internal channel, and a pair of elastic hind legs whose feet are joined into a foot body that also contains a channel. Fishing line passes through the head channel, between the knees, and into the foot body where it attaches to a hook. Tension on the line bends the legs at the knees and draws the foot body toward the tail; release allows the legs to straighten and drive the foot body outward, advancing the lure.

What carries the argument

Elastic hind legs that bend at the knees under line tension and revert to an extended shape to convert stored elastic energy into forward motion against water drag.

If this is right

The lure can advance in short bursts each time the angler tugs and relaxes the line.
No batteries, motors, or separate propulsion devices are required.
The same line action that sets the hook can also reload the legs for the next movement.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

The mechanism might work best in still or slow-moving water where drag forces are low.
Different leg stiffnesses could be chosen to match lure size or target species.
The design may reduce the need for constant reeling to impart action.

Load-bearing premise

The leg material will bend repeatedly under modest pulling force and then spring back with enough power to overcome water resistance and actually move the lure.

What would settle it

Observe whether repeated pull-and-release cycles on the line cause measurable forward displacement of the lure in still water when no other forces are applied.

read the original abstract

1 . A lure comprising: a head, a tail, a first channel extending inside the head to the tail, a pair of hind legs extending from the tail and including a first leg having a first knee and a first foot, a second leg having a second knee and a second foot, the first leg and the second leg form a space between the first knee and the second knee, and the first foot being connected to the second foot forming a foot body having a second channel; wherein the lure is configured to receive a line having a first end and a second end, the second end extending through the first channel, through the space, and into the second channel and through the foot body, the second end being connected to a hook; wherein the pair of hind legs are made of a material that allows the hind legs to bend and then revert to an extended shape, such that the legs use elastic energy to pull the line against the water to move the lure; and wherein: pulling the first end of the line causes the pair of hind legs to be in a loaded state, wherein the hook moves to the foot body, the first and second legs bend at the first and second knees respectively, and the foot body is pulled towards the tail; and releasing the line causes the pair of hind legs to be in an unloaded state, wherein the first and second legs revert to the extended shape, and the foot body moves away from the tail.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Desk Editor's Note private letter to a colleague

A patent for an elastic-legged fishing lure whose propulsion claim rests on an untested assumption that leg recovery beats drag.

read the letter

The core idea is a lure with two elastic hind legs joined at a foot body that has a channel for the line and hook. Pulling the line bends the legs at the knees and loads them; releasing lets the legs spring back and supposedly drives the lure forward through the water. The mechanical layout and line routing are described clearly enough to build from, and the combination of dual legs plus the channeled foot does not appear to be a straight copy of standard prior-art lures. That is the actual novelty on offer. Everything else is standard patent language for a mechanical device. The obvious weakness is that the document gives no material modulus, leg cross-section, or drag estimate, so there is no way to check whether the stored elastic energy actually produces net forward motion before the next pull. The central claim therefore stays at the level of a plausible mechanism rather than a demonstrated one. Readers who follow fishing-gear patents or who are themselves designing soft-bodied lures might find the geometry useful as a starting point. For anyone else the piece is too thin to spend time on. If an editor were deciding whether to route it to referees I would say yes only for a narrow prior-art or enablement check; otherwise it can stay in the patent queue.

Referee Report

1 major / 1 minor

Summary. The manuscript presents a fishing lure design comprising a head and tail with an internal channel for a fishing line, a pair of elastic hind legs extending from the tail that form a space and connect at a foot body with a second channel. The line passes through these channels and attaches to a hook. Pulling the line loads the legs by bending them at the knees and drawing the foot body toward the tail; releasing allows elastic recovery to extend the legs and advance the foot body, purportedly propelling the lure via stored elastic energy overcoming water drag.

Significance. If the elastic recovery produces net forward thrust, the design offers a mechanically simple, line-actuated propulsion mechanism for fishing lures that could enhance action and distance without batteries or complex linkages. The absence of any material specifications, geometry parameters, or hydrodynamic estimates, however, leaves the functional viability unverified.

major comments (1)

[Abstract] Abstract, final clause: the assertion that 'the legs use elastic energy to pull the line against the water to move the lure' is load-bearing for the central claim yet unsupported by any material modulus, leg cross-section, restoring-force estimate, or drag calculation. Without these, it is impossible to confirm that unloaded extension displaces the lure measurably before the next cycle.

minor comments (1)

[Abstract] The description of the 'space between the first knee and the second knee' and the routing of the line through it would benefit from an accompanying figure or explicit diagram to clarify the geometry.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

1 responses · 1 unresolved

We thank the referee for the thoughtful review of our patent application describing a mechanically actuated fishing lure. The comments highlight an important distinction between a patent disclosure, which protects the inventive mechanism, and a quantitative engineering analysis. We respond point-by-point below.

read point-by-point responses

Referee: [Abstract] Abstract, final clause: the assertion that 'the legs use elastic energy to pull the line against the water to move the lure' is load-bearing for the central claim yet unsupported by any material modulus, leg cross-section, restoring-force estimate, or drag calculation. Without these, it is impossible to confirm that unloaded extension displaces the lure measurably before the next cycle.

Authors: We agree that the patent text contains no numerical estimates of modulus, geometry, force, or drag. As a utility-patent application the disclosure is intentionally limited to the novel kinematic arrangement and the principle that elastic recovery of the hind legs can produce relative motion between the foot body and the surrounding water. Specific material selections and resulting performance metrics are implementation details left to the practitioner and are not required to support the claims. We will revise the abstract to replace the phrase with language that describes the intended mechanical sequence without asserting a net propulsive outcome. revision: partial

standing simulated objections not resolved

Empirical confirmation that elastic recovery produces measurable forward displacement under realistic hydrodynamic loading cannot be supplied from the existing patent text, which contains neither prototype data nor engineering calculations.

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No circularity; purely descriptive mechanical specification with no derivations or fitted inputs

full rationale

The patent is a mechanical device description containing no equations, parameters, derivations, predictions, or self-citations. The central claim simply states that elastic recovery of the legs will move the lure; this is an engineering assertion, not a mathematical reduction of any output to its own inputs. No load-bearing step can be shown to collapse by construction because no formal chain exists.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 0 axioms · 0 invented entities

No mathematical models, physical constants, or empirical fits are invoked; the design rests only on standard assumptions about elastic materials and fluid drag.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5574 in / 1044 out tokens · 73828 ms · 2026-05-17T13:01:35.389840+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

Lean theorems connected to this paper

Citations machine-checked in the Pith Canon. Every link opens the source theorem in the public Lean library.

IndisputableMonolith/Cost/FunctionalEquation.lean washburn_uniqueness_aczel unclear

?

unclear
Relation between the paper passage and the cited Recognition theorem.

the legs use elastic energy to pull the line against the water to move the lure
IndisputableMonolith/Foundation/RealityFromDistinction.lean reality_from_one_distinction unclear

?

unclear
Relation between the paper passage and the cited Recognition theorem.

pulling the first end of the line causes the pair of hind legs to be in a loaded state

What do these tags mean?

matches: The paper's claim is directly supported by a theorem in the formal canon.
supports: The theorem supports part of the paper's argument, but the paper may add assumptions or extra steps.
extends: The paper goes beyond the formal theorem; the theorem is a base layer rather than the whole result.
uses: The paper appears to rely on the theorem as machinery.
contradicts: The paper's claim conflicts with a theorem or certificate in the canon.
unclear: Pith found a possible connection, but the passage is too broad, indirect, or ambiguous to say the theorem truly supports the claim.