I just got back from 5 nights of plugging with my dad, during which I threw nothing but my wooden plugs.

I brought one set of larger dannies that I finished w/ mirror coat and a set of smaller dannies that I finished with e-tex lite. I wanted to see how they would hold up and we fished them in all kinds of conditions.

The paint on all of my plugs is just spray paint, and it seems as though my biggest problem is still with the adhesion of metallic paints. I am using rustoleum paints.

Blue fish teeth were able to puncture both finishes as did the swing of the hooks. It seems to me that the systems 3 finish is a bit harder, but more brittle and prone to chipping. On the gold part of my black and gold swimmers I have chips taken out of the systems 3 that go right down to the primer.

The e-tex seems to be a little softer finish, but it may be a little more cohesive as it did not chip off the gold paint like the mirror coat did. It does looks like the e-tex got scratched up a little more.

On the pearl white, yellow and all black plugs I had no problems at all with paint adhesion, and both epoxies held up well so maybe the advantage with these ones went to systems 3...


ok, a couple of questions.

Is there anything I can do to make the gold paint adhere better to the primer ?

Are there any other non-hazardous epoxies that I should try ?

Also, for the guys using compressors and spray guns, do you have any problems with the mettalic paints? I'm trying to decide if it is worth taking the plunge.

Here's the black and gold plugs, the larger one is mirror coat, the smaller one is e-tex...

Mirror coat is very user friendly in the winter an even better (tougher) finish is Clear Coat wich is very easy to work with except in the winter for me .. try Sys Three Clear coat... far superior ..

metalic paint's in rust-o just won't stick to anything and nothing stick's to it...something in the paint that let's the flake's come to the surface won't allow it to bond to either primer or take a clearcoat.

Dave - the real question is how many/how large were they on the island? Do alot of fishing with your dad?

Thanks guys. I'll try the clearcoat and I'll look around and see if I can find some other gold paint. I wonder if the fish really even see the mettalic paint or if they can see the 2 tones between the black and gold. Maybe black over yellow would be as good. I'll have to make some up and try it.

Mike,
The fishing was good on some nights, great on others. I think I caught keepers every night, buts its all kind of blurry...

The last 2 nights were the kind you wait all winter for. I had 4 keepers 4 casts in a row last night. I had doubles on teasers. Night before last I dropped a fish that hit and never stopped tr#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& still it straightened out my 3/0 4x vmc's, and my dad dropped a fish last night thats still got one of my dannies in her....

I brought the camera last night and got a picture of my dad with a real nice fish, too bad when I took the picture I chopped his head off. By the time I could see (from the flash going off) that the picture wasn't good he'd already released the fish. The thing completely inhaled a 6" danny.

This fish was 42 1/2 nose to fork...