BM, how did the clearcoat on your plug hold up after all that abuse?? :humpty: :yak:

:rotf2: In the immortal words of the Bassmaster, "I'm ruined." I went down to the bulkhead this afternoon in Falmouth and test swam a bunch of my winter work. I don't turn so everything was either scratch and dents, mis-drills or charity that I sanded, re-drilled, primed, painted and coated this winter. I was holding off but after trout fishing yesterday ( which was pretty good) and seeing all the crocusses on rt. 6a then going out to Truro and Wellfleet to see the beach I had to do it. So I rigged them all out with hooks, bucktails etc. and let them swim. They all went great ( the white darter needs a single not a treble on the rear end) but the big pink/white and blue/white swirl Atom that I made from some Slipknot discards just made me loose it. I need MAY and the outer beach at dawn or the Elizabeth Islands. I was seeing mirages of bass coming up to look at them. I had to leave the dock. They swim that good. I cut the lips to match the individual bodies widths rather than use manufactured lips.I need Bass and I got a bunch of stuff to feed 'em. Come on April 20th at least :drool: :ss: !!!

good posts, i have surfsters to build and swim this spring :jump: along with some pikes goingto the islands....

Flap, I'm glad to hear your plugs work, gald to see some junk turned into gold also.

I test mine in the bathtub.

Best dannies so far...
 

Here are my best two danny plugs so far. Tested these yesterday afternoon in a nice rip near home. Once the lip and loop were aligned like they are in the picture they were like little freight trains. I thing I learned yesterday is that this style plug needs a nice shoulder to pivot around, at least in fast and turbulant current, as well as a belly weight. I have another almost exactly like these with no belly weight and it was clear that it wanted to be in
calmer water..

I'm sure that this is old hat to alot of you guys and the profile is a familiar one. But to own figuring it all out was priceless...

I just finished my 1st batch of homemade ever and will probably swim them this week sometime to see how I did. Being extremely new to plug-building I'm trying to work on the basics of building the plug right now, such as Shaping, sealing, priming, painting, epoxy-coating, and through-wiring (The Drilling is still a giving me grief but I had someone show me a jig that should make it easier).

I'm going to try out the few that I've made and see what i like/don't like about them. Once I'm satisfied that I have the basics down I'm going to start digging into the proto'ing process and really dig into what I need to do to fine tune plugs and what changes the actions.

Like I said right now I just want to learn the basics and then expand off of them. Now to catch something on the ones I've made

Steellhead and TDF, glad to see others on the north shore working in some larger wood. Do you share my view that dannys, pikies and the like are seldom seen up this way?

Steelhead, anything showing there yesterday?

Nothing showing there yesterday... I see danny's, poppers and pencil poppers. Haven't encountered needles, and pikies being used by other fishermen. Maybe where I'm fishing???

What I've noticed is that the Pencil Popper seems to be the plug of choice up around here. I have seen a few people throwing needles and the, very, occasional Darter. after that i see a lot of bombers, yozuri crystal minnows, and mambo minnows.

We've been missing something......

And the plug makers are missing an untapped market.......

I test all the time, I drive myself absolutely nuts... but I test. More lead... different spots... too much roll, fatter skinnierer........... :rolleyes: but it does pay off in the long run when they do what you want and catch fish.


Hey BM...............
GREEN PAINT
Git off yer arese and maile that needle bub!