I'm sure they'll work for you. Options are always good
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I agree I often make a few out of a few different species for different sink rates and situations once I have it set up to do my regular run. Sometimes they suck sometimes you get surprised for hardly much effort since it is already set up to go.

Now I'm pumped. I can't wait to throw my duds or studs into the drink.

Still waiting on George to weigh in... Or does he put weights in his darters? I think he likes cutting cross grain on the slopes and lip, no?
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Didn't take these out for swim but rather a sink. Took a needle I had good success with last year and made them a bit thicker so they'd have the same sink rate but with a 6X 3/0 in front and 6/0 in back.

Good god. Frank that's the one. That's the plug you will find your Bertha
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Not sure about a lip but I messed with a darter needle thing. Doesn't seem to dart if it sinks and I never done well on needles that float so they sit in a box.

Some slim darters I finished last week and some others I wired up tonight.

All beauties. You going to make me beg. Got no Nanook of the North darters
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nice looking stuff. big girls love datas

Where did you get the eyes from, look nice.
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I like floating needles. 6x because you are fishing rocks? On a beach I don't think that would be necessary.
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.

They're from Lisa and Ed's eyes, Frank. Cheap and have plenty of sizes and colors. I buy the clear eyes too and occasionally paint them what I what (I painted the bone eyes on the bone pencil).
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The Nanook darters work on ice too.

The latest 4x hooks from VMC seemed to just crumpled all last season. Started using the 6x on most at least the belly hooks on anything I was fishing.
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Just curious. Thanks
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Took some maple Donnys for a swim today. They weigh in at around 3.2oz with no added weight and sit with the entire nose of the plug slightly subsurface and the water line about mid way at the tail. No hook on the rear of them when I tested. They swam with a lot of side to side action but didn't seem to dig for the bottom as much as I had expected. I didn't play with tuning the line tie or lips (pikie 3 and lefty high slot) yet.

Has anyone fished and original that could can give me some idea of how they swam?
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I swam a maple junior (I think it was weighted) with a lefty 2 high slot and although it swam deeper it didn't tag bottom where I swim plugs and its only 5'.

I bet a maple rattler slope head would go deep.

Thanks maybe I'll have to cut a slope head on one and see how it swims.

I got some info from someone who fishes the originals pretty often and he said they probably get down around 8' or maybe more. Not sure if these will get that deep or not. I still need to swim them in some open water.

Jay how much weight you putting in. 8-10 grams?

Hi Billy,

Right now I've got no weight in the maple Donnys. From what I've been able to find out the originals were unweighted.
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Small belly wgt. Not much though. Kind of inconsequential
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The original large maple I x-rayed has a 5/16 x 1/4" wt 3 3/8" from the nose. It weighed 3.55 oz rigged but WITHOUT hooks
I would not, however, focus on building exactly to these dimensions.
Maple varies a lot in weight. To start I would float your plug rigged with hooks in water and, using a rubber band to hold on different weights in different locations, weight it to float with only its back just proud of the water (the buoyancy in saltwater will be greater).

I have built a number of maples in both sizes and fished them but without much success. If you are trying to get deep the conrad is a better option (I think).

Neither the conrad or the maple are great in current because of their wide wag (which increases resistance and pulls the plug up). You might try a lefty2 high slot lip on the bigger maple body (+/- adding a slope to the head) if you want to stay stable in current. I've not done this but I have had success doing so with the large pine body and I think Musso may have actually made some special pines this way (just a guess based on a story I heard about a special pine he built).

I have not used AYC for darters (too allergenic).
I use soft maple and adjust time in the sealer to get the body weight I want.
I have experimented quite a bit with weighting smaller darters.
Even when exactly the same weight don't think they swim as well as their unweighted cousins made of heavier wood. That said, the three hook Gibbs was weighted and fishes well.....which is no surprise considering the genius of the man who developed it.
You also want to be careful thinning the tail of darters.
Insufficient buoyancy in the tail will make the plug more prone to roll.
You usually can't get a darter to run much deeper by making it heavier (they just roll).
If you want deep then you need to fool with the slope and line tie position.

Of final note, classically most darters are about 1/8" thinner at the nose than the belly. When the face is the widest spot they tend to want to swim more than dart (not that that is bad).

It's Sunday morning. I have my coffee and planning my stay in the "cave" today. Finally the minimal lures I did are primed and will put some colors to them.Made up some "bone" white to shoot for belly. I have a few color requests but the rest I don't know. Usually once I get the paint in front of me I brainstorm what to paint. My new scheme is lime green w/red head, Black over sprayed with red, purple and misted w/gold is my new dark color. I have pikes which will be painted in blackfish, porky and sea bass colors. Blackfish and sea bass was a producer last year. I paint the blackfish white then scale black then over spray brown in blotches vertically. Sea bass is light blue to silver belly over sprayed with black scale. I use a thicker net to show more blue. Trying to find some net similar to clementine netting but with smaller holes and wider net lines. Enjoy your day guys. I post some pix soon.

heading to rissa show.......i don't know why lol.....look for hooks lol

Hmmmmm...... I have a couple dozen poplar spook bodies that I turned either last year or the year before. Might see if I can get them drilled out today and then seal. That would be the most I have done in over a year.....
I remember using the poplar, A. because I had it, B. it was fine if it absorbs a lot of sealer as the added weight helps, at least on mine. And C. because if they are fished, as intended, they weren't designed to last a lifetime....

Thanks George! I did try a version of the maple with the left 2 lip which I preferred over the pike lip on the pine version but it seemed to swim almost identically to the one with the pikie 2 lip. I will try adding some weight to the ones I've built to see how it impacts the action and depth. The slope head is a nice idea as well that I'm going to try out.


I did finally get around to building some larger needles and test swam them this weekend. They are 9.25" and depending on the version I was testing they ranged from 3oz up to 4.3oz. I'm liking the skinnier 3oz version the best so far.

Time to apply the finish coat. E - text . Also trying a concrete sealer on some personal plugs. I'm trying to find a better finish. Harder and durable. I have a few needles from an unknown builder which show virtually no wear. He was a boat builder but would not reveal his finish. Always in search of the "Holy Grail" of finishing.

Some of that stuff those boat builders use is some caustic. I tried a couple when I started an they gave me a doozy of a head ache even with a mask on.

got a game dinner today but might turn a couple Donny body's off to the lathe

Here's a few pikes and wadds.

System 3 clear coat Billy give it a try
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That will be my next move if this DIRECT COLOR - AC 1315 doesn't pan out. I did one coat , I'll do another tomorrow and possibly one more. Stuff flows .I keep water. What system 3 clear coat do you use? I see there's a couple different ones in our Woodcraft catalog.

Got my dust collector all set up finally, couple different hood systems to mess around with.

Used the big 16x13 one this week while turning, did a nice job of catching the smaller pieces but with no clear plexi piece to knock down the actually large chips like the PSI one it still made a mess.

So will play around with the PSI one this week, and see how that works, or build a clear plexi piece to knock down the chips.

Did get some more Donnys turned and some slim version wadd needles I want to mess around with.
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Sys 3 clearcoat, not mirror-coat. I like 2 coats. First coat goes on crappy, I don't sweat it, 2nd coat fixes everything. Do 2nd coat before 72 hours or you have to scratch 1st coat and wipe with isopropyl alcohol. I prefer to do second next day if possible so no scratching. It is a 2 to 1 mix. Dries to a hard clear Very durable finish. It is used in boat building. Not a bar top epoxy like e tex or similar 1 to 1 mixes. There is a learning curve but worth the effort IMO.
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I looked at some of my plugs today, then grabbed my gun and went to the range. Spring is almost here, no motivation to make time to build anything, I wish I had some, oh well. You guys stuff looks good

Don't worry Bruce I got plenty

I have plenty Paul
Just miss making them
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I'm working with some cherry ballister stock for another squid color option. The soak brings out a nice color. Gonna be heavy as I'm looking for something to dig into fast water so making a couple swimming spooks and super spooks out of it. i'll try to get some pics up when done.

I added a little over 10 grams of weight to the belly of the maples and they both swim much nicer now. I'm not sure that they will be great plugs in fast current but definitely seem to want to get down deep in slower water. Still want to try one with a slop head to see if it will swim better (tighter) in fast moving water.