With our luck John maybe we should try them more

I tried the plastic Northbar bottledarter this year and it caught fish for me under the right conditions. Dropping tide at an inlet with current and whitewater.

Well...I said yesterday that I would throw a couple of nbd's in the bag for tonights fishing,but with this big,glorious,nearly full moon with no clouds to tone it down,I am opting out and doing first light Wednesday.

I will see what happens.....

gags was able to convince me to buy some crap early on in my surf fishing days (squidzee and slammer). i still like the mambo in the small size, but only in the solid colors (herring is really the only one I use, though I also like the pogie), the flash ones are very inconsistant (some swim and some don't).

i like to think i've become alittle more informed since and tend to buy less crap. a quick walk around rissa or msba shows in the spring and you'll see alot of crap lures. before buying anything, i'd look around for some reviews from people who seam to know what's up. in the end, your probably best off sticking with basic plugs (plastic swimmers, needles, dannys, juniors, shads) in basic colors (white, yellow/white, black/burple, herring) by the established brands / makers (bomber, redfin, habs, afterhours, salty, beachmaster, superstrike) and picking up some different stuff once you really know what your looking for.

ALL good builders,,,,,,,,,,,,

i would ADD these two to the above~~~

Surf Asylum by David Anderson of "The Fisherman". he was building lures LOOONG before editing, and his wood is unique in his interpretation of how best to WORK the surf, from top to bottom. very serious action and well worth the investment, imho. LUV Dave's swimmers, poppers, and WISH he would bring back the Slopey's!!! if they're there, this wood will find them!

Tattoo by Mike Dauphin. excellent darters, and pencils, and jointed eeels, and his 'sea pups' are his version of the spook. good colors and the lures hold-up to decent sized feesh! definitely have one each(sm/lg) of his darters~~ yellow for the B'ways/Ditch, blurple for any holes you might know~~ and at least one of his swimmers. worth every penny and must haves for dahtahs, imho, THEY catch feesh!

LIFishInVt Dahtahs :kewl:

Are you sure Tattoo makes pencils? I've never seen one anywhere. I love the Sea Pup and Sea Dog spooks, though.

I don't think he ever made them for commercial sale, at least when Habs was still alive. Mike started building with Habs, and when he went out on his own, as I was told (not firsthand) there was sort of an agreement that they wouldn't make plug styles that the other made. Mike made swimmers, darters and spooks, and John made needles, poppers and pencils.

I'm sure that they built plugs for themselves, because I saw John's bag a few times ;) And John did make "show plugs" when he had booths at MSBA and RISAA, including beautiful Atom 40 models. But never for mass distribution, I believe.

But it's very possible that Mike ran off pencils for friends and they got passed around.

One of the best in my opinion...

ooooops, i may have misspoke! my bad, but ya know how when ya take the plug outta the pkg and it sits in your plug bag forever, and then you're going thru yer plugs and you think this one's a ________ and that one's made by _________??

then that amazing pencil must belong to one of Li'l Rhody's fine independent builders. thanks for clearing that up, bonesy!!
:btu: :btu: :btu:

Yankee lures and storm seem to be right up there on the plugs that suck list. Gibbs has seen a big decline in quality, almost everything sold at bass pro shops is ok at best.Hope all my fishing bros are catching lots of fish,I probably quit a little to early this year as I got some news from a buddy upcape that there were lots of fish now invading the Nauset Chatam area and no one was fishing up there. He smoked a 40+ pounder recently. oh well.....

mike makes walking sticks, 1oz. they are one of the best lures for albies and burritos. it's essentially a small PP.

Wow...Yankee and Suck in the same sentence....If I only had a nickle...:hihi: