of course I will use it..

PM on its way..
thanks!

Bump again. Good read

Dear God my head is spinning from all this. Glad the existentialist in me is extremely happy I haven't been able to start making lures yet as this thread showed me waaaay more details. And a bonus schematic! Though, it'll be interesting making these things out of Pine.

Oh man... Seeing this thread agian got me wanting to fire up the lathe agian. :drool:

I miss flaptail :(
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More inspiration? This one works great.

It was touching reading all these posts and coming across Flaptails writings.

Musso Porn
 

This should get your hearts racing...

Soon will have that covered.

VERY NICE!!!!! Would love to fish one of those darters in Montauk!!!

very nice collection! always wondered if the jointeds were big producers

as will I once i get done turning bowls and bracelets for Christmas...

I promised myself that I will wait till after christmas to disappear into the cellar and my wife agrees with me.

bump again

Great thread! Darters were my number one producer last season, as long as the water was moving even a little they got first pick out of the bag.

Funny because I started last year having zero confidence in them, then changed my technique and method and put a lot of fish and some quality ones at my feet.

Great plug, need to get a couple bigger tattoo plugs once Kevin starts making some again.
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well now I need to hear your technique and method. I have no problem making them just catching quality fish with them.

I have the best luck fishing them over a rocky bar with at least a little sweep. Start with a Superstrike, it's a nearly perfect darter

Paul my method is stupid easy! After reading zenos the art of Surfcasting with lures book I took a lot away from the darter chapter, it's a great read.

I use to fish my darters very fast and erratic, lots of twitches and steady to fast retrieve, never caught on them and had zero confidence on them. then after reading that chapter I changed my technique.

A slow steady retrieve similiar to how I fish a needle, then every 4th or 5th full crank I give the rod a short tap, with a open hand on the foregrip. then pause, then repeat. Works like crazy.

Fishngrega was my darter guru! This kid would outfish me 6 to 1 throwing darters while I was throwing redfins or needles, so I'd put on a darter but still nothing.

Wasn't til I watched him and read that chapter and put it to use that it clicked.

I feel like I missed out not fishing them more or earlier.

One spot has a very slow water moving over a bar, I throw past the bar so it's dug in, right after it washes over the sandbar it gets crushed or makes it a few feet in the wash.

My number one is a super strike plastic darter, doesn't dive deep enough when the surfs big but for the most part it's my first plug out
Of the bag if there's moving water.
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bump, great thread

Paul i agree with what chef said about loving the plug and the technique. I fish mine a little different but i produce on em when they are on nothing else. But for me i cant stand the SS darters, i cant feel them like others. (Nnot a SS platic fan at all by the way).
I have a different problem then you though,i can fish the hell outta them i just can' t / dont understand how to cut the lip consistently, as well as what the effects are with the line tie locations on the face or on top, im one of those guys where you can tell me the tops the best but i need the science behind it.
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ok Skippy I can help you out with cutting the angles with fixtures. Now remember my fixtures might be a tad over the top because I enjoy making them more than the plugs to be honest but you can apply these principles to wooden built fixtures for sure. Don't get the idea you have to use alum. for the fixtures. Please remember these are my opinions and may not be in line with other builders of these plugs. I am not going to give my opinion on wood types, weighting or not, line tie locations, sealing and weight gain opinions, angle and slope details. These are all builder preferences that each person selects to get to the end result and way too many variables to really try and discuss in this thread. I am only going to try and give you a specific way to try and achieve a consistent end result using my way of fixturing the blanks.
There are a few operations that in my mind are very critical to having your darters repeat if you go about machining them using fixtures like I describe below.
First is after you have turned them you need to thru drill them. The thru drilling has to be very accurate in the center of the blank for at least the first inch or two, depending the size of the darter, from both ends. The middle part is not as critical as long as they meet. The fixture in the tail end will position the plug from the rear with a pin and the thru hole from the front is where the line tie will go and you need the hole to be in the center of the plug so both have to be accurate.

Next is the belly holes. My fixtures hold the plug and locate the plug using the belly hole, the front one to be specific. Most all my fixtures for any plugs I make use the belly holes to locate the plug for all operations. That being said you want a nice fit, size, for the pin, be it steel or wood, that goes in the belly hole. I do hydro my darters after turning and thru hole. My darters are not weighted so I feel important and a pretty easy step. Some do not, some think unimportant, some have other reasons. In a talk with Mr. Musso he said I really should, so I do. I will try and include a few pics to help. Here is the fixture, sled that carries the blank. I use a table saw with a dado blade to cut the first angle. You can see the pin in the rear end that goes into the blank and the pin on the bottom closer to the cut that locates the blank. I really don't even have to clamp the blank to the fixture as it is locked into the sled but I do just in case.

here you can see how the sled slides along the table and the fence. Now remember this is a completed darter so you would not have the slope angle on the blank as it is in the picture but I had a large darter laying around so I stuck it on the sled to show you how it looks. I just sneak up on the final cut depth and then once I get it to where I want it I just take the cut all at once. I also wrap blue tape around the blank in the area to be cut. It will eliminate and chipping of the wood on the edges which does happen.

Now once at this point I go to another fixture to cut the top slope. It holds the blank in much the same manner but lays on the band saw table. I don't even clamp this in. I then cut the slope freehand about a 1/16 to and 1/8 inch away from final size. I just mark a line on blank and cut. As you can see there are lots of different holes that allow for many different size darters. Lots of adjustability.

here you can see on a different size darter how the roughed out size and the finished size look.. To get the final finished size I just lay a piece of sand paper on a flat surface and hand sand the slope angle. I find it much easier than using a belt sander as you can really screw up the slope quickly. Going by hand you can sneak up on final size. It really is easy to do as the wood comes off quick and the flat made by the band saw makes it easy to stay in the shape and you are only going to be taking off a pretty small amount of wood. Now if I was making these things by the boat load I would come up with a faster method but for me this is perfect and produces very accurate repetitive plugs.
I hope this gives you an idea as to how to make consistent cuts and some ideas as to how to fashion a fixture or 2 for yourself.

Geez that is some sweet jig.......Do you know a machinist? :rotf2:

my favorite lure (under correct conditions of course) is a black darter on a running tide at night. it appears his work best with loop right at front of top lip. wobble is so seductive. I have had great luck with yellow darters in moderate surf during daylight in fall as well (similar to a yellow bottle plug).

Bill

Here is another pic to show what the plug will look like after the first angle is cut with the table saw. It was hard to see looking at the finished one mounted int he fixture. It will also look like this too when it is mounted in fixture to cut the slope. Also a bunch of darters in different sizes the fixtures fits.

This was Amazing Paul! Thanks a ton, a lot of the thoughts and ideas i had about to do this were confirmed, not that i was thinking i was getting bad Intel, just wasn't making sense to some of the techniques i was told. This was Perfect, thanks again!

Nice work

Amazing talents.........................