Uhhhhhhhhh...........at least I got around to buying some wood this weekend........but this sewing stuff seems to be messing up my plugfest plans.

looks great. Surprised more square 4 tubes weren't made as oppose to 4 tubes long. Got to see Mike's bag over the weekend. great concept.

very nice g. A real beauty and perfect size.
As far as plugfest goes I stopped making tons to bring 3 years ago. Now I just bring a few and go mostly to see others work and catch up with friends, shoot the breeze, answer a few questions to inquiring minds. No epoxy worry. You should adopt this philosophy, much less stressful and more enjoyable and plenty of time to finish up plugs for another 2 months after.

Wow G really impressive work there! There was a person on another site that has access to a bunch of those plug insert tubes in various diameters, he gets them for free I guess. If your ever looking for them, I could PM ya his email. He shipped me some for my bag and I traded a plug in return.

Nice sack dude.:uhuh:

George nice work. I see you went in head first on the bag crafting. Starting additional endeavors adds a zest to the same same routine. Keep up the good work. If you need anything or info on bag making, a member of our club has been making bags for fisherman and has some incredible concepts. Shoot me a PM if you like to contact him.
On another note, I finally decided to spin up some stubbys yesterday. My plug making has taken a backseat to bat making. I decided to cut a couple dozen bodies. I have to say the mini dupe is no pro dupe. It felt like a toy in my hands. Once my head got over the size , I buzzed them out. The experience with the Pro model has helped me in being more efficient with the mini. One trick I use with the Pro dupe and put to use with the Mini is to remove the spring from the lever. Using your hand for feed under your own power eliminates dig outs and seems to speed up the ripping. Well I'm off to the sawdust room. All have a good day.

I finally had a night off and got around to epoxying 24 plugs for my friends and I. I used muskyslayers plate epoxy method, worked great, doubled the working time of the epoxy and was able to get 9 plugs done in a batch instead of the usual 5 or 6.

That's a great looking bag man!!! The color is nice too. I like the idea of a square instead of a long style.


Great work man!
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Finally got some paint and finish on some things. It's been a struggle this year to get stuff going for some reason. I do have alot of handcarved stuff that I'm starting to get finished.

These are the slim swimmers. I tried some circuit board lips in a couple also. I like the circuit board lips but don't like the fact that you lose the ability to tune them. I still have to get lips and hardware on the one I foiled but they are finished.

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood005.jpg

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood027.jpg

Got a couple more of the big ones done. I use a different gauge S/S for these lips and they are hard to cut but it gets the head sitting a bit more where I want it. I also switched to a single belly hook instead of two and think it helps them start up faster.

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood002.jpg

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood006.jpg

Really like the way the big popper turned out. I enjoyed building these. I wanted an oldschool look but didn't really want to copy something. I also want to fish these at a certain place so I built them for that purpose.

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood024.jpg

And just some odds and ends. A maverick copy that I like and have been playing around with for a long time. They don't last long because the tail is so thin and the through wire so close to the belly. If a decent fish gets both hooks they usually end up in the same place with the tail hook and wire getting ripped out. I try to counter that a bit using a very long S/S rivet for the tail grommet to get it back into the meat of the plug a bit more. I guess I'll see if that helps come spring.

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood017.jpg

Some topwater stuff. The yellow one is a handcarved swimmer I blew the nose up on drilling. Tried to save it and ended up making a popper out of it. The other is an attempt to copy the river2sea Larry Dahlberg Wide Glide. If you haven't already check out the video with him and Patrick Sebile from Sebile lures fishing for Stripers. Cool video and they are using some less than conventional tactics for bass. They are absolutely ripping the baits in at high speed instead of the more traditional slow approach. I found some video of the bait online and you can clearly see the weighting on it. I tried it and was surprised to say the least.

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood022.jpg


Nice looking stuff everone and looking forward to seeing everyone and everything at plugfest.

Wow, those are pretty.

Breath-taking stuff, Ted.

Wow, Greek your stuff is so clean looking!! The love combos are great.
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out of this world stuff greek! each style looks fun.

my plugs are all at different stages but I manage to epoxy a few to make room. Finished up some hybrid pencil style plugs I was messing with. Had this idea since last year but kind of stayed an idea until this winter. Made specifically for the canal hence the small flat bottom. Also finished up some large spooks.

In my "make everything slimmer" efforts, I started messing with a slim swimmer. Basically took a junior and senior size musso and compensated the thickness with length. Going to try the same weighting system but with 1/2 belly weights vs. 3/8. Just to experiment.

You will be happy with that swimmer. My experience has been that the ones that have trouble staying on top (skinnier and heavier) work great by night, and the ones that work like a true surface swimmer (lighter and slightly fatter...a 10th of an inch midsection makes a difference) are dynamite by day. They very definitely work better than fatter plugs in quiet conditions, but are less stable. Also, the design rolls so much you might want to forego the eyes and keep the colors solid.
I like the pencils as well.

nice job guys.

Beautiful stuff guys. Eskimo, I love the shape of those hybrid pencils and Ted, those are all beauties but that larger yellow swimmer is smokin! :smokin:

G, did you try out a shorter, wider weight? I have to pour them as I'm all out so I figured I would give it a shot. .375 X .75 high weight puts it well above mid level so maybe a .5 X ??? might be make more stable/less top heavy.

Although something about a unstable/tipsy plug might be the reason behind its productivity once you figure it out.

No, I didn't. My weights are high (3/4" x 3/8" I think) and drilled thru. I don't, however, think that the location of the belly weight makes much difference in roll (I could easily be wrong). I think most of it is from the width of the lip and line tie location.

Those lefty lips hanging low below the chin seem to create a lot of roll in thin swimmers. I wouldn't sweat it, however. Your plug is very close to the ones I've been fishing for the last 4-5 years. They are so unstable they will barrel roll with a twitch, and most won't stay on top like I had intended (altough widening the belly a bit changes that), but man oh man do they fish well in quiet water and have taken several fish over 40 lbs (there is a pic of one in this past years fish/plug thread) as well as a handful of fish in the thirtys.

I've found that solid white or solid purple fish particularly well.
You may have trouble keeping them slow enough with spinning tackle.
Skinny is good. I think mine are mostly about 1.17" mid section, but I've built several closer to 1.25 that swim much better (on top) with a little less weight (1/2 x 3/8 I think) and have proven better daytime plugs. At night I stick with the unstable slightly subsurface stuff....and don't have any reason to change.

Interesting info. Did you tail weight the slimmer version you made? I tapered the tail down rather then weight it. I made some tail weighted last season and preferred them as the plug swam a little more level. Although the non tail weighted version seemed a little better in stirred up conditions as the lip was able to bite better being faced down. Both had their place.

I was actually thinking of bumping up the lip a little more then original 1/16". maybe getting a few pre-bent lefty lips from M&D's would allow it be bent lower leaving less hanging below the plug. Just a thought.

No, I didn't tail weight any, but the weight is somewhat back from midline (I forget how much). I also built them out of ayc so they are a bit heavier than pine and weigh about 3oz. They cast well for what they are.

This thread has a picture at the end of an early version of the plug
http://www.striped-bass.com/Stripert...numbskull.html

wow, I never saw that thread G. A belated congrats.

The reference plug is a large BM danny right? 8" or so not the 6.5"?

Right, the 8" (actually they're 7.5" I think) BM danny.
Here is a better photo of some from a few years ago.

Snow and rain tomorrow... so not opening a house to frame for eight new windows... Planning to get the lathe going for the first time in three years:smash: A batch of spooks is first up on the list. Have some modifications in mind, but would like to hear some thoughts on weighting and placement. Want to make sure they cast well... Thoughts?
Pencils and darters to follow, I hope.

As long as the head of the plug is lighter and wider than the tail the plug will work. The fat head is help up by the water as it glides and the weighted tail tries to swing by it.

There are two ways to weight them. Ballerina/howdy style will float vertical with the nose about 1-1.5" out of the water. Zara/Jigman style is to weight them about 2/3 back with a fatter tail so they float at about 45 degrees with the line tie near the waterline (dropping the line tie below the center of the nose helps with this style).
The howdy style casts further, the jigman style works slower. Both work well.

Go Ross go. Make both styles G. mentioned, each is great

I do remember the photo.
I'm going to try to bend the lip so its flush to the plug. Had better luck with the those vs. the shape they are prebent to.

Got to finish a couple more. Mostly handcarved stuff but some lathe turned stuff also. I have been trying to paint a mullet pattern for a while now and think these are the best I have come up with yet, for me anyway. I am almost totally color blind and have a very hard time telling the difference in shades of certain colors. I have to have my daughter help me when I paint. I ask her if she can see the pink or blue in here and she points me in the right direction. I know mullet looks real good with scales but I hate doing them and mess them up real bad.


http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood042.jpg

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood038.jpg

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood039.jpg

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood041.jpg

A few more handcarved.

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood043.jpg

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood044.jpg

And one I owe to someone for a favor. Thanks Billy.

http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/a.../11wood037.jpg

They sure are perty Ted! You nailed the mullet....love the surfster!!!:drool:

Greek,

Simply beautiful work as always,

MS

It was a slow week for me, but I managed to finish this foiled spook finally. It was my first go at foiling, if I had to do it over I'd give it 2 coats of epoxy before painting instead of one to help cover the seams..

It's supposed to be a pinfish pattern, for some friends in florida. 4" 1 1/8oz.

Eskimo- Really like that hybrid pencil!

Greek- Those surfsters are really neat!

Ryan- Nice foil spook!

My weekly alotment of shop time just went way up. Woody Jr. broke his ankle yesterday, so no more hockey commitment.
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