"The Best" dartah
 

Had a good time this weekend hooking up with friends (few fish) both old and new and also had a chance to test some plugs since the fishing s#%*&d! Had the chance to swim a darter that was in the bag one night and did get a few bumps on it but have to say hands down THE best darter I have ever had! Action is amazing, casts well and I love it....Thanks George:love:

I love his darters and that is my favorite color

great plug George :btu:

Not mine guys......they are Musso's..........I just stole from him.
The big Pichney darter is a good design as well.

The issue with darters is getting past thinking of them as plugs for current (which they are) and start thinking about them as diving needlefish with better action that is easier to control depth with than a standard needle. The right one (and the two Musso designs I copy are examples) will out produce metal lips and needles in many situations where you would think the latter two plugs would be better.

Learning to fish darters in non-moving and shallow water has been an eye opener for me. I thank Stan Gibbs for teaching me that (albeit indirectly).

I'll second George's darter. Great size, swims well w/ or w/o current. Catches too!!

George you have a touch for makin a darter work some sweet. I've landed fish on all of yours. tied to copy one. LOL. I will have to bow to the master on those.LOL Sweet darters

George gave me one a few years back- swims sweet, he builds beautifull plugs.

Don, you make a damn good darter also!! Wish I had one....hint, hint or is that ho ho :rotf2:

I saw a couple of these over the weekend that a friend had in his bag. Despite my best ho'ong tactics I came home empty handed. Maybe someday!

I love darters. Truly a plug that takes a different type of passion to build. I look up to builders that make a productive one.
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I also thought of darters as a moving /deep water plug until I was out-fished recently 3 bass, for every one for me by Glen (GooGoo Man) fishing ten feet from me with one of his darters on a shallow beach. I fished a metal lip and did ok. I did not think to pack one for that beach but if I had a darter in my bag I would have fished it that night.

The diving needlefish comment is right on. When I made that realization about 2 seasons ago darters went from a niche plug for me to a spot right alongside needles and redfins in my bag.
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Stan Gibbs was a better fisherman than I can ever hope to be.

Flap told me that Gibbs said if he could only use one plug it would be a darter. In "Reading the Water" there is mention of Gibbs fishing his darter at Gay Head. That is a very shallow spot full of snags. Flap also said that Gibbs liked his darter at SOH, also a shallow spot.

So one of the best plug fishermen that has lived picks a darter as his favorite plug and fishes it in shallow water? Seemed like something worth considering. So I practiced with the darters I owned until a found a way to fish them shallow and slow....and when I did I quickly realized what a fool I was for not paying attention to Gibbs' advice decades earlier.

One truth I've learned with all this plug building stuff is that if Stan did it, it works.

George, Speaking of Gibbs are these worth duping?

Probably, but I have not tried it yet (I was set up to do so this winter but never got to it).
I have not fished that style very much, but Musso (in the SJ article) mentions that he chose a similar style for his plastic darter because guys were doing better with the narrow gibbs as opposed to his wider darter at the time he geared up for a mold. This likely correlated with the big sandeel years. My experience has been that the wider darters fished better for me than the narrow Gibbs or Superstrike so that's what I stuck with......but likely I'm missing out on something good since both Gibbs and Musso came to prefer that style.

The old Gibbs 3-hook darter is great in shallower spots. I have a few areas where they excel but the problem is getting the lip dinged up in the rocks and eventually rendering them useless. Until then though...

I like the thin ones best. Super strike shape. May just be a function of where I fish, but I'll take a thin profile over wide almost all the time with any style plug. Heard great things about the old Gibbs pictured but never been able to find one to try.
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OK, gave the Gibbs a try this am, and a shameless copy of George's also. Now to weight the Gibbs like the original or not? I'm gonna weight it. Geez these darters are a pain, can I ho some more George? :)

Ready for a test. The originals weighed between 1.8 oz. and 2.1 oz. This one came in at 1.9oz.
Looks like Glen (GooGooMan) has come up with a nice narrow Darter!!