First Pikies
 

just tied the tails last night.

The yellow/red is red cedar. 8 1/4" and 3.3 oz.
The white/purple is mahogany 7 1/2" and 3.1 oz

There is a slug of lead below the back end of the lip in the purple and a slug about midway bewtween the front and first belly hole in the red.

getting them wet this weekend. I hope the action draws some strikes.

they look awesome, nice work... :claps:

Go Bears!
Let us know how they swim. My guess is you went for two different actions with your choice of wood and weight locations.

great first ..

:claps: :cheers:

pikies
 

Dont leave those pikies laying on that U C Berkley stuff as it will cause them to always swim to the left! :yawn: :laugha:

Fished them this weekend.

The yellow red sits higher in the water than the white one. Both require a medium fast retrieve to get nice action, but they both have a snake like action once they are moving. The white one tracks best about a foot deep, but does leave a decent wake while on top and its tail is higher than the head.

The yellow one sits more evenly but overall a bit higher. While it does take a bit to get it moving, a good tug from a still position gets it to act like a darter and it darts a couple of feet (its does like to start left plugnchug) one way then the other (with a second tug) then it wiggles real nice like a snake. Neither one seems to have much discernable roll.

when there are some big waves coming right toward me, both of them kind of tumble about unless I'm really cranking . They do better in moving water across or against the current, or in small waves.

Overall I'm reasonably satisfied with the outcome, and have a pretty good idea of how and where I will fish these particular plugs, but I'm wondering what I can do to get a better action on them in bigger water. I do have a couple of bodies that I turned up that have a shorter face. Do you think that will do it. Should I change the weight location? Any comments/input is appreciated. Thanks.

Did you try bending the lips up and down a little to see what they would do with different lip angles ?

Not just to the left.....But waaaaay left! :tooth:

To get more surface action try bending the wire loop down as a first alternative.
You may also be blaming the lure for you misunderstanding on how to work a pikie. All pikies are not equal and variences in a fishermans actions are paramount in understanding a pikie and how to fish it. Your idea of running it faster underwater shows this.
Instead of depending on the lure to make movement think of it sort of as pencil popper and what you do to make it more productive. Think about it. do you just reel a pencil or do you do something with by varying your reels speed and rod action.
Try this method for a stat. First off try and keep it on the surface, slow your reeling down. As the plugs shoulders make a suface wake try a very light popping motion of your rod tip. No don't do a pencil popper spaz. Just a slight tip motion. This will get your tail moving and when you find the rythmn of your rod tip (ok knock of the sexual thinking you knuckleheads) that allows the pikie to stay on top and get the tail moving stay with it.
Hope this helps you understand about making a pikie look like a struggling baitfish.

Lead in the chin for a pikie. You want the water line to be just on top of the curved out face. Action should be more of a wide wobble, tail in the air slapping the surface, large V-wake coming off it. The action you describe sounds more like a danny. Not that there is anything wrong with that action, dannys get eaten all the time, just a different action than a pikie.

Jigman