Pencil that walks without a belly hook(?)
 

Sometimes a walking pencil seems to get blues to strike when they won't chase standard topwater stuff --the problem is dealing with that belly treble when unhooking...I'd rather not.

Wondering if anyone has successfully got a walk-the-dog motion out of a topwater plug with only the rear hook and belly lead placement.

Thanks for any insight.

Eric

Anytime I use a pencil popper I use it more in a walk the dog way. As slow as I can before it sits back. Even pencils with just tail weight. The slower you go you will noticed that they will start to blow up on it rather then swipe at a pencil that is being retrieved too fast.

I assume a spook with a single siwash would be fine but the belly hook seems to keel it some.

Bluefish love fast, you want splash not zig zag. All the "pencils" I made for bluefish (and years ago I made/lost dozens) only had tail hooks. Think of the Gibbs Skipper and you've got what you want. Short, fat, tail weighted, one hook.

Here is one that survived, barely.

Thanks, guys.

You wanna ADD a sweet wiggle put a weight where the belly hook goes. keep it shallow so the plug will wiggle instead of bob. stripers love it. Ron

Belly treble has nothing to do with whether a pencil walks the dog or not as the weight of the hook is a non factor. Its the tail weight that dictates the action.........if you take the belly treble off any pencil and use it the action will be virtually unchanged.