Rockfish9 Sand Eel Swimmer...Look Right?

[Eric Roach]

I apologize if I should have posted this in the "How Too..." sub-forum, but I'm not sure how often that is visited.

This is my first Rockfish9 Sand Eel Swimmer, and it's the first metal-lip I've ever made. I really like the slim design.

Can RF9 or anyone else with experience tell me if this looks like it's sitting like it should? It's a little hard to see the waterline, but it is sitting almost perfectly level, right along it's center line. It's in seawater.

I haven't swum it yet -- I finished it about an hour ago.

Thanks for the feedback.

Eric

[blondterror]

I have made this design and mine sit in the water just like yours does and they swim great... nice work

BT

[Eric Roach]

Thanks, Chris.

I got a chance to swim it in the local estuary early this morning and I'd love some feedback on what I found:

• The nose dipped considerably on the retrieve (even when bending down the eye), raising the rear of the lure to wiggle on the surface, which I would guess is part of this metal-lip's designed action(?)
• Retrieving it quickly sent it sub-surface, but on a crawl it wouldn't wobble. The retrieval rate in which it worked well on the surface had a narrow margin for error -- a concern because I really couldn't feel the wobble through the rod when it was swimming well...I imagine I'd have a hard time knowing if it was swimming correctly at night. Should this lure swim at a crawl?

Here are some other points about the model I built:

• The rigged weight is 1.725 oz.
• I used a 4.2 gram belly weight (the recipe calls for 4)...seems negligible to me.
• I used Spro swivels approximately 7/8" long...I wonder if these are too heavy for the lure and might be affecting the ease in which it starts to wobble(?)
• I re-calipered the dimensions, they are real close. [Nose is .6999" (.688" called for), hip is 1.069" (1.063" called for), tail is .492" (.500" called for).]

[numbskull]

If you want a swimmer to work at a crawl, use a low slot lip and weight it to sit deeper in the water. It will roll a lot so paint it solid and loose the eyes. It will not be stable at speed, but it will fish better than anything else you can build. It will run slightly subsurface even with the eye bent down. Don't sweat it, just fish it and hang on.

The plug you are showing is light for its size and uses a high slot lip (usually used for a plug meant to run subsurface). That will pull the nose down and send the tail up. It will take significant retrieve speed to overcome the buoyancy and get this to happen and the plug to start working. The same plug will work as a surface plug set up with a low slot lip and swim at a slower speed. Sinking it deeper in the surface film will slow its action down which is good by night.

Search for a thread labeled "something constructive" from a few years back where this is discussed some.

[Eric Roach]

Thank you so much, George. I read the thread you referenced - very helpful for metal lip design. One question from the below quote:

Originally Posted by numbskull

If you want a swimmer to work at a crawl, use a low slot lip and weight it to sit deeper in the water...

In your opinion -- for this particular design -- do you think it's better to use additional lead or a denser wood to have it sit deeper in the surface film?

[pbadad]

Eric what style lip? I actually did the similar plug. Still testing but mix results. As George mentioned, a lower lip slot will help. I did my first proto by hand w/o a model. Used 2 hooks. Swam it w/a lefty 1 mid slot. Top water crawl -no wiggle. Picked up speed, dove with action but needs current. Not a bad thing if your river fishing. Next version 1 hook 3" back. Plug is 7" long. Added a medium salty surfster round lip. Swam w/action on top and gave nice movement lowering rod tip and pickup the speed. It is AYC. I will try pine or cedar for a strictly top water. One conclusion, casts like a wet paper plate.

[Eric Roach]

Thanks for this feedback -- very helpful.

Originally Posted by pbadad

...Eric what style lip? I used the recommended high-slot Lefty1 lip, but have bent the eye down to at least where the mid-slot would be to keep it on the surface.

...Top water crawl -no wiggle. Picked up speed, dove with action but needs current. Not a bad thing if your river fishing. Exact same experience (with severely bent eye on the high-slot).

...Next version 1 hook 3" back. Plug is 7" long. Added a medium salty surfster round lip. Swam w/action on top and gave nice movement lowering rod tip and pickup the speed. It is AYC. I will try pine or cedar for a strictly top water. Would this version swim at a crawl?

...One conclusion, casts like a wet paper plate. Yes, unfortunately. I'm primarily thinking of using this deep in the estuary of a herring run -- maximum width of the river here is about 60'.

[Rockfish9]

WRc makes a big differance in the swimming of this plug.. I've tried other wood and it dulls the action of the lure.... mine will stay on top at a crawl...moving the weight foreward a little also enhances slow retrieve action.. a pikie lip will give the plug a wider swaying motion, but i prefer the tight action of the lefty style lip...that plug is resonsible for some of my largest plug caught fish each season.. get it right and you wont be dissapointed.

[Eric Roach]

Thanks for the response.

I used a very light piece of Spanish cedar for my first one, I'll have to grab some WRC and make another. I'll also try to move the belly weight forward a little.

Thanks for the response and for letting me know the design will swim on top at a crawl -- that's waht I was hoping for with this cool, thin swimmer.

[numbskull]

I've not built Joe's design and I would defer to his expertise on getting it to swim. His approach is different than mine and uses a high slot lip to counteract the buoyancy of the light plug (an approach CCBC first used with surfsters and guys like Bassmaster and RM Smith use on their "dannys"). Obviously it can work well.

The other extreme is a similar shaped plug I call a skinny donny. It is about 7.5" long, 1.2" wide, and uses a low slot midsized donny lip that is mounted a bit above midline. It carries as much as 15-17grams of weight a bit behind midpoint. It weighs around 2.75-3oz and casts very well. Floats level with tail just under and water line above midline at head. It is made of AYC. It can't carry anything more than cut 3/0 hooks. I have to bend the line tie way down to keep it near the top, even with a low slot lip. It rolls something awful…..it will do a 360 degree barrel roll with a twitch of the rod tip. Nobody would intentionally choose to build such a poor swimmer. It has taken more large fish than anything else I build, including 3 fish over 40 lbs.

The plug only works at a crawl, so slow it is actually hard to fish on spinning tackle. I suspect the reason it works is a combination of its length and weight that slows its action because of lateral water pressure. In spite of this increased lateral resistance, the plug starts swimming at very slow speed because it does not require any forward motion to overcome buoyancy and get the lip down and moving.

Lighter plugs tend to skate a bit along the surface until they get enough bite to overcome the buoyancy of the head and start working. This is why light swimmers with high slot lips often use fat bellies to keep them on top and lever the tail up as you start retrieving them (getting the tail up drops lateral water resistance and lets them swim sooner but with a faster wag).

As for your question on weighting swimmers, it depends on how fast an action you want. The weight acts like a pivot point. For any given buoyancy, the more central the mass the more the plug will wag, the more the mass is distributed end to end the slower the action (this usually means a tail weight and more forward belly weight and front hook). Obviously you can also slow action by sinking the plug more or lengthening it to increase lateral resistance. I don't get all scientific about what wood I use. Mostly I use pine, less often AYC or Basswood. I just adjust the weight scheme and hook placement to get what I want.

Truth is, however, that the fish see these plugs differently than we do and often an action that seems undesirable to you will fish better than you expect. In addition, the action of these plugs changes over the distance of the retrieve (because of the angle to the rod tip). Finally, day vs night, current vs still, and rough vs calm all matter. So best not to over think it, too much.

[Eric Roach]

George: Thank you for the detailed explanation -- very helpful.
Joe: Thanks for the specs' on that version -- I'll give it a try.