Atom poppers

[basswipe]

Is it me or have these plugs become complete junk over the years?

I have an old beat up one and I mean BEAT UP I bought back in the mid 80s that casts and pops like a dream.I've
only had to replace the hooks on it.

I just bought two new ones this week.They cast ok and thats about it.They kinda look the same but they definitely don't feel the same and they sure as hell don't work the same.

What a waist of money.

[capesams]

after the co. was sold the foam popper's mouths have become flat...there's no more cup in the front. word got around fast that the new ones were junk.

[Clammer]

Sammy == I went to see a property I,ll be listing the first of the year//

5 plugs camr back with me /
aaa 1 large wooden popper -3 sets of trebles
2 swimmers ]wood] ?
@ atom 40<S Amber & white ???////////

[Saltheart]

Fortunately I still have plenty of the old. Always had crappy hooks though. Sometimes brittle , easily rust. However , the popper body was great. I bet I caught 3000 fish on atom poppers. I remember one year , we got about 100 per day on them in late October/early Novembre.

[macojoe]

Thats about the only popper I use. I have all old ones and still working. I have not tryed the newer stuff?? Never even new they were different.

[Clammer]

Saw some unreal [brand new ]]plugs tonight

[capesams]

amber an white I don't have one yet

[mikecc]

Before being sold Atom was made from some type of compressed stryofome. Just ask anybody that has left one on their dash board of the truck with the windows rolled up.
The new company who formally owned Propper Poppers bought them out. and they are now made out of hard plastic.these lures are total junk they don't come nere floating,1 out of 6 does not even have a cup in the mouth to pop, color fades out from the sun after a few uses.

[Flaptail]

Be carefull what you say. I agree that they are not what they used to be and a few years ago in my columm I said so and man did the new owners jump all over my case. Hard plastic now instead of compressed styrofoam. The spit'n and the popping Atom had a cupped mouth and a flat. They don't make the Cupped version anymore. Smoker Baits who made medium quality offshore lures bought Atom and now just goes by that name as far as I can tell. And yes Mike I had a few that "puffed" up if you let them sit on your dashboard in 90 degree heat all day. Pretty cool looking. The Atom 40 series and beyond of the large lipped swimmer, once they were done being made of wood, were the only hard plastic swimmers in the Atom line. The older, pre-Smoker baits, Atom Juniors made great eelskin plugs and so did the Spin-atom. I still use them.

[Flaptail]

The cupped mouth version was the Striper Swiper.

[Clammer]

Cape sam =sorry two 1 amber 1 white

[tlapinski]

when i was first getting into surf fishing, i found an older atom popper on the beach. it was a single tail hook model. the body looked like an upside-down darter body without the belly hook. it was orange with a mackeral type pattern on the back. i have fond memories of slaying blues on this thing when i was about 7 years old. i lost the plug in a blitz at watch hill, and have not been able to find any since. if anyone has one they would be willing to part with, i would love to get ahold of one.

[zacs]

I still use my puffed up blue atom popper every now and then.
_Z_

[Flaptail]

Toby, I think CapeSams has a couple of those. Maybe you could interest him in a trade, you got some neat stuff.

[tlapinski]

Flap, i have as good of a chance getting a plug from CS as anyone else has from me.

[Flaptail]

Yeah, I know what you mean........

[CANAL RAT]

i like the gibbs popper it looks kinda like a atom striper swiper but 10x better than the new atoms throws water like crazy it semi floats beacause its made out of wood so its easer to work it. just change out the hooks with VMC's

heres what they look like http://www.gibbslures.com/view/21/

[capesams]

funny..I have some of the very old gibbs popper's that came from some old cape sharpies....eveyone one has the bottom lip cut off..I was told that they work much better without it.

[mikecc]

Toby I got a few of the older ones you can have but you will have to change the hooks. I'll put them aside for ya.

[basswipe]

Wow didn't know this would generate such a response.

I really do like my OLD Atoms.New ones leave a LOT to be desired.

[Mike P]

If I remember right, there were two versions of the Striper Swiper. One was the "Spittin'" version and the other was the "Talkin'" version. One had the round cupped face and the other had the slashed face like the Stan Gibbs Popper.

[stripermaineiac]

Hi Guys, Few people know more about the Atom Poppers than those of us from Stripers Unlimited who were Bob Ponds good friends and did a lot of his testing for him. yes the old plugs took a beating and fell apart at time but they were designed to catch Stripers not bluefish like the Smoker Baits that G. Metcalf the new owner of Atom had on the market. He took the Atom label and got rid of the old molds and plug designs and put his in their place. These plugs aren't even made in the US any more . They are made in Costa Rica or someplace like that . The quality is so poor that the paint jobs don't even line up with the bodies. The owner has taken it upon himself to disreguard any imput from his would-be customers and by doing so has opened himself and his product to any and all criticizm that comes his way. The old plugs are getting harder and harder to find to the point that I now rebuild the old ones with epoxy to make them work again. If and when you find them you have found a treasure worth enjoying as it is one of the best Striper catchers on the Striper Coast. Many of us refuse to use them and would never bother buying them as they are no good. I could go on as there is a lot of bad things done to the Atom name . Lets just say it aint Atom no more. Ron

[stripermaineiac]

Me again guys. If any of you don't want those old Atoms I'm always buying them as I fix what i can and use them all the time. Tight lines

[CANAL RAT]

time to take some measurements of the old atom poppers and start turning my own

[stripermaineiac]

Hey canal rat, The important thing with the Atoms is the boyancy. The way they slow sink and set in the water and then come up and pop is part of what makes them work so good. the shape of the cup also makes a great difference on them . you will have to find a wood that will give you the balance. stan Gibb tried a long time ago and gave up as the styrofoam that the plugs were injection molded with had a weird density to it making it work the way it did. Bob spent a lot of time tweakin his plugs and they had subtle changes in them from time to time. you should see some of the oddball stuff we tried and that he came up with. Ron

[bassmaster]

a smaller WY popper is killer, But ya got to make Ya own
Creek Chub popper= fish
I have a few old atoms in plastic wood and a foam popper with red nail polish on it. plus the smallest swimmer they made...
i tossed all the deformed ones out
If You went back 30 years inYour bag You would have
a goo goo eye a atom 40 the poppers and some rebels and redfins along with buck tails. and gibbs stuff. I still have a few bucktails in the plastic from cape cod charlies when they were across the street.
I remeber the boxes and the lures
and up the road at Bunny's he had them capt bill's
Oh yeah and some rapalas from leachmares

[CANAL RAT]

heres a web site that sells the good old goo-goo eyes swimmer

http://www.cuttyhunktackle.com/pageb.html#goo

[J-golden]

yes, the old poppers worked very well, especially in the spring on the southside; but BM's right about the creek chub poppers - they still produce. But - i've since switched to smack-it poppers -they absolutely do a job on them.