Bottle Swimmers

[chefchris401]

Here a few pics of my bottle swimmers. They are 8.5" long and weigh 3.5oz when fully rigged. With a steady retreive they swim down about 6 feet and with a sweeping and pause retreive they get down about 8 feet.

The black/crackle orange has been in my plug bag all season. Definetly a winning color combo, for me anyway.

[numbskull]

Nicely done. You might try making one with less of a brow and see what it will do for you. With bottles, a big brow sometimes counteracts the forces on the lip and leads to a more subdued action or less diving force. Of course you have fished them and there is no better test than that.....my suggestion is only meant in case you want to experiment further. I also like black and orange....I think it is a good lobster color.

[chefchris401]

Thanks. Its funny you say that cause I broke off one of the brows on my plug and it still swims great.

im going to play around with it alot more this winter, this is my first year doing this, so still lots to learn and tweak.

[blondterror]

chris
what is your method to shape the bottle plug head? Rotary rasp in drill press?

[piemma]

I see you use screw eyes. Just curious as to why you choose not to through wire.

[chefchris401]

i used screw eyes do to nature of the pvc. There super strong 1.5" .092 stainless steel.

Ive had thru wire tail wraps break on professional plugs before.

Theres a great thread about screw eyes vs thru wire. ill try and find it. and it basically states that the reason alot of builders dont use them anymore is because the plugs wont sell, not because they dont work.

All the old vintage plugs used screw eyes and the amount of bigger fish caught was probably alot higher than it is today. and look at all the muskie and peacook bass plugs out there, 99% of them are screw eye or hook hanger construction, and both those fish are crazy strong. look at the old gibbs, creek chubs, lupos, etc.

The screw eyes i use on my plugs have caught fish up to 51.2lbs with no signs of them pulling out.

[piemma]

I wasn't criticizing at all. I was just curious as to the reason.