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He has some variations on the pencil poppers, Dave. He's working on a bigger one along the lines of the old Gibbs 5-1/4 oz. He also has something called the Stone Kold, which is a thinner profile pencil, sort of a cross between a pencil and a needlefish, and a smaller flat bottom special he calls the Whining Bill. Occasionally, he'll make some needlefish, which he makes along the lines of the Gibbs Stubby, but longer (thin neck and thicker, round body). Sometimes, he also has some metal-lips made by Plugmakers' Supply to sell. They're made from hardwood and have the groove behind the head to attache an eel skin. He's fooled around with some of his own swimmers, but it's too labor intensive to make it worthwhile. Cutting the head on a Gibbs swimmer is tough and takes a long time to get right. He also doesn't have a duplicator, and with swimmers, you have to get better uniformity in the body than you can achieve by eyeballing it on a lathe, to get it to swim right.
What really works for the Canal, better than anything, is a graphite or composite rod that bends slowly thru the midsection---like my Fisher. Thanks again, JeffH :-) Once something huge gets downcurrent and turns sideways in a rip, fast rods load all the way and lock on you. Guys who are used to glass rods tend to "high-stick" it, because the slower bend keeps the power section of the blank in play. With a fast graphite, when you high-stick it, you're fighting the fish all with the top 2 feet of the tip. But sometimes, you have to lift that sucker off the bottom and that requires high sticking it. Also, the 126 1MH Arra has more of a progressive bend than the 11' one, more of a uniform blank thickness thru the entire rod. I'm not a big fan of the 10' Sabres, either. The 3M S-glass is one of the best fish-fighting tools I've ever wielded, but at full length, it's hard to use in some tight spots, and puts a lot of stress on these 47 year old joints :-( I wish they still made the 2F blank in S-glass. You can cut it a lot of different ways and still not wind up with a total pool cue.
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