Tail weighted metal lips

[stripermaineiac]

I've found that it's a great way to control depth and casting. I've got just about every old type swimmer you can imagine in my old stuff. The swim an casting difference is all over the place. Soak, wood and hardware all add to the equation. Most of the older surface stuff has no tail weight. Tie off adjustment up an down make a huge flexability option that is nice on about all swimmers. I use a tail weight as it helps castability. The size makes a depth of swim change. Just my 2 cents

[Diggin Jiggin]

I do it, it takes a surprisingly small amount of tail weight to remove most of the tumble on the cast. Doesnt really seem to affect the action too much. Ive experimented with slimming down the back half a little to compensate for the additional weight but doesnt really seem to make too much of a difference.

[BigFish]

I find it kills the tail wag. Can't think of any production metal lip swimming plugs that have tail weight? My .02 cents. Never had the need and no issue with casting on any of mine to make it a worry?

[numbskull]

I tail weight plenty of them, particularly plugs like conrads, to maintain balance when using a flag rather than a tail hook.

The original wood A40 by Bob Pond did not use a tail weight. He did, however, make a trolling version that was heavily tail weighted.

Creek chub also made special versions of both large surfsters and medium pikies that had huge amounts of tail weight. I copied the weighted surfster but did not like the action and eventually converted it back to a regular surfster by pulling the two weights, inserting a dowel, and re drilling.
I've also test swum the original weighted pikie I own. Comes in DEEP and like a stick (not necessarily bad). I suspect it was meant for subtle action in fast deep water. It floats straight up and down, but during the retrieve the lip pulls the face of the plug down.

Bottle plugs are almost always tail weighted and swim fine. They get away with it because the back half of the body is thick and adds buoyancy.

The BM atom jr uses a small tail weight but this is primarily to balance the plug (which has a lot of forward heavy hardware).

I think (but am not sure) that the effect of a tail weight on a plug's action depends somewhat on where the plug swims. Surface swimmers definitely wag more if the tail is light and lifts as the lip pulls the head down (not that a big wag is always what fish want). Once the plug is underwater, however, my sense is that to a degree a small amount of tail weight adds momentum to the tail to overcome the water resistance and increase wag a bit.

Likewise, moving the belly weight back tends to slow the action of the plug down.

I think big bass like long, slow wagging swimmers although on days when they follow but refuse the plug I often will try a faster wagging plug like a shorter danny, surfster, or Gary2 swimmer (which is the best of the bunch in my experience.....thanks Paul) sometimes with good results (although you can use a spook to do the same thing).