The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

[ferret]

Test swim my plugs for the first time today, so I got a few questions for you gurus.

Made 2 different types of bottle necks swimmers, Gibbs style and Mr. Porgie style, the Mr. Porgie style swimmer had pretty good action, the Gibbs copies were horrible. Mr. Porgie if your out there can you educate me on the dynamics on a bottle neck swimmer's face, bigger vs smaller, longer lip, steeper angle on the sides, more exention on the top lip? Wondering how I should fix them?

Some of my darters dont dart when I yank hard, have had this issue with Gibbs before. I thought that raising the thru-wire loop higher helped eliminate this problem, but now I'm not so sure. I also might have made too much surface area on the top side of the darter causing erratic motion, is this possible.

I was getting a little roll with on some of the lighter metal lipped swimmers, granted the winds was blows pretty good today, but how much roll is too much, and how do I avoid this in the future other than the obvious belly weights?

The worst result was cracked wood! I must have hammered some belly weights and/or belly grommets in to tight cuz the wood cracked on a couple of plugs in this area. Are they casualties or can I just cover that area up with a new coat of Envirotex Lite and hope for the best?

[Slipknot]

Some roll on the small swimmers should be fine, if it is too much, try a smaller size lip or bend it more, play around a bit with it.

Just epoxy the cracks and live with it, live and learn.
Maybe water swelled the plug by entering the belly hook holes. It is a learning experience that's for sure. Oh, and I am no guru, just another nutcase.

[BassAssasin]

Ferret, darters are supposed to have an erratic motion, that's why they're called darters As far as the roll on the swimmers, are you making with long narrow bodies? It has been my experience that if the front of the plug is thick/wide relative to the tail there is less roll. Roll is not all bad, pikies have a roll to them but it is combined with a wobble, this seems to be appealing (to the fish). Maiking adjustments to the lip may help correct some of the excessive roll but this is how you learn. I had the roll lesson about a year ago If you don't see it for yourself and you are just told about it, the lesson just isn't the same As far as wood splitting, what kind of wood? Hardwood dowels (can't remember the type of wood typically used) split if they aren't sealed. White pine swells and cause your paint to crack if not sealed, basswood will also split. Cedars (eastern white, western red, alaskan yellow) are all good choices for (depending on the plug). Sounds to me like your day was very educational. Oh yeah, write everything down as it happens that way you don't repeat mistakes Mrpogie is definately the guy to ask about bottles
One more thing I forgot, the way you weight a plug and the density of the wood you use can also contribute to roll. Hope this helps.

[fishing bum wannabe]

Adjusting the lip may only be part of the issue. I spent the winter testing bottle swimmers and discovered two things that are necessary for bottle swimmers to swim right.

1. Don't make the lip so thin that it gets narrow. Shorter, wider lips work best. Keep the top surface of the lip flat. Getting any curvature narrows the lip. Adjust the leading edge so that it is at 45 degrees. This has a effect on the effectiveness of the lip. I found that the Gibbs lip design works well. That is not where the Gibbs has issues.

2. Weight is just as critical as shape. Shape is critical, but if the weight is wrong, ihe plug still won't swim. Plugs that swam fantastically with no weight, had no wiggle at all if they were overweighted in the tail. One of the biggest issues I have with Gibbs bottle swimmers is the nose slides across the top instead of digging in and swimming. All the weight is in the tail. MrPogie has success with a chin weight to get the plug digging in. I tried that and didn't have the same results. Obviously MrPogie and I are doing something different because he definately has his swimmers down. I think I put too much weight in the chin. Instead I now put a weight in the belly, just ahead of the belley hook. That helped roll the plug to vertical and causes the lip dig and swim. Weight in the ends dampens the action. I put half the weight in the belly and half in the tail. This compromise results in a plug that both casts and swims well. To sumarize, don't overweight the plug! Keep the weight towards the center (pivot point) of the plug.

I hope this helps. Bottle swimmers were the biggest challege to get to swim correctly.

[mrpogie]

Assinipi has got most of the questions under contol, I saw one of his bottles at the show this weekend and it was excellent. A couple of things I can add are I keep the top of the plug pretty short in respect to the curve of the face. In other words I don't dig out the middle of the plug very much. I don't know what deeper shapes in the middle will do because I've never tried that. You can see a diagram of the shape I like in the thread on bottle shaping. Keeping the sides even is also important, one longer than the other will cause it to swim to one side. Another thing that makes a big difference is the front loop. I use a jig to form my through wires and they are perfectly round and all come out the same. I still have to adjust a good portion of the plugs when I swim them for the first time. If the loop is off to one side or the other the plugs just wants to drag to one side and have no action at all. It is something that is easy to overlook. When you test swim a plug and the action isn't there a lot of other things come to mind before you think about adjusting the front loop. Too much weight or wrong shape etc. I've had a few that didn't do anything when I first put them in the water and a simple loop adjustment had them swimming nicely. As far as the weight goes a little weight helps quite a bit when placed in front of the belly hook. Whether it's under the chin or more towards the belly, it helps make the front of the plug dig and get started especially if you are in some type of current. Fred is right about too much weight dampening the action though. That takes a little trial and error to get down, a lot depends on the density of the wood you're using.

[ferret]

Thanks for the help guys. Hopefully I'll be able to get some problems figured out.

[NIB]

nice thread...I met Mr. Pogie an his brother at the show sat. First class guys. I have a few Gibbs Bottles that don't swim I gotta check the eyelet I never thougth of that. I love bottles stiff wind in Ur face, surgin tide, current.Man I can taste the salt.

[ferret]

These are the plugs in question. The bottom darter didnt always dig in, the white and parrot bottleneck had trouble swimming.

[fishing bum wannabe]

i think the issue you are having with the white and the parrot bottle swimmers is that the faces are shaped too radically. try taking off the top of the face above the loop; it shouldn't curve back forward. I believe that the face should be straight up above the loop like the Pogie colored swimmer you made. You can still modify and repaint the front lip to make them swim right. I did that with some of my earlier attempts. Attached is a shot of my latest. These are 5 out of a batch of 14. They are 6.25" long and weigh 2 oz. They have a small belly weight and a small tail weight (combined 1/2 oz). They swim and cast great (I would say "the balls" but then BM would try to Ho a plug or two for using "his" expression)! So far everyone I have swum has worked great with a minimum of adjustment to the loop. I also angle the leading edge of the lip to 45 degrees. That also seems to help it dig in and swim.

Also, try turning the loop 90 degrees so that it is oriented side to side rather then up and down. Most wooden swimming plugs have the eye oriented this way. The up and down angle of the eye can be very critical to how your plug swims. I adjust the loop right and left to get the plug to track straight, and up and down to get it to dig and swim correctly.

If you got two out of four to swim right on your first attempt you are doing great. Nice paint job!