Finished Plugs

[Sudsy]

Originally Posted by Rickski

I think Heddon stopped making them in the 1930's. I made one last year and weighted it like a pencil. Best I could tell, you can fish it like a pencil or a popper. These I tried to weight so they would work more like a popper.

It's supposed to swim like a metal lip.
What's great about the design is that it can be swum, popped, paused, swum some more.....................

[Rickski]

I found an original add. $10.20 per dozen....

With the shape of the tail, it doesn't look like it was originally tail weighted. Don't know, but they might have relied on wood type, and placement of the hooks to provide weight. 2 belly hooks on a 4 1/2 inch plug??? I wonder how many times they got hung up on each other? Having lots of wood up front, with a sharply tapered tail and hooks back there might be the trick. I think the lathe is getting fired up this weekend.

[JakeF]

"Wonderful Fish Getters"

[Sudsy]

Originally Posted by Rickski

I think the lathe is getting fired up this weekend.

You got me thinking about it again too. Let's play around and see what we can figure out. You spin some, I'll do the same, maybe we can figure out what works and what doesn't.
I'd like to find a way to make them so they act consistently the same right out of the shop without tons of tinkering on each individual one.

I'll go dig around and see if I can find any of the ones I did way back. (they ain't pretty, they were from my pre-airbrush, urethane topcoat days and that's been a decent clip of time).

To start I'll run a few from AYC, 6" long, single belly treble, tied Siwash tail

[Jimmy Z]

Awesome work, Rick.

[Rickski]

Originally Posted by Sudsy

You got me thinking about it again too. Let's play around and see what we can figure out. You spin some, I'll do the same, maybe we can figure out what works and what doesn't.
I'd like to find a way to make them so they act consistently the same right out of the shop without tons of tinkering on each individual one.

I'll go dig around and see if I can find any of the ones I did way back. (they ain't pretty, they were from my pre-airbrush, urethane topcoat days and that's been a decent clip of time).

To start I'll run a few from AYC, 6" long, single belly treble, tied Siwash tail

I'm In. Who else is in? Let's revive this old plug. Sounds like Gunny has his figured out. Roc, pull your design out. I'll try a couple that duplicate the picture in the add. I'll do a couple at 4 1/2 inches and a couple more at about 6 to 7 inches. I have a variety of woods to play with and the goal will be to come up with a consistent design that doesn't need allot of tinkering. I think the only problem we are going to have is finding water that's not frozen so we can test them. Tomorrow, I'm working the lathe. We are expecting snow anyway. Here's a few more pics of the originals.

[GunnySniper]

Here's mine
Mahogany, final weight around 4 ounces.
1/2 ounce in the tail, 1/6th in the belly.
4/0 treble belly hook, 6/0 single tail.
This version get a heavily tied tail with 4 to 6 XXXL hackles to imitate squid tentacles

[Sudsy]

Gunny, you'll get a kick out of this.

I've been doing the bell pencil for about 4 years. It was first designed back in the winter of 2004. Gary2 (Hull) and I spent an afternoon brainstorming it. We never did quite agree.

The top plug in the picture was what he came up with that afternoon. It's the only one of that design we ever made. I turned it, he machined, painted, weighted and finished it. It never went any farther than this one plug. What's particularly interesting about it is that it's one of the first plugs to use his hanger system. To the best of my memory this is the first time there's ever been a picture taken of it.

Looks like you came up with that pattern independently but you ran with it

The other plug we made that day was my take on the bell idea, the second plug in the picture. It's the design I stayed with and which evolved over the past few years to be the bottom plug, which is the pattern I make now, the Bell Pencil.

The squid pattern was the midway point in the plugs evolution.

[JakeF]

Very interesting Suds.

They're obviously not Jewish.

[GunnySniper]

Just goes to show, evil minds.................................
I first came up with mine in 94/95. I sold over 500 through a couple of SoCo tackle shops.
Then my entire shop was stolen in 96.
2 lathes, 2 cabinet saws, Shopsmith Mark 5 complete, 3 bandsaws, shapers, joiners, planers, widebelt sanders, 127 custom rods complete with Penn reels, from greenie 710's to Internationals, 400 duck/goose decoys, many of them custom cork bodies.
I'd go on but I'm starting to tear up.

[Mark P]

Ouch Gunny That is life time of equipment and Tackle that an Insurance companiy re-imbursement can never make up for. It would kill me to lose that much equipment. There is nothing worse in the world than a thief.

[GunnySniper]

Did I fail to mention that I had transferred the insurance onto the new shop in Rhode Island from the old shop in Connecticut, therefore not covered by the theft.
I knew/know who was responsible, did the right thing, called the cops. No proof could be found at any of the locations searched, owned by the 3 guy's that were well known to the local law enforcers.
Funny though, all I did was make a few off handed comments to some folks familiar with them, and all of a sudden they move away.
Seems they didn't know about my background as a Special Ops Sniper.
To this day I would love to happen upon them at the end of Quonney on a new moon high change.

[Sudsy]

Dude! That is the number one suckiest "Got my stuff ripped off" thing I've ever heard

I hope you get to find these guys someday and when it happens you have something hard and heavy with you. I hear that shattered, crushed elbow joints are incredibly painful and never heal correctly.

[Mark P]

My heart just dropped that is the worst. Thieves are the lowest form of humanity. That is awful. Hammurabi's code for those Bastards. Karma has a way of getting to people that get you. I just want to once be Karma.

[Ed White]

Originally Posted by GunnySniper

Funny though, all I did was make a few off handed comments to some folks familiar with them, and all of a sudden they move away.
Seems they didn't know about my background as a Special Ops Sniper.
To this day I would love to happen upon them at the end of Quonney on a new moon high change.

2 Things:
1. Life is long

2. Karma is a bitch.