# First carved plugs



## plugman (Jul 15, 2008)

Much to my wife's dismay...., I brought along a bunch of my tying and plug making stuff on our annual trip to the Adirondacks. I've been turning plugs for some time now for my saltwater fishing, but you guys have gotten me side tracked.  We have a small cabin on a pond near the Saranac Lakes that has small mouth bass, large mouth bass and northern pike. I wanted to try to make some gliders and carved swim baits with plastic lips and experiment with the foil finishing techniques I've seen on this site. 

The gliders I did looked pretty but didn't glide very well. I will need to work on getting their balance and profile better. It appears that they work better with the weights at the front and rear of the plug vs all centered around the plug's balance point. I converted one to a deep diving swim bait with a small metal lip I had brought along, so all is not lost.... I will end up with some deep swimming plugs for my kayak when the striped bass make their fall migration run by Salem, MA. where I live.

I had better success with the swimmers with plastic lips, although it took me the better part of ten days to get them doing what they were supposed to do (mostly). I was looking for a nice tight wiggle, maybe a bit of erratic movement but no rolling out as plug retrieve speed increased or the rod got swept. I had been targeting a running depth of about 4 feet, so that I could bring them over the top of some weed beds that I knew held some nice bass and pike. Maybe work the edges a bit. As it turned out, by the time I got them balanced and a lip that worked, they ended up running at about 8 feet deep and I ended up doing quite a bit of trolling with them instead. My guess is that to get a plug to run shallower, the lip needs to be more vertical and to not extend as far. Maybe shorter and rounder. At least that's what I'm going to try next.

Making these kind of plugs is much more difficult than turning a round plug like a Danny or an Atom 40 and putting a metal lip on the front. At least I have a starting point and I think there are a couple plugs that will actually catch fish! There's a yellow/olive metal lipped jointed swimmer in the picture that I had made before coming up that was very productive. I got lifetime small mouth and large mouth bass on it and one "Oh my God, is that guy Huge!" follow by a pike right up to the side of my kayak before he turned away.

I'll try to post a detail shots of the swimmers I did and a few of the saltwater plugs I do for stripers and blues.


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## plugman (Jul 15, 2008)

Detail shot of the two Jake style swimmers. On going weighting issues....


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## plugman (Jul 15, 2008)

The two deep swimmers I was able to get working. I'd be interested in getting input on how to cinfigure them to swimm at about 4 to 6 feet deep as a casting lure.


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## plugman (Jul 15, 2008)

This spook and danny are typical of what I turn for my saltwater fishing here in New England. The fall striper run is gearing up, so the lathe has been busy.


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## jerkin (Apr 3, 2008)

Plugman, nice work, I like them all. As far as the deep swimmers go I wouldn't give the lips any more angle, just make them smaller. I think those are about as close to vertical as I would go. The next time you make blanks weight one and seal it then go out to the pond with a few different lips to try. If you cut the lip slot nice and tight they will stay in there.


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## plugman (Jul 15, 2008)

Jerkins, Thanks for the comments. I've got two more bodies in the works and I'll try out a few smaller profiles. I'll also take a front view of the plugs for you.

With my saltwater plugs I'll turn the line tie down a bit to get the plug to ride higher. Would putting the line tie just under the nose of the plug do the same thing?


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## pizza (Apr 4, 2008)

those look great! The other thing to do to get them to swim shallower (especially when cast/retrieving as opposed to trolling) is to use less ballast weight. You will, however, find that balancing (getting the lure to swim in an upright position basically) will become trickier the less ballast weight you use. (Balancing can be even trickier when using wood that is more buoyant _and_ less ballast). 

Not sure what wood you used but to get a shallower running plug try some wood that is less dense/more buoyant than what you used in those. I've had good luck with basswood.

And to get ones that you already made to swim a little shallower you can cut down the lip on the bottom. Larger wire cutters (the larger ones that cut "perpendicular" work great for this, not sure what they are called crastsman makes them, probably about $15-$18 or so). I also cut/file the lips (on the sides/corners)sometimes to fine tune lures (get them to swim straight).


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## plugman (Jul 15, 2008)

Pizza, I was using mahogany. Some scrap wood I got from a millowrk shop down the street. I can get cherry and maple as well. For my topwater saltwater plugs, I use cedar, subsurface stuff, usually maple.

Balancing these guys was a challenge. I used a lot more lead that I thought I would. Ended up doing sort of a "keel" by running a series of small weights down the length of the belly with a bit more under the nose, especially on the Jake style ones and the big swimmer.

I like your suggestion of filing the lip a bit at a time. I carry a file to sharpen my hooks, so I'll put it to another use. Hopefully, I'll have at least one of the other bodies ready to go this weekend, so I'll have something to compare.

Any suggestions on the gliders to get them to work better?


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## pizza (Apr 4, 2008)

Haven't made any gliders, so can't comment. I would give basswood a shot, it is less dense than mahogany (which I also like)and I have had good luck with it. It will have your lures swimming (a tad)more shallow too. Try out the other suggestions and things you mentioned too (angle/size of lip, etc).

You will probably need to use a coarser file than the type for sharpening hooks to effectively remove material from Lexan - it's pretty tough. Good luck and great looking baits.


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## vc1111 (Apr 13, 2004)

Nice work, Plugman.

For the deep swimmers...to get them to run at the 4 to 6 foot mark, try making them from good old poplar and adding no weight at all. Usually the weight of the hook hangers and the hooks will cause the bait to run in the "upright" position without a need for weighting.


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## plugman (Jul 15, 2008)

Sounds like a trip to Home Depot at lunch is in order. 

Here are s few front views of the swimmers. Picture order: small swimmer (slab side about 4 1/2" long), big swimmer (6 1/2" long) and jake (about 7" long). I now see that screw eyes aren't quite square nor are lips. Some tweaking is in order.


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