Started Carving a topwater thing.

[Wolfram M]

It's raining pretty heavily this week, so I can't work on the truck, can't get into the garden, and don't really wanna slog through the rain to get out to the machine shop and build some jig molds, so I sat here in the house and carved a poplar dowel into this thing.



It's a full stainless hard wire harness all the way through, and I will seal it up and then it'll get jig-skinned, because I can't paint worth a damn.

What do you all think? It's got a little lead in the body, and should be a slow-sinker when I get it tuned in.

[jurelometer]

The front eye up high on that sloped face is unusual.  Might  be a challenge to keep from spinning and/or tumbling, especially with  some speed in the retrieve.

This fish, as always, get the vote that counts.

Are you trying for something specific here in terms of action, or is this more of see-what-happens build?


Please post the results.  Always curious about these things.

-J

[Wompus Cat]

Nice work .
Looks like a prototype for the Spruce Goose.

[Gfish]

Love to see progress and results, assume you split it for the wire and weight? Painting like the factory made stuff is a mystery to me—-especially the fade between color changes.

[Wolfram M]

This was just eyeball and guesswork. Learning how to make the harness and get it threaded through the holes, filling the slot back in, how to get lead placed, etc.

I am considering a small lip, if the action just sucks. It's supposed to work like a slow sinking Zara spook, but we will see. Spooks float hard, this one shouldn't.

[jurelometer]

For a slope front,cup faced popper, the standard design works something like this:

• Weight on the bottom somewhere back from the center point, usually just behind the middle hook if there is one
• When rigged, the just the nose of the popper is above the surface
• The angle of the face is cut so that it sits exactly vertical to the horizon when at rest.  maybe somewhere around 25% of the face underwater.
• The face will push the water -the pop-  coming from a stop,and once the popper is horizontal, the angled surface works like the bow of a Jon boat and will let the horizontallly oriented popper glide
• If the weight is heavy enough and far enough back, as the slide slows down, the momentum from the weight will cause the back to want to keep moving faster than the front, and the popper will fishtail like a car going around a corner on an icy road

The more extreme you go, the more the popper will pop and fishtail, but you will also be more restricted to start and stop/rod yanking style of fishing it.  Extreme action comes from extreme instability- no free lunch.  Generally for these type of poppers, you want the eye somewhere around the mid point or slightly lower.

What I think are the better tuna poppers have a 90 degree face or close to it, and the eye is much closer to the bottom of the face.  The weight is not too far back, and is on the heavy side, so that the popper barely floats.  Sucks for low speed stop and go popping, but you can speed wind it in choppy water and it is working most of the time.

Whey you get to spook type lures, they get rid of the cup face, and go to a pointy nose.  This gets rid of the pop, and now relies on the fishtailing to get most of the action.  The pointy nose allows it keep  a more steady speed, and combined with the fish tail, you get the zip-zagging that these lures are known for - cupped poppers track straighter with most of the swing happening toward the tail. These spook type lures can usually be worked over a greater range of speeds, but maybe not as much commotion as a standard popper, especially  if you are working it real slow.  Some of the new generation spook lures have amazing action on speed winds, making me wonder if theyare going to replace the old cup faces for more of the saltwater speed winding type surface applications.

This all took me a couple years to figure, out, so I thought it might be worth sharing. I usually 3D print my plugs, so each iteration is not so painful.  The guys that came before me did it with a stick and a pen knife, which is maybe why they seem to be a bit more tight lipped about plug design


And BTW, a rectangular block of wood with a hook out the back will catch fish.  The rest of the design is more about trying the lure to do more of the things that you want to happen, and less of the things that you don't want.


 IMHO,  except for maybe the choice of something highly reflective like chrome, paint job and realism is completely irrelevant in a surface lure.  The fish can only see the bottom. And it is obscured by all the wash.  The paint job is to make the humans more confident.

Hope this is useful,

-J

[Wolfram M]

It does. I plan to go try this out today, and I have a few other ideas.

What I was trying to go for, is the spooks darting action, but below the surface. I started out with the rounded cigar shape with a bend in it, but I managed to split out two big chunks so the front got that sloped face and the "spine" of the lure is flat instead of humped up and round like it was-it started out looking like you bent a 6" spook.

I'm going to try again tonight, I have a barrel of poplar dowels leftover from a high school project and it's gonna rain all week.

[jurelometer]

It does. I plan to go try this out today, and I have a few other ideas.

What I was trying to go for, is the spooks darting action, but below the surface. I started out with the rounded cigar shape with a bend in it, but I managed to split out two big chunks so the front got that sloped face and the "spine" of the lure is flat instead of humped up and round like it was-it started out looking like you bent a 6" spook.

I'm going to try again tonight, I have a barrel of poplar dowels leftover from a high school project and it's gonna rain all week.

If you just temporarily screw the two halves together, you can play with various weight amounts and locations until you get something you like.  You can always glue up and fill the holes after testing. 

The zig zig   action when fully submerged  is  probably going to be less pronounced, as the increased resistance will decrease the glide. I wonder if a skinnier spook might be the ticket?  No idea...

[Wolfram M]

Yeah, I know it'll be a lot less pronounced-If I get a consistent side-to-side action at all I'll be chuffed.

Heck even a little shimmy-roll would be enough movement to install a rattle or something.

As far as colors-the jigskins I have are the chrome on the bottom-black on top combo, since I wanna throw these to the toothy fish, I figure don't waste time trying to learn how to paint, just skin'em and when they get chewed up either reskin or make another.

I have also considered just painting them solid colors, I see a lot of solid yellow and solid white for topwater salt stuff.

[Wolfram M]

Skinned the first two lures. I'll finally get to do a real action test this weekend, I'll have three lures to test out.



Carved up something shaped like a Yo-zuri bonita, but it's not nearly as heavy or large-honestly probably not heavy enough to do anything right.

I did check in the backyard pond, it does sink and it does dive and move somewhat like a lipless crankbait should. can't really do much with it in such a short bit of water. I suspect it will have a tight shimmy and a 5-6ft dive when trolled, but we'll see.



It's weighted with crushed up old tungsten carbide tool bit inserts packed into the voids carved in the bottom third of the bait, then filled in and over with lead. I was able to get the weight up to 45 grams/1.58oz. The bait is 5.5" long and 1.3" top to bottom, and about 5/8" wide.



It's a through-wire construction like the others, with a 0.040" diameter 316L stainless steel internal harness, with all eyelets wrapped closed-not just folded over and stuck into the bait.

[Wompus Cat]

Vey Nice work .
Move over James Heddon

[jurelometer]

Jeez,

That Heddon whateveritis is quite the monstrosity.  More proof that a largemouth will eat just about anything

The bonito looks promising.   More weight toward the nose gives you more max trolling speed and a tighter wiggle, more weight toward the back - the inverse occurs.  I would say from the photos that yours is probably on the front weighted side.

 More steep head plane angle, the more it will dive, but the harder it will be to keep from spinning out.  You will need good symmetry and/or more weight as the angle increases.

Eye more toward the top,will encourage more diving, but less stability.  It you put the eye all the way down on the nose, you could possibly loose faster trolling speeds, but it could turn into a a nice casting lure.  Sort of like a Nomad MadScad.  I just made one like that, but  extra heavy.  A bit heavy for casting, but the sink and action was pretty nice.

Looking forward to the pond test report. 

-J

[Wolfram M]

Finally got some time to go out to the lake and test these out.

Lure #1, the bevel nose spook-the one in the very first post-works *exactly* as I had hoped. It has a tight roll and a "waggle" action, on a steady medium-speed retrieve or very slow knot troll. Worked as a jerkbait, it easily does the walk-the-dog action and with a firmer jerk, it will splash a bit of water and still flip-flop back and forth. High-speed retrieve or trolling too close to the boat it will flip and flop on the surface, just like reeling in a broomstick. It is a slow floater when you pause the retrieve, and for some silly reason, will sink down like a lipless crank about 6-8 inches on a steady retrieve.

Lure #2, The flat-sided torpedo, works like a jerkbait and due to the way the jigskin heat shrink gathered up at the front, has a very tight side to side wobble at a fast retrieve. Almost no body roll that I could see but it wobbles pretty good for not having a lip on it. It is also a slow floater, and will almost suspend in freshwater. The wobble is consistent from a medium to a fast retrieve or slow troll. It runs just enough under the surface to not break the surface on retrieve, but has no diving action.

Lure #3, the Yo-Zuri bonita shaped lure, is unconditionally stable. I could get zero wiggle or roll action out of it at all-but it will dive to 4-6ft at a fast retrieve or a slow troll. Best I can tell has no wobble/wiggle/roll, but I could get it to sway back and forth slowly, about 18" side to side over 6ft of pull.  I did not trust the lake enough to pull it at a 5-8MPH troll with enough line out to get it diving, I'd for sure have hit a sunken log and lost it or pulled a dead body up!

[Wompus Cat]

So Wheres THE BEEF err FISH .

[Wolfram M]

There aren't fish big enough to even try to hit these lures in that lake these days...except maybe a catfish or two.

I don't get to the big water for 15 more days. Just Fifteen more days.

I think I'm fully armed for fun-built two new rods, taught my students how to machine some brass spoons, carved three new lures, double checked my hooks will be legal and tied 10 double-drop pompano rigs for the beach.