I have a question about wooden trout plugs. Are they like surface iron, some swim well and some dont? I mostly use the soft trout baits
(like ospreys) and dont have much experience with the hard trout baits, but I've been trying the Slammer and the AC minnow and havent had too much success with it. But I only have one of each and dont know what they are supposed to swim like. Aside from my apparent lack of talent using the hard baits, is it possible that sometimes they make bad batches of plugs? The AC minnow I have looks so lopsided and asymmetrical, I cant imagine two of those things swimming alike. The Slammer looks well made, and cant see anything obviously wrong with it. I'm wondering if you guys have experience with plugs of the same brand and size swimming differently and if you have plugs that just "swim right" and catch fish even with the paint off. Whenever I get a bad Tady 45 for instance, I just throw it away, and when I get a good one, it'll catch fish even with all the paint gone. But, since the hard plugs cost so much more, I cant get myself to buy a bunch and find one that swims right. Do you guys adjust hard plugs often so it will swim right? Also, with the AC minnow, does it often look like it was made in a hurry or something, or did I just get a particulary ugly one? I know I'm asking a lot of questions here, but one more, is there a way to visually tell if a plug will likely swim right? I know a sportboat captain who looks for Tady 45s with a blunt top and asymmetrical sides. Is it possible to make visual checks like that on some plugs? Thanks for any help.

Swimbait, if you are reading this, congrats on your double huge bass day, I hope I get my day in the sun like that someday.

Fishhead

These are some very good questions! Is there such a thing as a bad plug, yes absolutely. Can you fix them if they are bad? Sometimes.

Number one with any wooden bait, if it does not track perfectly straight when you retrieve it fast, you should tune it. Use a pair of heavy needlenose or vice grips and carefully bend the eye of the plug. Mike Shaw wrote up a little spiel on how to do this here:

http://www.msslammer.com/caretuning.html

Some lures even when tuned just aren't fishy for some reason. It's one of those inexplicable things, just like why is one Tady A1 great and another one you may as well throw in the garbage. I know what you are talking about believe me. If you get a really good plug, it could probably be painted blaze orange and still get bit most of the time. I have one particular 9" Slammer in mind when I say this... It caught my 15, and 8 and a good number of other fish. For whatever reason it just has the characteristics that trigger strikes. I have some other 9" plugs that I haven't gotten bit on yet. I don't know exactly why, but there is a reason for everything.

I won't really comment on the AC plug thing other than to say that AC Plugs do catch a lot of fish, and I have caught a lot of fish on them, especially the AC Minnow. I am sponsored by MS Slammer and I don't fish my AC stuff at all any more.

Best of luck to you, and I hope that the plugs that you have are good ones. Give it some time and see how it goes. Plug fishing is not quite the same as throwing the iron for barracuda :-) It takes a little longer to find out which plugs are the good and which are the bad.



-Rob

Good topic, I'm glad you brought it up. As Rob said, there are absolutely bad plugs. In my experience, I think the slammers that kick at slower speeds are more fishy. The ones that you kind of have to get moving pretty good, before they have a decent action haven't worked well for me. I've done good on the ones that look like they're struggling to move themselves, rather than kicking effortlessly through the water. I haven't found a way to visually tell if one plug will be better or worse. I don't think it's possible to tell.

If rob won't comment on the AC, I will... ;-) I agree, the AC minnow looks like it was whittled out of a log by an 8 year old, but for some reason it catches fish. Must have a unique action or something because there are definitely better looking baits out there.

Now, rob, since you're sponsored by MS Slammer, I'll just have to take that generic trout away from you. har har.
-Brian

Hey now ... that's special circumstances :-)

Right on target on the A.C. Minnow. The workmanship is the pits. I catch most of my biggest fish on them and no two run alike. I've made my own and even though I'm an aerospace machinist and can hold tolerances that dizzy your mind none of the three that I just completed run the same either. There must be a load of variables in wood density,sealers,etc., etc. that are not found in plastics. I have come to the conclusion that you could never buy these baits without holding them in your hand. I examine them real close in the bag and have asked permission to take them out to see what I'm laying down the coinage for. The Slammers that I have seen have been getting better in quality not the reverse like the A.C.'s. I just got my hands on a Generic and other than the hook/paints not hard.. needs a split ring thing. I can live with that kind of quality and feel I didn't get ripped off. For what it's worth I fish my A.C. Minnows really slow on top with very little noticable action. Ever watch a trout cruise the surface? They aren't doing much in the way of outright swimming they just meander around. I have found that the trap lies in the fact that most people use that bitchin reel with the 6:0 gear ratio and don't get in tune with the gear to achive the desired results. I have had to literally preach to some good buddies of mine on throwing a buzzbait cuz they just plain burn them in and get out fished by me with the same lure. My 02. Keep at it. It is a virtue that often goes rewarded in the game. Kelly

Hey thanks for the tips guys!! I appreciate it a lot. It's nice to know that some plugs are bad, it means that there is at least a slight chance that I'm not a complete idiot with wooden plugs. I think I will take out the Slammer again and see how it swims. I think you're right Brian, my Slammer doesnt kick very well with a slow retrieve, it looks like it needs some adjustments. I think I've been fishing it too fast just so it will swim. I might have to get another one and compare the swimming motion. The AC minnow, I dont know where to start with that... it's so crooked, the line tie, lip, the head, the slit where the tail goes in, it's all crooked. It bends almost a third more to the right than it bends to the left. It looks so ugly, even if I mated it with a generic trout, it's offspring will still be ugly. Ok, bad joke. Anyways, I dont know how to start tweaking that thing, I dont know if I should shave some of it off or add bits of wood to it! Maybe I'll add a dorsal fin, yeah that's what I'll do, maybe it'll swim like a generic trout! Ha ha.
I think one of the most important thing about the big plugs is to have confidence when fishing it (whole new topic we could talk about), and I felt pretty confident throwing those things at first after reading the reports you guys wrote about it, but especially with that AC minnow, I kept on wondering if I got a bad plug. I have this neat Loomis/Conquest rig, but this plug just looked like a broom handle with paint on it and threw off my whole setup! (Ok, enough AC minnow bashing, I know it's supposed to catch a lot of big fish). But I know I have to fish those things with confidence since I have to stay alert because what I do after the strike is just as important as how I got that strike. Because you never know, that next strike could be that 10+ (or 13+ for Swimbait, ha ha).
Thanks for the input again. I think a good plug will probably catch fish even without paint on it, just like the surface iron. I have a surface iron (Tady 45) with no paint, and four seabass over 20+ plus to it's credit, maybe I should try it at a lake! Seriously, has anyone tried this?
Has anyone here tried the Roam Minnow?

Fishhead

Brian can tell you about throwing the iron at Cachuma }> I tried it myself once a few years ago. Didn't seem quite right and I certainly didn't get any lovin. If they were really snappin you might get one on it. But really the fish are looking for trouts and the iron is only a passing reseblance.

You are on the right track I think, and you are right about confidence. I think when you read the reports it's easy to think that you can just go out and chuck a plug and catch a big one. I know for me personally there are a lot of times when I go for quite a while without catching a wood fish. When I first tried to catch bass on trouts I had one lure. A 7" AC Plug. I took it and threw it for 6 or 7 trips before I got bit. It actually suprised the heck out of me when I finally did get a bite on it. So don't get discouraged by a few skunk trips. Keep throwing and you'll get bit. And then you can spend the rest of your life trying to get them to bite it more often, just like me :-)

Take it easy,

-Rob

Ah yes, iron at cachuma... Brian #2 just about kicked me off of his boat permanently after that day. For some reason he didn't like it when I'd bomb a Tady 45 onto every piece of cover within a 1/2 mile radius... It looked good, and it would probably get bit in the right conditions, but it would be a tough one to use with any consistancy I think. It looked really good when you're run it up on top and the ass end of it would skim the surface like the tail of a slammer. I believe II sharp makes a bleeding mackerel that looks a lot like a rainbow trout. If you were to be serious about it, I'd at least get the right color...

Confidence is an issue in every aspect of fishing. No matter what you're fishing with, you won't catch as many fish if you can't visualize the fish biting it, know what your bait is doing, and believe in the bait you're throwing. It usually gets to a point where you know you're going to get bit well before the fish touches your bait. Sometimes even before you cast. Weird stuff, but I know it's happened to folks besides myself. It just comes from having confidence in what you're doing. It's really tough to have that kind of confidence from reading the boards or throwing a plug with bad action a couple times. You really have to find that magic plug that kicks right or sits the right way in the water or whatever. I'd reccommend buying another slammer in the hopes that you'll get a better one. If not, stick with the better of the two and you'll probably still catch a few fish on it. Once you get addicted to trout plug fishing, buy another slammer or two and eventually you'll come across the one that you'll always fish and the fish seem to key in on. As for the rest of them, the only real thing you can do to alter the action is mess with the bill. If you're ballzy enough, try sanding the bill down or rounding the corners, or messing with the shape of it and hope that it helps the action. You'll find out that the more and more you get into fishing trout plugs, the more and more plugs you'll accumulate for no apparent reason. One day you'll realize you have like 12 plugs, and you only use one or two. That's when I'd really reccommend screwing around with the other plugs, or tying on those ones to throw into stuff you wouldn't normally throw or whatever. All part of the game.
-Brian

I don't know about bad plugs, but I saw something above about action of the AC. I believe the good action is due to the the wood being tapered, large diameter in the front and small in the back. I would say the wide front causes an over-exagerated wobble and produces low pressure behind it to let the tail work with minimal effort. The large and probably unintentional gap in the body segments probably also helps. I may be wrong but I thought the AC's had a tapered body, The one I made did. And Yes the AC plugs seem or look like garbage. The Plug I made and tested in my pool had a awsome action and thats action is probably why they work.