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Date: February 16, 2008 at 08:01:21
From: john Kelsey, [c-24-147-111-6.hsd1.ma.comcast.net]
Subject: Re: weight placement on wooden plugs


Plug weighting.... is quite an art. and you're right, weight placement does have a very significant affect on how a danny or any swimmer moves in the water. I'm not sure that there's a correct placement for the weight in a danny, but I'll tell where I place mine to get the action I like and that's on a fully rigged plug, the balance point of the plug, if I weight it at all. Sometimes as part of the rigging, I'll put a touch of weight in the tail. This tends to dampen the wobble in a swimmer.

Body shape also affects how a Danny moves in the water. This also affects the balance point. If you move the shoulder to the front of the plug, (this is from memory mow....) you get more roll. If you shift it to the back, you get more wobble as I recall....

Length also affects action. I've made some short fat Dannies that wiggle like a banshee. Some long ones with a tapered tail like the old Donny Musso swimmers that swim in a much more snake like manner.

Then you start blending all of these things together and it's gets complicated real fast....

Something I've learned in my short plug building career that has a huge affect on a plug is the density of the wood you're using. The is always a heavy side to a turned piece of wood when you plop in in the water. I always put my turned piece of wood in a little bucket of water to find out how it orients itself in the water and then rig it accordingly, with the heavy side down. That way, I get much more consistent action from my plugs. Think about it. If you rig the plug with the heavy side on the left, the plug is always going to want to roll over on that side, so your plug action will be very inconsistent side to side.

You can also tune the attitude of the plug and it's action by what hooks you place on it.

Turning the line tie up or down also changes how a plug swims dramatically. turn it down, an the plug will want to ride high with lots of roll and it becomes unstable, even rolling over. Turn the tie up and the plug wants to dig and swim subsurface.

in summing up, you can make a ton of firewood tying to make a plug that will give you an action that ends up where you want it, that catches fish.


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