Chapter 7

Salt-Water Plugs

There are many reasons why you should make your own salt-water fish­ing plugs. First, of course, is to save some money since the larger plugs are quite expensive if purchased. Anglers lose more salt-water plugs than fresh­water plugs. It is possible to fish with one plug in fresh-water for many years. But you're lucky if you don't lose some salt-water plugs in a few days of fishing. The fishing line may break on a cast, or the plug gets tangled in rocks, piles, or weeds. Also, the big salt-water fish are always breaking lines and taking the plugs with them. Finally, the wear and tear on salt-water plugs quickly ruins the paint and the wood body and rusts the hooks. A salt­water fisherman continually has to replace lost or ruined plugs.

Furthermore, fishing with salt-water plugs is comparatively new. Fishing with such plugs didn't really become popular until after World War II, so there is still plenty of room for experimentation. Many salt-water anglers, especially surf anglers, are always trying to create new plugs or improve the old ones. They add stronger hooks, rearrange hooks, make plugs of different shapes, sizes, and weights, and try out different color schemes.
Salt-water plugs can also be made from cedar, and this is the best wood to use for the smaller type plugs. This light wood has the buoyancy to sup­port metal parts such as lips, screw eyes, screws, and hooks without sinking. The use of cedar is especially important when making surface plugs. But cedar may be too light for the larger-sized salt-water plugs, unless loaded with lead. Hence, many surf anglers who use big plugs make them from heavier woods such as birch, fir, maple, and walnut.

Even such hard woods as ash, oak, and hickory have been used when a heavy salt-water plug is re­quired. However, these woods are tough to cut, drill, or shape with hand tools, and they do not support too many hardware parts without sinking. In fact, when making any salt-water surface plugs it is necessary to check carefully to make certain that the wood body will support the metal plates, screw eyes, hooks, and other hardware without sinking. All surface plugs should float for best results. I find it's a good idea to assemble all the metal parts which will go on a certain plug and strap them on the wood body with a rubber band. Then place the wooden plug body in a pail or bathtub filled with water. If it doesn't sink or submerge too much, you are safe in using all that metal on the plug. Otherwise, you have to make a larger wooden body or use lighter screws, screw-eyes, metal plates, or hooks.

In salt-water fishing the deadliest type of plug is usually a surface model. The easiest plug of this type to make is the simple popper shown in Fig. 34. This plug can be about 6 1/2 in. long and have a diameter of 1 1/8, in. The head can be straight cut at a 45-degree angle. The plug is equipped with three 5/0 extra-strong treble hooks.

The quickest way to attach these hooks to the body is by means of screw eyes, which should be fairly large and of heavy wire with long, deep threads. The best screw eyes are made of brass since they don't rust in salt water. However, you can use galvanized iron screws if they are heavy and strong. If this popper is made from a heavy wood it will cast far without additional weight. But if you use light wood or want as heavy a plug as possible, add some lead to the tail end of the plug as shown in Fig. 35. You drill a hole and plug it up with a round chunk of lead. If you make a tight fit you can tap in the lead after putting some ce­ment in the hole.

Heavy screw eyes will usually prove satisfactory as hook holders and for attaching the line to the plugs described here. For stronger plugs, however, attach the hooks by using hook hangers similar to the one used for fresh­water plugs. For salt-water plugs, such a hook hanger must be heavier than that used for fresh-water plugs. You can make such hook hangers by using a brass piece I 1/2 in. long by 1/4 in. wide and 1/32 in. thick. File the brass in a bench vise as shown in Fig. 36. Then bend it with round-nosed and flat-nosed pliers so that the finished hook hanger will look like the one shown in the illustration.

Simple type of salt-water popper plug. Figure 34. Position of lead weight in plug body.Figure 35.

To make the salt-water plugs still stronger, use the "through-wire" con­struction method shown in Fig. 37. Here you drill a hole through the center of the plug body from the nose to the tail. Then drill larger-diameter holes in the belly of the plug which meet the smaller hole through the middle of the body. Next, make some hook hangers from brass or stainless steel wire. See the illustration, of such a hook hanger in Fig. 38. Then get about a 10-in. length of brass wire or stainless steel wire, form an eye on one end, and insert the other end of the wire in the nose of the plug. Attach a treble hook to one of the hook hangers and insert this into the hole at the belly of the plug. At the same time, push the wire rod through the plug to catch this hook hanger through the double loop. You can easily test to see that the hanger is caught on the wire by pulling on the treble hook. After the first treble is caught, insert the second hanger and hook and catch that with the wire and then push the wire out through the rear of the plug. To finish it, form an eye at the tail, but before closing the eye slide on another treble hook.

Figure 37.Through-wire construction and wire hook hangers. Figure 38.   Two types of hook hangers used with through-wire construc- tion plugs.

Instead of making a wire hook hanger, you can use barrel swivels for hook hangers, as shown in Fig. 38. They have two eyes; the eye inside the body of the plug is caught by the wire and the eye outside the plug holds the hook. To attach the hooks you must either obtain treble hooks which can be opened at the eye or cut the eye with strong cutting pliers or hacksaw. You can also attach the hook to the barrel swivel eye by first forcing on a split ring, then attaching the hook to this ring. If you use brass split rings you can solder them so that they can't open.

Another strong way to attach a treble hook to a wooden plug is to drill holes in the belly and tail of the plug to take hook hangers. Then drill smaller-diameter holes from one side of the plug body to the other. Care must be taken here to meet the larger hole. Then insert the hook hanger, or barrel swivel with treble hook, into the big hole. Finally, drive a brass or copper pin through the small hole to catch the hook hanger or barrel swivel eye.

Another large popper which you can make is shown in Fig. 39. This has a tapered body about 7 in. long and a diameter of 1V4 in. at the head. The head is cupped or gouged out to create a commotion and splash in the water when the plug is jerked. This plug can have three 5/0 or 6/0 treble hooks, two at the belly and one at the tail. They can be attached by any of the methods described above. The plug can be loaded at the belly or tail with lead, if you want.

A somewhat smaller popper is the bomber type shown in Fig. 40. This one is narrow at the head and thicker in diameter at the tail.  Because of this shape, it casts like a bullet even into a stiff wind. The plug shown here is heavy enough to use with a conventional surf rod or with a surf spinning outfit. It measures about 5 in. long and has a diameter of 1 1/4in. at the tail and 7/8in. at the head. The head is cut at a slant of 45 degrees. Two 5/0 treble hooks are attached, one at the belly near the head and the other at the tail.

Popper with cupped head. Figure 39. Figure 40.Bomb type popper.

The large surface plugs described above are mostly used for surf fishing or casting, or trolling for big fish with fairly heavy tackle. If you want to make up smaller salt-water surface plugs to use with light spinning or casting tackle just make a smaller version of any of the models above. For example, if you want a small surface popper of the type shown in Fig. 41, make it the same way as the large one (Fig. 39), but smaller and lighter. It could have a body 4 in. long with a diameter of 7/8 in. Instead of using three treble hooks, you need only two and these can be smaller. Size 1/0 or 2/0 hooks are best, but make sure they are of heavy wire and strong.

Another effective surface popper can be made by using the same size plug body as the fresh-water wobbler plug shown in Fig. 1, page 13. How­ever, instead of using it as shown, turn the body around and use it as in Fig. 42. Now, instead of diving or wobbling, it becomes a small surface popper which throws a big splash when jerked. It also can use two treble hooks in sizes 1/0 or 2/0.

Figure 41. Small salt-water popper. Popper made from wobbler type body. Figure 42.

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