Common Sense Plug Modifications - The Fisherman

Common Sense Plug Modifications

2018 2 Commen Sense Plug Modifications Catch
This big blue fell to a popper rigged with a single hook.

I’ve been experimenting with modifying plugs for decades, and some have been successful while others fell short of the mark. Of those that were successful, changing hook sizes and styles has been the most effective. If you think about it, the changes I’m about to discuss make a lot of sense. They may not help you catch more fish, but they facilitate landing, make unhooking safer and easier, and display good stewardship of our living marine resources because the changes are often easier on the fish. Incidentally, I have found no measurable differences in the number of fish hooked and landed when I compare my altered plugs to those right out of the box.

God bless big bluefish. They fight hard, like to jump and tail walk, never give up, and generate angling excitement whenever and wherever a run occurs. However because they never surrender; they can see out of water better than most fish and follow your hand as you unhook them waiting for the chance to snap; and they seem to prefer twisting off their lips to being landed, blues present landing and unhooking problems of safety, speed and care of the fish.

Yes, I have altered plugs intended for stripers, too, but those changes were intended to hook and catch more stripers. These included removing the center treble and increasing the size of the remaining two hooks on 5-inch hard plastic swimmers just as RedFins and Bombers, and decreasing the size of the trebles on C10 Redfins so that they wiggle on the surface and leave a big wake, but the bulk of my interest in plug modification is about making life easier and safer for me and bluefish! I agree if you’re thinking that my recent advocacy for modified plugs has something to do with my ever-advancing age, but I believe a key to my ability to stay in the game has been my willingness to make concessions to age and seek ways to get around age-related problems.

Problem Solving

2018 2 Commen Sense Plug Modifications Handles
A 9-foot outfit handles these fish well.

Let’s begin with poppers and pencil poppers. Since blues never give up and often pull and spin just as we’re about to land them, frequently setting themselves free and ripping their lips in the process, I asked; can I improve my odds of landing blues by altering my lures?

Another problem I encountered with blues caught on surface lures was a failure to get a solid hook-hold. Many times, hooks were lodged in lips, or barely behind the lips making the antics of choppers more successful at escaping. Could I make changes that would get the hook further back in the mouth where the point would be stuck in harder and more durable tissue? Is this truly a better hook-hold? Finally, as stated above, could I make unhooking easier and safer for me?

An obvious answer jumped at me, and just might address all three issues. Using a single siwash, or salmon, hook might do the trick. First, since I’m removing a rear treble hook, the siwash can be bigger in order to match the weight of the original trebles. A bigger siwash means a wider gap and deeper span between hook point and shaft. A wider gap and larger span, I thought, would get the point deeper inside the mouth where the point might find a better purchase in harder tissue.

Now, a big 6/0 or 8/0 siwash on the rear might mean little if the belly treble were left in place. However, I knew that simply removing the belly hook would change the balance of the lure and therefore change popping action on a popper and walk-the-dog action on a pencil popper. I needed to balance the lures.

There are several ways to do this. One approach involves adding lead sticky strips that can be peeled off a sheet and attached to the belly of the lure. The strips are easy to find and buy, so that’s not an issue, but I wondered about durability. When I used these strips, I found it easy to achieve a balanced lure, but the teeth of blues either ripped these strips off or damaged them quickly. I guess a fisherman could bring a sheet of lead strips to the beach and attach new ones, but that’s not practical. Who wants to fumble with strips and waste time when blues are cavorting? Not me! I also thought about adding weight inside a plug, and that is feasible with wood plugs although tricky to get right. However, most poppers today are made from hard plastic and hole-drilling is not recommended. Although modern hard plastic lures have achieved a level of consistent quality and uniform balance, they are temperamental and even small alterations can ruin them. So, I don’t advise this.

I usually get to a decent solution to problems: eventually. In this case, my solution was both successful and easy. No drilling, melting lead and pouring it into holes, and no hammering lead plugs into holes either. What if, I asked, I simply remove the hook points from the trebles? That way I’ll have weight for balance, but no hooks to get in the way. Most of the poppers and pencils we use are medium in size and come with 2/0 trebles, so I’ll use these as examples, while letting you make adjustments to my process for larger models. So, I snipped off the points on the 2/0 trebles and went blue fishing during the May run. It’s fortunate that I brought along unaltered lures because the balance was off on my modified plugs, and they didn’t work right. Blues being the crazed animals they are, I raised and caught a few of them on the altered plugs, but not as many as friends nearby. Back to the drawing board, but I must admit that working this out was not only a challenge but fun, too.

In my second approach, I removed what was left of the 2/0 hooks and replaced the belly hook with 3/0 trebles after snipping off the hook points. This turned out to be perfect for 2-3/8-ounce Super Strike Little Neck poppers and Gibbs Polaris models. I sometimes use bucktail hair or feathers on single rear hooks of poppers, but I found with the altered belly weight that the drag of the hair/feathers changed the action just a bit, so I stopped using them just in case. Besides, I never really experienced a catch improvement with hair or feathers added.

When I took this second-generation modified lure to the bluefish wars, I knew I had the balance correct as soon as I began retrieving. It didn’t hurt that a big blue slammed the thing after only a few seconds. Although pleased, I wasn’t as pleased as I was about to get. I didn’t drop the fish, it didn’t twist off in the wash because that wide siwash was back in its mouth, and unhooking was a breeze. All I had to do to unhook it was grasp the bend of the hook with my 9-inch needle-nose pliers, invert the bend so it pointed skyward, and yank. The blue fell a few inches to the sand. Easy as pie!

Other Lures

2018 2 Commen Sense Plug Modifications Handles 2
A few modified plugs showing how I balanced them with cut down trebles.

I also wanted to modify my bucktails; not to eliminate hook points for safety and ease of unhooking, but to get a better bite into the fish. Some fixed hook style bucktails such as larger sizes of Smilin’ Bill and Andros bucktails come with bigger hooks, so no adjustments were necessary. Yet, I like swing-hook styles, and those hooks are not wide gap hooks. Yes, I could increase the size from 5/0 and 6/0 to 8/0 and that would help, but it didn’t do much to change the relatively narrow gap between shaft and hook point. So, once again I settled on siwash hooks. I rarely use less than 1-1/4-ounce bucktails in the spring because the fishing is done in inlets or along the ocean front where longer casts and more weight to get the lure deeper are needed. So, for 1-1/4- to 1-1/2-ounce bucktails I replace the standard hooks with 6/0 siwash hooks, and 2- to 4-ounce models with 8/0 siwash hooks. This too was successful. I got a better hook bite deeper in the mouth, since the hook point is longer it also set better, and once again unhooking was simple and easy.

I probably don’t throw “tins” or “metals” as frequently as I should because I enjoy bucktailing so much, but there are those days when blues want a little flash, longer casts are better, and the wiggle of a tin near the bottom seems to encourage more strikes. I prefer West End Tackle’s Charlie Graves designs (J-7 and larger, D-5). Some of my tins already have 6/0 siwash hooks, but I changed to them if the metal lure was fitted with a standard J hook. However, the feathers aren’t a match for bluefish teeth, so once a beast has stripped them, I replace feathers with a wad of bright white bucktail hair. Yes, the blues will chew through this too, but it takes longer.

I don’t often use metal-lip swimmers during the May bluefish run because I don’t have to. I keep my arsenal simple: bucktails, tins, poppers and pencil poppers. For me, metal-lip plugs come into play during summer and fall, and I do not change hooks.

For Safety’s Sake

The barbs can be crimped down or filed off for added safety, but that still leaves the point. Also, barbless hooks really don’t change fish landing success with stripers, but since blues like to jump and shake, I’ve found that barbless hooks definitely reduce successful landings.

Last year I took ease and safety to a new level buy buying a fish gripper. There are many styles and most work well. Just check before you buy to make sure the grip is strong enough to secure a writhing and shaking blue. For decades I would kneel when unhooking big fish, lay the palm of my left hand flat over the fish’s gills, and then use my pliers to unhook the lure. At this stage of my life my orthopedist says I should not kneel, so the gripper allows me to stand while unhooking and my plug modifications eliminate the need to hold the fish down and steady.

This may be a good idea for senior citizens, those who are injured or impaired, kids who may be in the process of learning how to unhook toothy critters. Of course, supervision from an adult during the learning process is always recommended.

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