Suspenders
& Sinkers
by
Tony Thwaites
I'd heard on the grapevine that Tony ( "Ant" to his friends, both of them! Only joking!) was a bit of an old reclusive fanatic with his suspenders and suspenders — unfortunately guys & gals, we're talking suspending lures here! Anyway, I finally persuaded him to stop fishing and fiddling with his lures for a moment and to write something for my Lure Angling pages.
So here's what Ant's written about his sinking and DIY suspending plugs and spinners, and I hope he doesn't mind my saying that his original text took quite a bit of editing to knock it into some sort of shape, just like some of his DIY lures by the sound of them! And a lot of his photos weren't much cop either, so I've had to tweak them as well as using some of our own! (Sorry Ant ! We'll send you some suspenders for your troubles and your cheque's in the post!). Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy the end result...........
Introduction
It seems to me that if you're trying to fool pike and other predators into taking
your lures by making your plugs look like natural prey fish, then it must make
even more sense to use ones that sink slowly or suspend in water and behave
even more naturally, instead of floating to the top.
Sinkers
Sinking "countdown" plugs are OK lures because when you are winding-in,
you are bringing them up in the water so they behave a bit more like real fish
than ones which are much more buoyant. Countdown plugs do take a bit of getting
used to though and of course they're always finding their way into snags if
you're not very careful — I hate losing lures don't you?
Flat-sided,
vibrating "Spot" minnows and Rapala CountDown minnows are probably
my two most favourite types of small sinking plugs; if you put some smaller,
lighterweight hooks on your Spot minnows, then don't sink quite so fast and
they're excellent for perch.
I've found that my modified jointed Countdown minnows are equally good for pike and chub and when I need something a bit bigger, hopefully for some bigger pike, I like to fish with Bucher CountDown Raiders — I also make them sink slower by putting on smaller hooks.
Scarcity
of Suspenders
I've always thought that neutral-buoyancy suspending plugs ought to work a lot
better than ones which sink or those that quickly bob back up to the surface
the second you stop winding-in, but where do you get ready-made suspendings
plugs?
If you're a lure company mass-producing plugs, I suppose it's a lot easier to make floating or sinking ones than it is to make suspending ones and that's why there aren't very many commercially-available suspenders.
There are one or two still around though, but some of the best ones have gone off the market, like Smithwick's Suspending Rattlin' Rogue .. great lure, for me anyway. My current favourite suspender is Raplala's HuskyJerk although even that gets some of my DIY treatment as I'll be explaining in a minute.
D.I.Y.
As I can't always get exactly what I want ready-made, I've been forced into
doing some DIY and I've got to admit that it's been a lot of fun — I can
thoroughly recommend it! I should say that first I read a lot about how to make
floating plugs less buoyant — here's what I
do now to make my own suspenders:-
Adjusting
Alphabet Plugs
It's a lot easier if you're dealing with a big hollow lure like a Big Alphabet
plug or something similar — you can drill a small hole in the top and put
in some tiny ball bearings until it suspends like you want it to: you also get
a plug that rattles! I get my mini ball-bearings from my local cycle repair
shop and I use Araldite Rapid to plug the hole.
With smaller alphabet and other similar plugs, I've found things are a lot more difficult and critical; when you add extra weight you've got to be so careful not to wreck their action at the same time! I've read that some people say to wrap thin lead wire round the shank of a belly treble hook but I think this is not nearly as good as adding strips and spots of stick-on lead straight on to the plug's body.
Stick-on
Strips 'n' Spots
I had been using special stick-on spots and strips called Suspend Dots 'n' Strips
made by Storm lures: these were excellent but when I ran out of them I had big
problems finding any more: I think you may still be able to get them from the
States though. Then I read somewhere that instead you can use stick-on lead
strips that they use to make those look-alike leaded glass windows.
These stick-on lead strips are OK but they aren't quite as good as Storm Spots and Strips because they're thicker and you have to cut them to shape very carefully with something like a scalpel blade that I got from a model shop.
Take
your trace into account, always!
When you're adding extra weight to plugs to make them less buoyant, you always
have to take the weight of your trace into account — this means always
testing your DIY suspending plugs in water with a trace attached before you
finally decide how much extra weight you need to add.
Tungsten
Putty
These days my most favourite way of making plugs supend is to use some of that
very heavy tungsten putty that carp anglers use for their rigs. First I rough
up the belly of my plug with some sandpaper and then I roll some putty out flat
like very thin pastry.
Then I carefully cut out strips 'n' bits to the right sizes for what I want and keep sticking on pieces until its buoyancy is very slightly positive i.e. with a trace attached, it floats gently up to the surface — I do this whether I'm using stick-on strips of lead or tungsten putty.
When I've got things just about right, I stick it all on with waterproof Superglue and coat it with a quick coat of paint and a thin layer of epoxy varnish. The extra weight of these layers is usually enough to make my plug suspend just nicely — if it doesn't, it's easy enough to add a bit more weight and there you have it, a lovely suspender. (Don't get excited, lads, it's only a lure! ~ Nick)
Fixing Fats 'n' Raps
As for which plugs I mostly modify to make them suspend, I'd say that it would
have to be Fats 'n' Raps such as Bomber Fat As and Rapala Fats and RistoRaps.
When you buy them, these plugs are a bit too buoyant for my liking but if you
make them suspend and work them more naturally, they're the Cat's Whiskers for
chub and perch, as well as pike of course.
Dual-Purpose
Blades
You can also add a bit of extra weight to make your plug suspending by using
a cool dual-purpose trick — simply stick a mini swivel and a willow blade
underneath and it works a treat and I'm damn sure that those little old willow
blades flashing underneath my plugs really do help fool even more predators
than my simple suspenders — try it for yourself and you'll soon see if
I'm not right !
Modifying
Minnows
I've also tried modifying jointed and unjointed minnows of various sizes, with
mixed success — even Husky Jerks sometimes need a just a little bit of
extra weight to hold them down in the water.
But as far as other bigger jointed and unjointed minnow plugs go, you've got to be quite careful when you're trying to make them into suspenders — the good news is that you don't have to Superglue the putty on to your plug until you're sure, and if you're not, you can easily take it off again and you've got your original lure back!
Unjointed Minnows
To my mind almost everything unjointed from Rapala Original Floating Minnows
to Creek Chub Pikies and beyond could do with a bit of extra weight to help
hold them down in the water — surprsingly even some supposedly suspending
Husky Jerks are slightly too buoyant so they get my treatment too. I've also
discovered that it's also worth adding a bit of extra weight to small Bomber
minnows like the 14A — brilliant for chub, before and after my treatment!
Unjointed Storm Thundersticks are well up for some extra added weight and I reckon that this makes what is already a very good plug into an excellent one. It's also worth trying to modify Bagley Topguns and Cordell Redfins but you've got to very careful when modifying minnows like these — I always try to put any extra weight as far forward as possible to keep or maybe even enhance its original action by making its tail wag from side to side even more.
Probably the biggest minnow-type plug that I've modified like this is one of my all-time favourites, a SwimWhizz, or Believer as it's sometimes called — and with plugs with three trebles like this I also like to put a swivel and spinner blade (or even a pair of them!) in place of one of the trebles.
Jointed
Minnows
With jointed minnows such as Rapalas and Creek Chubs, I only ever add weight
to their head sections, never to tail sections — that's asking for trouble
and will most likely wreck their action. That said, some of my most super-effective
suspenders are my modified Rapala jointed floating minnows e.g. J9 and J11.
I've also modded some jointed Storm Thundersticks and some Bomber minnows.
Some big Creek Chubs are also too buoyant and so I carefully add some extra weight and with ones with three trebles which I think is too many, I take off one treble and put a mini-swivel and spinner blade in its place and that works like magic. Sometimes you have to re-position the remaining belly treble on the head section to get the weight distribution just right, but that's no big deal.
Playing
with POEs
Over the years I've had a good go at a lot of other floating plugs to make them
suspend, sometimes with disasterous results, sometimes with great success —
one of my success stories is with Poes RC plugs designed for Poes by American
lure-fishing supremo Rick Clunn, hence the "RC".
these are rather odd looking lures but they have a very enticing action. It's just that, once again, they're a bit too buoyant for my own liking but a piece of putty, quick coat of paint and layer of tough varnish soon turns them into "Suspending Poes RCs" which have delivered some spectacular results for me from time to time — well worth modifying in my view.
Suspending
Spinners
I was very pleased when a couple of slow-sinking spinners came on the market
because up 'til then I'd had to make my own DIY suspending spinners by using
balsa instead of brass for their bodies. I must admit though that it's probably
a lot easier and not that much more expensive to use lightweight slow sinking
spinners such as Worden Rooster Tails.
Suspenders for Zeds
I don't often get the chance to go after zander (zeds) because I live a fair
way from the Fens and from the Severn and Warks Avon where I know there are
big zeds, but when I do go zedding I've found that my suspenders are "the
business" and I seem to catch a load more zeds now than I used to. Of course
it may not be my suspending lures at all — it may just be that there are
loads more zeds about these days — either way, I reckon it's well worth
trying suspenders for zander.
Will
Suspenders work for you ?!
Of course the big question after buying some suspending lures or modifying your
own plugs and spinners to make them suspend, is whether or not they work for
you — personally I do think that my DIY suspending
plugs work much better than my otherwise identical floating ones and they're
a lot easier to handle and control when you're fishing.
I know it's just about impossible to do exact comparisons but I'd say that overall as far as most of the plugs that I've modified go, they do seem to catch a lot more fish and I do mix 'n' match my floaters and suspenders to see if suspenders work better than floaters and they'll probably do the same for you, so why don't you give them a try?
Good
fishing !
Tony Thwaites
