archeryrob Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 I cranked out 11 - 4" bottle poppers on the belt sander Sunday. They are out of Poplar dowels and float nice, unweighted. I sealed one with varnish to test and on it put the tail screw eye in it and floated it and it just slightly over half way in. Without hooks (4/0 single in back and #1 treble in middle, these are for stripers) it weights in as just under 1 oz without paint, epoxy or hooks. The middle hook should rotate it correctly. Any reason to have to add a belly weight in the tail end? I was looking to do without it on this one. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 If you hydro-oriented the blanks after shaping then no weight is needed if you did not then some type of ballast will be needed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark poulson Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 Once you've added the hooks and line tie, float test them. If they lie almost lever, with the tail slightly down but the back still mostly out of the water, they should work fine. I would test one on the water before I finished all of them, to see if the weighting needs tweaking. I haven't made poppers that big, but I've made lots of topwaters that big and bigger. The biggest poppers I make are 2 1/2", and they hang down at approx. 45 degrees. The tail down in poppers is more exaggerated in small poppers, because they are light, and adding ballast helps them to cast better, but it's not required in larger poppers. Line tie position is very critical. Play around with your test lure to see where to put it. I generally put the tie either dead center of the cupped face, or slightly above center, and then make sure my knot is all the way down toward the bottom of the line tie eye. That seems to be key to getting the bait to pop really well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archeryrob Posted February 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 Thanks Mark! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracy G Posted February 22, 2012 Report Share Posted February 22, 2012 Maybe you could use a larger size hook on the back to get more of that tail down attitude? I'm not sure but thought that I would chime in with my 2 cents. The blanks look really nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
