An Open Update for Senko Sam

[Mac1]

Senko Sam is probably the most innovative person currently on the boards concerning soft plastics and their modifications. At least, he’s one of those rare innovators willing to share what he’s learned during his exploratory journey…..at most, very articulate and precise sharing a wealth of discovery.

Sam, this is an update of my tinkering in a humble effort to share as well.

A couple months ago, I found some old grubs, a little stiff it seemed in the tail……I rigged it
lightly weighted and tried one out just to see the action……the stiff tail shook the head ….in short, the whole grub activated on the pull. I then bubby rigged some of the regular grubs with a light weight underneath the hook….a splitshot crimped onto the wide gap hook underneath and wow…..the tail wagged the dog again. Caught a few nice bass on that grub….in addition to the head moving, it stayed horazontal on the fall and I caught a couple on the drop….not having the grub nose down and plummeting.

Lately I’ve been making snakes. I start with a trick worm by zoom, clip off a little at each end and on the front, I weld a lizard head, and at the rear, a lizard tail. I made a few in earthtones, and also a few with amber bodies and cherryseed heads and tails. I fish them weightless and swim them slowly on top….it’s remarkable how slowly you can move one with the rod tip up and still keep it swimming toward you.

I was fishing near laydowns the other day and had cast several times to this one tree in particular…swimming it out slowly each time. The wind came up and started a mudline on a little shoal between the tree and myself. One one cast, the snake had just entered the muddy zone and BLAM, a really hard, really loud tailsmack. I let the snake die, counting to three, and just as I set the hook, it pulled momentarily, and then came off the fish. The resulting boil from the fish turning away was about the size of a bushel basket in diameter.

Today I began welding just the tail of the lizard to the lizard head directly, making somewhat longtailed tadpoles…..looking forward to trying them in ponds and small coves. In order to get the tail to match the neck size I cut in front of the back legs and clip the legs off. I then am sure to turn the tail upright when welding to avoid twisting of the line.

Made several creature baits by welding the lizard heads onto the front end of a tube, then adding a couple lizard tails; one on each side welded near the front just behind the neck. They look promising and have added a home made rattle in each tube. Don’t have a report on these yet, but hope to get back to the laydowns soon.

Good fishing, Mac