How to Make a Super Vee Waker

By Russ Bassdozer

The list of plastic lips used in surf, sea, and bay includes the Cordell Red Fin, Rebel Wind-cheater, Bomber Magnum Long A, Whopper Stopper Hell Cat (discontinued), Storm Shallo Mac, Gag's Grabber Mambo Minnow, assorted Yo-Zuri baits - to name a few.

These are all rather similar lures. Sometimes bass only hit one certain model more than others. But sometimes bass hit them all, and overall, all these plastic lipped plugs don't have all that much difference. They all get bunched into the generic bucket of shallow-running plastic lipped swimmers. They're all between 5 1/2 to 7 inches long, and the normal operating depth of most of these lures is 0 to 3 feet deep. The Red Fin swims a bit higher and is prone to "flip out" in strong water, the Hell Cat held better in strong sweeping water, the Bomber gets down a bit deeper than most others. The Rebel Wind-cheater can get down 5-8 feet when you strum them in a strong rip in front of ocean jetties. It is also a great bait for drifting downtide along deeply-cut beaches that have a nice sweep, like the Cape beaches. It's a real sleeper of a lure that few people use, and the best models of Wind-cheaters were discontinued years ago.

Make a Super-Vee Waker. There is a modification that you can perform on Red Fins that will make them into a special plug - that will make them wake on the surface. I would add that this is especially wicked if there is a flat surface on the water - either flat and still, or flat and moving. It is less necessary to wake the surface when there is swirling current, rain, wind, chop, waves, rips, whitewater, backwash, water sweeping over bars or humping past jetty tips, etc.

But here's something original. You can take some of the plastic lip lures just mentioned - especially the Red Fins - melt the lips and bend them back, thereby making super-wakers! Just take a cigarette lighter, turn the flame way down low, and hold it near the base of the lip where it joins the body of the bait. Better to heat it too slowly than too quickly. This works better on the solid-colored plastics. The chrome-painted ones have a tendency to bubble up a bit. Just heat gently, and use a flat stick like a paint stirrer or straight-edged ruler to slowly bend the lip back towards the tail a bit. Works on the 5 1/2 or 7 inch sizes. This modifed bait works on those super quiet nights when everything is flat and during those first and last hours of the tide when everything is moving slowly. This one almost twists and turns in place, causing explosive strikes.