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If you use the Gibbs shape you want the pencil to sit straight up and down with about 1" of nose out of the water. All the weight should be in the tail. I've played with weighting pencils to float at 45 degrees and they are disappointing. You are stuck working them like a spook only they don't fish as well as a spook. Maybe if you want something to cast far and fish very slow at night they have a niche........but good luck trying to gain enough faith in the design to use at night. I've tried and failed. The more heavily weighted pencil can be made to do much more, both slow and fast than the more lightly weighted pencil. If you build a shape more like an afterhours (shorter neck, longer tail, thicker throat) then moving the weight forward a bit has some role.
Stan Gibbs knew what he was doing and was a better fisherman than you or I. He has handed you a plug design that he tested until it fished better than any other variation. His pencil is one of the very best striped bass plugs ever sold. You can tweak it or change it but you will not improve upon it.........of that I am confident.
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