I've been working on my selection of lure bodies prior to knee replacement surgery. Majority of the arduous work is sealed & primed. Hopefully I'll be down in the shop in a couple weeks to start painting.
I have been working on a super slim shallow diver Jointed Pike . Similar to my slim version. Fortunately I swam tested it prior to surgery and this cold weather.
Another plug I'm doing is a model of my same super slim Pike but in a slope head. It's a slow level sinking/suspending/neutral buoyancy model. This plug started about a few years back when I turned 1 in Birch. Obviously that version was much heavier and required much less weight to get action. Unfortunately it sank slow as I continued to remove almost all the belly weight sans approx. 4-5 gr. Wasn't what I was looking for but nonetheless a club member had interest in trying it in some deep spots. So I painted it and handed it off to him. Over the first year he had hits but no solid takes. He started using it this season and had success with good size fish including many in the mid 30lb. As luck be had, he lost the lure on a very large fish in the rocks. So he asks if I can make another. So luckily I had scratch sheet with the scribbled specs on this plug. I tested the new bodies in my test tank and got it close but I need to get to salt water to test the drop rate, attitude and retrieve action. Hopefully in January I'll be ready and a thaw is present with a high tide to further test. I will update on my finding soon.
