Dear Wade,

Everyone has brought up a lot of great ideas but what about modifying the plug you have??? You know...back in the days before the AC, people used to use paint and permanent markers like "Marks-A-Lot" to change the look of the big size 18 floating Rapalas. I have one of the Arbogast AC plugs as well and what I had in mind for mine was to first off change the hooks to the bronze color. If I'm not mistaken they have 2x or 3x strong trebels in Bronze. In a lot of cases you can buy them individually...a couple of cents each. Second thing you can do is take a green, red, and black marker and try to paint your plug to match the other plugs that are on the market. In the end, it will have cost very little and you will have then invented the "Wade-RT" big trout bait!!!! What a concept. Now...I can't say if you will actually catch something but for a guy on a budget, it sure wouldn't hurt. Keep in mind that the AC plug has caught a lot of fish and I would bet that if you tuned the lure to run correctly and you were persistent with it, you would probably catch a fish on it...regardless of the actual color. That's just my opinion but I will tell you I've seen friends of mine that have caught fish on lures a lot uglier and more stupid looking than the Arbogast AC!!!!

Regardless of everything we have all suggested here, you have to keep one thing in mind when fishing these big plugs...You need to throw them...and Throw Them...and THROW THEM!!!!!! I think everyone will agree with that. Good Luck out there and keep on casting!!!!

Good Luck and Good Fishing

Darin