Every now and then a plug comes along that is not just good-looking but is easy to cast, has great action and also catches fish. Mike at Mike’s Custom Plugs has found this balance in the Ditch Witch.
This plug made me look like I knew what I was doing because I was able to cast it farther than any plug in the past. Once it splashed down, it took minimal effort to work the Ditch Witch to produce fish-enticing action. The plug has a flat belly that allows it to easily obtain the “windshield wiper” motion of a pencil popper. While a lot of guys will only use a topwater plug when fish are showing on the surface, I found the Ditch Witch produced even when blind-casting.
The plug is hand-turned out of Alaskan Yellow Cedar, through-wired, and equipped with a VMC 4/0 6X treble with Wolverine triple-wrap split ring on the belly, and a Spro 1/0 swivel and a VMC 6/0 single tail hook with a hand-tied bucktail on the back.
Mike turns the plug, splits it in half, routs out a space for the weight and glues it with a waterproof glue. I was initially concerned that the glue would eventually fail and the plug would split, but Mike has used this process since 2006 and has not yet had any reports of a plug splitting.
by Charles Harner