What Do You Get When You Marry A Bomber WIth A Hogy? The Bogy!

By Kurt Johnson

(Editor's Note: From time to time we get some great ideas about ways to adapt and modify Hogys. Here's one from Kurt Johnson, an angler from Florida who has been using our products with great success for a few seasons both in his home waters and here in the waters off Cape Cod. This is something he came up he calls The Bogy - a "marriage" of sorts between a Bomber hard bait and a Hogy! Gene Bourque, editor Hogy E-Magazine)

Hi Mike,

These pics are hot off the press. The lure is (was) a jointed "Bomber Long A," which you can see I have modified.

The whole trick is at the connecting eye on the back half of the front lure body. It is difficult to unbend and re-bend to accept the Owner 11/0. This I think creates a weakening of the metal and it is very difficult to get the re-bend just right. I have broken a few trying and had to throw them away. The eye of the hook also has a tendency to catch on the eye of the plug and lock the tail to the side causing an awkward spinning of the whole rig. You certainly know it on the retrieve when that happens. It casts moderate to poorly, but when it is swimming like it should, it looks simply too real.

The black Bomber comes with raised red eyes painted with black dots. All the eels I've seen have golden eyes with black pupils, so as long as I was modifying, I took the liberty on these to change the eyes. The top lure has little hobby gem beads that are prismatic and stick out like goggle eyes. I sanded the original eyes flat and adhered the gem beads with super-glue, then Sharpied a black dot in the center. I don't know how well they will hold up. The bottom lure might look like just yellow paint but it isn't. 3-M Scotch-lite reflective vinyl sheets (like the stuff street signs have). I have a bunch left over from when I did boat graphics. I cut out small circles of the yellow-gold Scotch-lite self adhesive vinyl and applied them to the existing raised eyes of the Bomber and then used a heat gun to conform, fit and adhere them to the raised surface. And again the black "Sharpie" pen came in handy for the dot in the center.

Bomber also makes a non-jointed Long A with a clear deep-diver lip in black, which I have obtained as a prototype to modify. They do not make a jointed deep diver. This plug I actually had to saw the back half off and fabricate a rear eye with an epoxy fill plug to attach the Owner hook. I made the eye lay horizontal in the plug and intend to use a split ring to attach the hook and eye together. Maybe that will solve some of the other problems with the hook direct to the eye lures.

I will be using a fish weigh scale to pull test all these lures soon. I have through-pinned the epoxy end of the deep diver for insurance. If the above jointed models fail the pull test at the eye-hook connection, I might have to consider the epoxy plug and through pin for all the applications. But we'll see which hold up to the scale. I'd be happy with a least about 40-50 lbs of straight pull, wouldn't you think? I'm mostly using 30-pound Power Pro, so I think that should be good. What say ye?

I just had to include my last October's big fish from Nobska picture, it's the same one I sent Gene. It's 29.9 lbs - I'm sure you've seen much bigger, but it sure made me a happy camper. And I was even the leader of Falmouth Bait and Tackle's Striper derby for about a week last October. But it didn't hold of course.

Well, that's certainly enough for now, we'll be in touch.

Tight lines, Kurt

(Do you have a trick or technique that you use to tweak your Hogys? If so, please drop us a line and we'll put your invention in an upcoming edition of the Hogy E-Magazine!
Gene)