Is that the 60g one?

thats a nice colour Rory, I am getting quite into this stick bait thing infact loving it, never really thought there was this much to it, bloody interesting stuff.

does it not pull under with a low rod and slow accelerating action ? have found a few that need the slower action and low rod.

Another one is to take up the slack and do a constant wrist flick,no sweep just a vertical flick of the wrist almost like the start of a back cast flyfishing  ,I guess every turn of the handle I would do two flicks - its quite fast but the constant tension and action gets hard to swim baits swimming...hard to explain  

Falco , like the carpenter dvd for pencils ? Have tried constant tension , with a short sweep similar to how you can keep a killer sub surface . Will try your suggestion tommorow. Sid just got back in and found what you said spot on , very slow sweep and on flat water it seemed to behave, Previously i've tried in quite a bit of chop / wind , but swimming it with the current has helped. Will try a st66 3/0 on the belly tommorow.Used a tight knot today .

short flicks of the rod tip , almost like tapping and a constant wind of the reel , I only tried it the once on a small popper but found it a really diffficult action to get right, something else to practice.Carpenters dvd has them using this technique for pencil poppers.

Tried Sid , Falco and Ginga's ideas briefly ( bad back ) this morning . Preference is to put a 3/0 on the belly and a v.slow sweep find it swims really good , misses some of the really good action 2/0s give it  but more control over the whole distance. Falco's idea gives it a fairly straight retrive but still a fish catching action I think , Ginga's idea actually ended up looking similar to Falco's on the water , slightly more of a side to side swim . I still want it to swim like a stickbait so I'll try the 3/0 on the belly again and also using the 2/0 and maybe even customising a hook with some fly tying lead .Thanks for the good advise , all three ideas were working way better than what I originally had happening.

A couple of videos on working the Maria 'Loaded' surface stickbait

Good idea , will give it a go