Been a long time since I had this mold out, but with all the rain and not being able to fish or get in the garden I figured it was a good time to get some colors put up for the summer season.
The baits are 1.75" and are a pretty decent minnow imitation. Crappies love these guys at times and just as the spawn is winding down is one of those times. I like to hang the baits on a 1/32 head with a keeper, no float, and cast them to where the water transitions from the shallow spawning water to deeper water. The larger hen crappies will move off the beds after dropping the eggs and like to hang right on that transition picking off small minnows that like to move along that transition.
The colors shown are all Keitech colors that I like to carry. On the left from top to bottom are: Table Rock Shad, Pro Staff Special, Pro Blue and Chartreuse Shad. On the right from the top are: Bluegill Flash, Blue Phantom, Copperfield and Green Pumpkin Brown.
The Table Rock Shad is a simple bait using Purple [ in this case I used purple with purple glitter] over watermelon w/ red flake.
The Pro Staff Special is Fluorescent Orange over watermelon w/red flake.
The Pro Blue here I have made the color quite thin and injected it over partycrasher glitter instead of the usual pearl.
Bluegill Flash is simply a stronger base of Pro Blue with black, gold and blue flake. The gold shows up as silver in the pic, sorry. This is injected over a medium pearl with sparse black and gold flake.
Blue Phantom is again the stronger Pro Blue with black and some very sparse blue flake over a medium pearl.
Copperfield is a medium watermelon w/red and black flake injected over a thinner pearl chock full of copper flake and a sparse small black flake.
Green Pumpkin Brown has a touch of small black flake and some bronze hi lite injected over a very thin pearl [almost silver pearl with small black and some small gold flake.
All of these were done with a twin injector. All were done using Do-It plastic, flakes, hi lite and colorants.
These baits are injected and then stacked into Gulp Minnow jars nose end first. When the jar is full, fresh Gulp Minnow scent in added to finish filling the jars. They stay in this bath until they are put on a jig and go back in it when I finish fishing the bait. I am convinced that when stored this way the baits take on at least some of the Gulp scent which helps in their productivity. I keep 1.5" Thump-Its and Wax Wigglers the same way. For the naysayers, don't knock it until you've tried it.
I love to study color plates of the different bait companies and Keitech has some amazing color combos. These are but a few. I've used all of these before with great luck, of course having to search of productive colors when water and weather conditions change and merit a color search. Now my stock is restored along with the usual junebug/chartreuse tail and purple/chartreuse tail numbers. I think I ready to do battle with the crappies now.
Good fishing this season everyone! You too Lamar!
