Jacobs mold & machine 1.5" minnow tail grub mold?

[Les Young]

Does anybody have one of these molds?

[ctom]

I looked at it but passed.

[Les Young]

Tom, i have  a fatguys fishing 2" fork tail   slayer mini system  mold that i never use that i thought about either selling & buying that mold or even trading for one if possible. I figured when i needed to down size that this small lure colored up either in monkey milk or made to look like a fat head minnow would get bit pretty good in rea lclear water. I sort of like the simplicity of this mold & i have a few of his molds already & they shoot excellent for me every time too so i thought about giving that one a try.

[ctom]

I have too many molds as it is myself, but a couple come to mind that I seldom go fishing and not have along. Both are Jacob's plastics and both are his silver fish: one in 1-7/8" and the other in the 2-1/4", both without the eye bumps cut in the molds. Both molds cater to the twin injection and make super nice laminates that can get downright scary close to a real minnow. Just about all of the minnows that come from these molds are stored in containers of Gulp juice just like the original Gulp minnows. The molds were bought to very closely mimic the Gulp Minnows commercially available and these are very, very close to identical. When a decent bite starts to slow down or if I have a tough time getting fish to commit one of these minnows will go on a jig and in most cases will produce at least a few or few more fish.

I use Essential plastic but when making these minnows I add softener to the raw plastic at a rate of about 1/2 teaspoon to a cup to give the finished baits just a hair less stiffness since there is not a lot of action to either size otherwise. Getting the molds cut without the eye bumps allowed me to use either a small flat eye or even a 1.5 mm to 2mm 3d eye. When cover dipping I only dipped to the back of the eye so the tail maintains some flex. As a rule, I DO NOT use eyes as I do not like the added bulk to the bait.

If I were to be considering getting a minnow bait, one or both of these two would get the nod knowing what I know now about them.

[olsarge]

I too, am a big fan of the silver fish molds.  I have four of them.  The 2.25 and the 3 inch in both the standard and the swimming iterations of it and I cannot praise them enough.  Having said that I suspect that the little fork tail grub would do just fine.

[Les Young]

I’d rather the tail be upright instead of cross ways. Don’t know if it makes any difference or not but I haven’t ever saw a minnow with a cross ways tail. Maybe I’m over thinking it. Lol

[Fishermanbt]

In regard to the tail orientation, don’t over think it. I know it doesn’t look natural. However, look at 90% of the fluke molds, horizontal and proven fish catchers. Boot tail swimbaits, not natural looking but proven effective. I’m not saying a vertical tail won’t catch fish, I’m just pointing out what that horizontal tail profile can do and that’s movement. A fish isn’t going to inspect a bait hard enough to decide if its tail looks natural. They are going to see a bait fish profile that is struggling and is an easy snack.

I too have the 3” silver fish and love it.  I have caught everything from crappie, bass, trout, and catfish to saltwater fish like flounder, trout, and striped bass. A slight rod tip twitch dead sticking in current, to vertical jigging causes the tail to quiver and trigger bites.

[ctom]

Fishermanbt is right Les. People make people observations, like a tail being horizontal or vertical. Fish make entirely different observations. If we're thinking in human terms, we wouldn't own or make most of the tackle we use because most isn't anywhere near to looking like something in the water that fish might feed on, or the color of something fish actually do feed on.

[Les Young]

Tom as far as bass go i'm pretty simple when it comes to colors.  Crappie is a whole different  story & i know they don't look natural but the what seems like  40 different colors i make  for them  get bit awful well at times so you'd think a tail being horizontal versus vertical wouldn't bother me at all would you? 

[ctom]

With Crappies, I find that geography can play huge part as well as water type when considering color. Up here we either have gin clear water in northern lakes or water with stain to some degree in the south. The clear lakes can be a real challenge when working up a color preference. Locally I have narrowed down colors to fewer than ten, based largely on water conditions, time of day and weather conditions. All colors carry a chartreuse tail. Pro Blue/pearl white laminate color is as close to a natural color as I get.

Purple/chartreuse tail, junebug/chartreuse tail, my bluegill glitter mix of copper, blue,green and purple flake in equal portions in clear plastic with a chartreuse tail, a wild holo glitter called Partycrasher in clear plastic/chartreuse tail and .008 sized copper and purple, equal portions, in clear with a chartreuse tail plus the Pro Blue in the 2-1/4” or 2-1/2” Fry bait really rounds out my color range. I will do the bluegill color in .008 glitter instead of the usual .015 and there are days when the glitter size makes a difference.

I have a great degree of confidence in these colors and will vary the presentation before I step outside of this color range.

[Les Young]

I have a great degree of confidence in these colors and will vary the presentation before I step outside of this color range.

Makes perfect sense to me. 

[Lamar]

  Yesterday we had a bright sunny day so I took the boat over to my local lake. This time of year I like taking a square bill and crank the ends of trees that hang over deeper water. It needs to get a little bit colder but caught a few nice bass. I got to this one lay down that the next lay down had boat fishing it and started doing my deal. I saw what I thought was a crappie take a swing at my bait so I got in my rod locker and grab my spinning rod that I had a jig tied on and three cast in a row caught three pretty nice crappie. So I put the trolling motor on high to go around the boat ahead of me to the next lay down. As I passed the boat he said hey you left them bitting over there to which I replied Na crappies are for sissy's.

[ctom]

You fess up to catching crappies so that must make you a wuss, eh? Lol

Way to getter Lamar.