Not being an ice angler has gotten me antsy for open water.... kind of like the early open water we had last spring. It's also had me in the shop on warmer days digging with this or that mold cooking up baits to had on the ready. I picked up a new mold not long ago to partner with its smaller cousin. I've had a 1-7/8" minnow mold for eons and got the 2-1/4" to up-size and I think it's going to be a super good bait. There's one in the pic mounted on a 1/24 head with a #6 hook.
Being new to me I had to check out its usefulness at the injection station. Basically, I wanted to see how twin injection did and how well tails weld. First I whipped up a couple hundred baits in chartreuse just to harvest the tails. Next I got the twin injector out and did a shot using a mix of blue, purple and fire opal micro glitters, all colors from Do-Its line-up, on top and the clear belly with quite a bit of the fire opal in it. Sharp looking bait and as expected, the twin injection was fine. Then I tossed a mold full of tail stock and used the twin again only in a purple back with a clear bell that has some super cool looking color shift in it that, of course, doesn't show up for the camera. The tail weld was solid as a rock with the twin injection so I'm calling it a good morning in the shop.
There is zero colorant in either the blue or purple.... just glitter.
The next string of warmer days will see me out there filling a new tackle tray with my pet crappie colors, plus I'll have some plastic's bagged with the same colors in them soaking in minnow flavored Gulp juice.
I swore last fall that I was going to take the winter off from the shop stuff but guess how that has played out. I have a mess of walleye plastics to make soon, but I hope it warms a bit by the time I get out there to do them.
