Custom Baits - Forum
Soft Plastic Bait Making => Color Cook Book => Topic started by: ctom on 03/25/22 16:55 UTC
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...for hungry crappies.
Essential plastic with Essential 4 drops of Black colorant and three drops of Essential Junebug colorant injected over a clear/partycrasher glitter belly which was brushed with chartreuse Lure Coat across the very bottom of the belly and a red Lure Coat dot applied at the throat end. Eyes were applied and then the body section given a cover dip of clear plastic.
This process makes an unreal bait. With the chartreuse spread only across the very bottom of the belly the clear/partycrasher glitter belly pour still shows thru below the top color. These things are just flat out uncanny.
(https://i.imgur.com/rWja1RH.jpg)
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Those are nice! I'd like to see them with a junebug or bluegill top. Bet they would slay crappies.
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The Junebug is today's project Gary.
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That chartruse lure coat you brushed on the belly. Was that the UV Blast Worm Dip?
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The chartreuse worm dip is the uv blast product Gary.
Here are the junebug backed baits. Just finished them. The darned camera's filtering robs the beauty of these suckers. I have not ever made a bait so close to an actual sunfish as these. The green glitter sets these guys on fire.
(https://i.imgur.com/Aufjs6F.jpg)
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Those look super. I'm going to have to try to copy that pattern!
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Doing the clear glitter bellies then brushing the worm dip on is the clear deal. After seeing the first round of the junebug backs I went back and did another mold full. In the hand they are incredible. I've been in the shop just about all day. Time for a rest and maybe a pizza for dinner.
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Looks great
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I like the junebug on this. Is that worm dip something that will bleed? I’ve used it before but one dip at a time.
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The worm dip is a solvent-based coloring and dries about as fast as you can dip it. Whether it will bleed I have no idea...I just dip and cast. For these baits I carefully brush it on holding the baits by their sides with the nose end straight down so any runs go straight down as well. I dip only the first 1/32" or so of the brush in it to minimize running. Once the eyes are attached of course the baits get the clear coat and I have not noticed any bleeding [yet] under the clear coat.
The junebug back with the green glitter makes these guys look like a very young sunfish. Up here the young-of-the-year sunfish can make up a significant portion of a crappie's diet. We had crappies in buckets and livewells that have regurgitated partial and whole 1/2" to 3/4" baby sunfish. Not just one or two or once in a while, but several at a time and many times. We fished this morning in high wind, dropping water temperatures and basically miserable conditions and the only hits or fish we got came to one of these in the picture.
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I know this is an old thread, however I need to say these Look absolutely fantastic. Thank you for not only sharing the bait, but the instructions on how you did it. Thank you sir. I need to find out if the crappie here in Southwest Missouri like them as well.
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Well Eep, I can tell you that crappies in the far SW corner of Iowa go bonkers for them. A friend's father-in-law was up here in MN visiting and was having his 85th birthday. I had given my buddy a couple of these to try while he was in Iowa and they worked super well for he and his fil, so I invited them over so the old boy could see how they were made. I did up 20 of them. The old fella was impressed. He was even more impressed when I bagged them up and handed the bag to him and said Happy Birthday! For the rest of that summer I got notified when that old timer had been fishing with his "new" bait and caught the heck out of the crappies while his fishing buddy didn't do so well.
One thing I have found with this particular bait color and this bait is that crappies really like it when there is a temperature transition in the water, as in both spring and fall. Both of the baits shown here were fished the day after the last photo was taken on a water where the ice had come off the bay we were fishing three days prior and the water temp was right at 37 degrees. I floated my submersible thermometer out over the open water with it suspended under a large float at about 8 feet where the water was about 10 feet deep and 37 was the only temp we saw. We set our slip floats at 7 feet, rigged up our jigs with these baits and hammered big crappies. Guy on ice across the lake in another bay with similar characteristics were catching nothing using traditional ice tackle.
Since we were fishing from shore we put the crappies in a bucket. as has happened so many times on that lake, the bucket miraculously had a few small 1-1/4" sunfish in the water that the crappies had puked up, some still kicking around and offered further proof that these large crappies were indeed feeding on last year's baby sunfish. Sunfish are a very strong fish in that lake and we think that it makes a big difference in the growth rates of the crappies since winter sunfish fry make such easy targets. And why we did so well on the fish that morning. Now on to the fall fishing. Same lake but right after the fall turnover, deeper water... 18-20 feet. Typical late open water fishing, fishing vertical, no float, in areas where the ice first forms on the lake and where the first ice fishing is best and it was a repeat of the spring fishing for us using these baits on 1/16 heads with #4 hooks. Since this was written, back in 2022, this bait has been our go to during these transition periods and we continue to do well.
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CTOM, Greatly appreciate the info. I will be trying them on a couple different lakes, two of them from the bank and the third when the weather gets better a lot closer to spring. Need to get some work done on my boat hauler before I try to haul the barge (20' pontoon) to the lake. However, this gives me time to make me some of these dandies. Thank you again my friend.
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Thank you again my friend.
Anytime. Happy New Year.
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Yes Sir, Thank You, and Happy New Year to you and Yours From Us...
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I will hand it to you CTOM, You make some sure enough pretty baits. I made up about 5oz of some clear plastic with 1/16 tsp of the party glitter to try my hand at the hand pour portion in a Jacobs mold of the 1-1/2 inch shad body stinger tail 10 cavity mold, and lets suffice it to say I need a lot of practice. I will be using and reusing that plastic till I get it right. This process makes some very nice looking baits when executed right. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us not so imaginative folks.
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Eep.... use old plastic and practice the hand pouring using spoons of various shapes. Teaspoons work best for crappie sized baits. I have bags of old plastic that discolored in reheating or remelting that I use to stay in touch with the technique. I'll get a picture of a spoon that I favor for hand pouring bellies and post it here tomorrow.
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Here is a picture showing the spoon I use to hand pour at the top with a modern teaspoon on the bottom. I found this spoon at a thrift store a long time ago but have since seen quite few. I actually have three of these that were bought together. I think I paid a dime apiece.
Notice the more pointed tip of the old spoon. This is super handy for controlling the flow of plastic when hand pouring smaller cavity portions.
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Yes Sir, I can see where it's a better shape to pour with. Thank you. I need to hit some thrift/ antique stores and see what I can find...Thank you again.
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If you keep at this injection stuff long enough you'll find all sorts of little 'helpers".
Those 2-1/4" Fry baits seen in the couple pictures in this thread have been some super good crappie baits for our boat. They're even better with a chartreuse tail.
The only downside I have found in making them as described is that the bright yellow belly and red throats done with the plastic dip want to bleed over time, even with the clear cover dip. I make a single mold-full of these when I need more and plan to use them up within a couple weeks.
Immediate ice-out and again in the fall when water temps are plummeting are the two best times to use this color pattern, my fishing buddy and I have found. I do know for fact that large crappies feed heavily on sunfish fry of an inch, inch and a quarter, under the ice and is one reason I started making this pattern to use as close to ice-up or ice-out as possible.
And these lil flat side baits are murder on the large crappies during the same time-frame. The orange on pearl in the lower left is an Ultra-light Rippin Rap. The others I airbrushed on blank baits. And they all hammer nice crappies. I don't think I have put a crappie smaller than 11" in the boat using thse guys.
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Them sure are some purty looking little crank baits...