golden shiner

[ctom]

With no snow to melt and stain the waters up here we are seeing water clarity improve daily. At least on the lake I fish the most. As this water quality improvement slugs along, color preferences change and one of late has been from purple/chartreuse to a more subtle one I found in a plastic stuck way in the back of past years' tackle drawer. I had this color on the other until I lost the original bait, but smart me copied the colors BEFORE I went fishing that day. Its not exact since the other bait didn't have the option of the finest CCM glitters, nor did the colors in the bait have any indication of hi lites. Or eyes. Or the Small fry 1.75 profile. The two colorants are CCM amber and baby bass.

Waiting on Carole to get ready for a day trip this morning I decided to squirt a few of these puppies and get some eyes on them so I could add them to the tackle in the satchel. As mentioned, I'll call this one golden shiner and I am really liking the way these colors play with one another. Gotta run now and will be gone the day but I'll get the color recipes up tomorrow after church.

 

[Muskygary]

That looks great Tom,, when I am up in Minnesota we use red tailed chubs a lot as a walleye bait. Have you thought about coming up with a color for that minnow? I have a green back/clear body I use as a emeral shinner. Trying to get patterns on all the minnows.

[BareKnuckleJigs]

Them little Fries look fantastic, Tom.  Baby Bass and Amber, with what looks like maybe some Blue and Purple, and a Gold Eye...that's quite Bluegill.

MuskyG, I've been workin' up some colors in Au Naturale, myself.  I find myself in Gin-Clear Water alot, and I've found Realistic colors work better here.  I'm workin' on a specific Creature as we speak...but yesterday, as I added the Brown, it came out in a steady stream instead of individual drops, so now I can't duplicate it...back to Square 1. 

Jason, could a man use the 1" Ice Pick for Tails on the Small Fries?

EDIT:  Oops.  Looks like that's already posted in the Store (Ice Pick's as Tails).

[knifemaker3]

Nice!

[pjmcla]

Those are some really nice looking baits.   They will catch fish anywhere, north or south.

[bribass]

those look awesome!

[MonteSS]

You are right. Those do blend nicely and naturaly.

....Bill

[ctom]

when I am up in Minnesota we use red tailed chubs a lot as a walleye bait. Have you thought about coming up with a color for that minnow?

Red Tails would take some tinkering, Gary. And I like to tinker. Actually this one doesn't look much like a golden shiner, but I threw the name on it because of the amber belly color. I really like transparent colors and try hard to keep my natural appearing baits as transparent as possible.

The top color is 4 oz of the soft plastic, 20 drops of stabilizer, 15 of softener, 20 drops of CCM baby bass, equal parts of  black, green and purple glitter along with just a smidge of copper, green hi lites. This is the injected color. This color has extra stabilizer because I heat the plastic to 370 degrees and shoot it over the amber, holding a steady pressure for about 10 seconds after the plunger stops.  The extra heat and pressure help to weld the two colors and they will actually mix/blend right at the color junction when done as such.

The belly color is 2 oz of the soft plastic, 5 drops of stabilizer, 8 drops of softener, 5 drops of CCM amber, orange hi lites, equal parts of copper, green, black and garnet glitters. The belly color is spooned into the tailed side of the mold.