I use quite a few small ice plastics when the water gets cold but not yet frozen over. One of my favorite tactics is to make the baits in glow or glow-in-color colors. Only one of my molds will shoot a small enough bait that in shooting it in solid glow color it won't appear so large when glowing as to spook fish. I have other baits I make that are larger than that one but if I shoot them in solid glow my hooking percentages drop way, way off. For a while I was holding the baits done in solid glow in such a way that only the very end of the bait's tail would get charged but then I don't benefit from other colors...its always been glow or nothing. I've been playing now and here's what I have come up with. I like it.
I'll note that these two baits are not Do-It products but the plastics used in all of them are Do-It components.
In this lit picture you can see the profiles of the baits and that I have done each in three colors. The very end of each tail is done in green glow pigment in clear plastic. In each case the tail tips were snipped off the shot of all glow and put back in the mold. The next, or middle color was then shot. Next I trimmed the bodies back to where I wanted them and put those back in the cavities and finished with the top color. Doing the baits in this fashion allows me to offer color as well as glow.
Except for one bait that decided to roll, this picture is the same line-up of bait after charging a bit and shot in almost total dark. The tail tips show up beautifully.
As seen in the second picture, the amount of surface area that glows is much smaller than the whole bait. With the glow at the eating end of the baits, the fish should have to problem chomping down and finding hook. Both of these baits are shot in very soft plastic so as to get the most action from the tails without having to work the baits hard. The soft plastic n cold water is remarkably tough so loses are very low.
This is what I set out to accomplish and now its just a matter of checking my idea out on the fish. We have a few degrees to cool down yet before I'll ply the waters with these, but at least I will be ready.
