Ice lure mods

After seeing a few youtube clips and reading a couple articles I’m beginning to go down the path (and potentially deep hole :)) of modifying a few ice lures. Adding some VMC bladed hybrid trebles, clam feathered trebles, VMC glow resin trebles, and putting on a few northland minnow head hooks with gulp minnow heads threaded on from above. Did up a few in buckshot flutter spoons, swedish pimple, buckshot spoon, frostee spoon, and a couple rippin raps. Interested to try them this weekend. The blade at the bottom of the pinhead minnow has great action and got me thinking a bit about this project. We’ll see…

Along that same line… Anybody pre-rig some plastics to have in their jig box? I have a few clam maki’s on clam drop jig xl’s. A couple northland blood worms on gold tungsten jigs. Also a couple tungsten jigs with silkies. Pre-rig so I can use a drop of super glue so they stay in place. What do others do?

For plastics I don’t want them glued. I switch them out all through the day. And they stay just fine, I caught q5 walleye and 20ish perch on 1 plastic last weekend on one of my jigging rods. As for bladder hooks on spoons I haven’t jumped on that band wagon yet but I’m sure it works or has its place and time. I won’t be rushing to change mine out. The glue on the plastics is something I do in the summer pitching jigs but I haven’t seen the need vertical jigging small plastics, unless I know exactly what one they want, I like to change through them

I stopped at JR’s Tackle a couple of weeks back and after chatting with them I had a couple of ideas.

I have been ice fishing for quite a few years and the early years we did not have much of a selection of ice spoons available to purchase. Now I have 30, 40 or 50 spoons that I have not used in years. Swedish pimples and several models/brands that I do not recall the names. This was back in the days when glow paint and paint patterns were either non-existent or pretty plain. Most of purchases of spoons in the last 10 or so years I seem to have more confidence in them and the old lures sit idol.

I just purchased on Amazon some glow paint to revitalize some of these old lures. In looking at reviews on glow paints on Amazon I seen a lot of people disappointed with the results. I went with brand that had the highest amount of positive reviews that I could find. This arrived a few days ago and now I have to find some small paint brushes to apply. I wonder how many small paint brushes that I tossed over the years and I now probably have none…….

On your glow jigs and glow plastics, if you keep a few of each in small ziplocks in a shirt pocket inside your heavier clothes to keep them at body temperature, they stay charged longer and charge faster because they are warm.

A remote camera flash attachment is probably the best source to charge with due to the intensity of the flash. Remote, as in like a flash unit that fits on a camera with a shoe at the bottom and takes its own 4 AA batteries. I have one I use to charge plastics in the summer that’s probably 40 years old.

Those old lures Terry refers to are excellent summer lures for fish too, ranging from sunfish to walleyes, when fished under a slip or static float.

Jimmy Jones wrote:

On your glow jigs and glow plastics, if you keep a few of each in small ziplocks in a shirt pocket inside your heavier clothes to keep them at body temperature, they stay charged longer and charge faster because they are warm.

A remote camera flash attachment is probably the best source to charge with due to the intensity of the flash. Remote, as in like a flash unit that fits on a camera with a shoe at the bottom and takes its own 4 AA batteries. I have one I use to charge plastics in the summer that’s probably 40 years old.

Those old lures Terry refers to are excellent summer lures for fish too, ranging from sunfish to walleyes, when fished under a slip or static float.

Keeping my glow jigs warm in my jacket for longer glow a is a great idea. One I had never even thought about.

Ive been running the bladed trebles on jigging spoons for a few years. As well as the feathered trebles. Just started doing the epoxy trebles last year and havent noticed a decline. Ive also added the smallest bladed trebles to Darters,slab raps, and rippin raps.

As far as plastics, i have thousands, but always seem to use the same 2-3 in the same color so I tend to rig up two of each before trips and store them in my jig box.

All the jigs in the world and I still use 1 or 2 go to’s. You can buy all the new $9 ice jigs you want I will still out fish you. LOL

bigcrappie wrote:

All the jigs in the world and I still use 1 or 2 go to’s. You can buy all the new $9 ice jigs you want I will still out fish you. LOL

There are jigs that were introduced over 20 years ago that still take a huge part of the panfish of what’s caught annually. There’s only so much that can be done to the bsic jig to improve it and I think that such improvements were already done, long ago.

Put a gulp minnow head on a vmc bladed treble that I put on a PK spoon that is glow red dot. Can’t wait to try that!

People have been making small adjustments to lures since inception. It isn’t about having the newest lure, but the fun of making things yours and trying to catch fish. Jigs, blade baits, flutter spoons; I don’t share the opinion that there haven’t been improvements in 20 years.

Sometimes it’s a minnow head, some times it has to be minnow tail, next time they only hit horizontal jigs…the best of times they would hit a rusty hook with no bait.

acarroline wrote:

Put a gulp minnow head on a vmc bladed treble that I put on a PK spoon that is glow red dot. Can’t wait to try that!

I can confirm that this is a great combo. Even with no bait. PK Spoons are super underrated.

Jimmy Jones wrote:

On your glow jigs and glow plastics, if you keep a few of each in small ziplocks in a shirt pocket inside your heavier clothes to keep them at body temperature, they stay charged longer and charge faster because they are warm.

A remote camera flash attachment is probably the best source to charge with due to the intensity of the flash. Remote, as in like a flash unit that fits on a camera with a shoe at the bottom and takes its own 4 AA batteries. I have one I use to charge plastics in the summer that’s probably 40 years old.

Those old lures Terry refers to are excellent summer lures for fish too, ranging from sunfish to walleyes, when fished under a slip or static float.

Not quite seeing the practicality of trying to keep your lures warm for longer lasting glow charge. When ice fishing, once you drop it down in the water the lure gets cold and you are back to square one. Unless you change lures that often.

Walleye fishing yesterday – I was reeling up every few minutes to recharge with UV light. Seems like a lot of wasted time not having the lure down fishing but I have seen some great results from a freshly charged glow lure.

Warm lures charge deeper than cold ones.

Jimmy Jones wrote:

Warm lures charge deeper than cold ones.

Yep, I understand that. So, do you change lures every 5 or 10 minutes and put a warm lure on?

I no longer ice fish but while I still did I would take a minute every 10 minutes or so to get the lure warm. I carried all of my replacement plastic in my shirt pocket in a small zip lock though. I carried a small zip lock with an assortment of glow jigs in my pocket as well.

A lot of factors come into play with glow. The quality of the pigment used is a big one. The color also determines the length of time a charged lure does a good job of glowing. Red and orange have the shortest glow life. Blue and purple are the hardest to get to take a deep charge. The easiest and longest lasting glow will come from the pigments that create that eerie greenish glow and some of the pigments used to create that can glow for a very line time. At one time I got my mitts on some glow pigment that three m used is manufacturing glow tape that the navy used in submarines and that stuff had a glow life of about 4 days. I still have some of the tape product but it’s too heavy to have a practical use on any glow tackle.

A UV flashlight will charge most glow pigments better than a standard light or camera flash.

Stopped at a bait shop with a buddy and came across the Clam Silkies. He claimed they worked well, but I had never heard/saw them before. Picked some up and watched a YouTube video on them, and they look interesting. Haven’t tried them yet, so can’t report if they work or not.

Following up with a the mods from this winter using great ideas from this group and others.

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acarroline wrote:

Following up with a the mods from this winter using great ideas from this group and others.

Lot of fun things you can do to make mods. Id be skeptical of the plastic minnow heads. Looks like there is not a lot of hook gap exposed. I also 95% of the time fish a spoon without anything anyways and still lose fish.

The other thing I like to do is if I have a spoon, rapala whatever that has a pattern I dont like, or if they are on clearance. I take the hooks and splits rings off and send em to Mike larson to have them custom painted to how I want them and its only $5 to do.

Thank you for the thoughts, CW. Time will tell on the impulse minnow heads and hook size. Putting them together let my fingers know the hooks are sharp but what you’re saying could be an issue. One of the reasons of those are to find active fish and then make adjustments, or get back down to an active school quickly. I tried to modify a decent variety of spoons and sizes, knowing that I have unmodified versions in the box to switch up to when needed.

Perch eye lure mods…

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Cw wrote:

A UV flashlight will charge most glow pigments better than a standard light or camera flash.

Sorry, but I disagree. One can’t get the same glow with a UV light in the same time as a camera flash. And the UV light can’t compete with a high intensity light. The lumens are not there. I still like to use my UV glow ring. It is just not as good.

I have been making and twerking lures my whole life. Sometimes it has helped, sometimes it has not. Fun playing around all the same. I make my own hair trebles, blade trebles, drop hook, tick tack, clicker, tail flaps, glow resin trebles, ect… None were a game changer. But some mods did save a couple of outings. One never knows what the fish wants.

Instead of small paint brushes, look at nail art supplies. They are not brushes and I am not sure what they are called. I see my wife use them all the time. It is a metal pen thing with a small ball at the end. Toothpicks also work.

I agree that we never truly know what the fish actually wants. As it goes sometimes the simple traditional rigs of weight, hook, plus a blade out performs any retail lures. Then again sometimes the hot lure of the day, just happens to be that one modified lure.

Or one thing is that one certain lure that’s seen so much wear and tear with busted paint job, is always the hot lure. Still out performs it’s same duplicate brand new one.

Few more perch eye mods

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JJ-Do they know what a ‘camera flash’ is?!
As JJ would be the first to tell you for crappies if they are anywhere near your bait any time in the dark they will see it because their low light vision is so good (dogs have great low light vision too but that’s off topic) Could it pull them in from further away? maybe, if they are in the mood to move. Some swear that a dull green glow is the ticket and not bright anything-some swear by red. Could be that it is like rattle lures, sometimes attractive sometimes repulsive.

tim hurley wrote:

JJ-Do they know what a ‘camera flash’ is?!

There is that Tim. Of course it’s only of a hundred beneficial aspects of fishing that they haven’t a clue of.

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Roadside minnow perch eyes this time.

My old camera flash went down a hole on Upper Red about 15 years ago.