Ice plastics

Started making my own plastics this year and thought Ide post a pic of my ice plastics. So far they catch gills and crappies! And there a lot of fun to make.

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Those are some good looking crappie treats! I bet they would be fun to make and I bet it would be very rewarding catching fish on them. Great looking baits!

They look great!

Mike Johnson wrote:

Started making my own plastics this year and thought Ide post a pic of my ice plastics. So far they catch gills and crappies! And there a lot of fun to make.

I agree, those look great. Do you need a new member on your pro staff? I’d be happy to hawk those to fella fisherman. I wouldn’t even ask for a huge commission, just an “as needed” supply of those to use myself! HA

Seriously Mike, I see you are just up the road from me. I often come there to hunt waterfowl and fish. I’ll PM you my phone number, maybe we are friends that just haven’t met yet.

Those look like some great plastics! Nice job!

Maybe this isn’t the exact place to put this comment, maybe I should make a post but I’ll throw it out there anyway. I have been using strictly plastic for the last 4-5 years and I am looking for someone or perhaps someone knows where I can find clear/transparent micro plastics with sparkles/flecks in them. I bought a bunch from an old tackle shop in northern Wisconsin, best colored plastics I’ve ever used but the shop closed and I haven’t found that style or color plastic available anywhere. If someone could make me some that would be fantastic I’d pay good money for some. They were shaped kinda like the VMC spike tail and CJ&S ratso. If anyone knows where or someone, maybe CT or yourself can make’em, I’d be grateful If anyone could let me know so I could get a hold of some.

PM sent icefanatic

Just wanted to report that they worked great on crappies and gills and was awesome to catch fish on a jig and plastic I made myself!

Those look great! Would never guess it was your first batch of them…

Those look very cool, thought about selling them?

If you don’t mind me asking…
What kind of investment does a guy need to make to get started doing his own plastics?

bullcans wrote:

If you don’t mind me asking…
What kind of investment does a guy need to make to get started doing his own plastics?

x2

Its not bad really. The nicer injection molds are anywhere from $50 to $300. I have not paid more than $100 for any I have. I buy all my stuff from do-it molds with exeption of a some of the molds. You can heat the plastic in any microwave in a pyrex cup. When I first got started I bought walleye sized bait mold for $70 an injector for $50. I learned that you might as well just buy the 2.5 gallons of plastic for about $90 because its not much more expensive than 1 gallon and you will eventually use it. Then the colorants are about $8 a bottle and each will color enough plastic to last me forever. Check out do-its web page they have starter kits and how to videos. I was out the door for around $250 when I first got started, but you could do it for a bit less. I know I’m not saving any money but its fun and I like having the exact color I want to fish with! And I like having a bait no one else has!

“They were shaped kinda like the VMC spike tail and CJ&S ratso.”…per Icefanatic

Kinda like this guy here, bud? The jig next to the plastic is a 1/32 jig for reference to size.

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Tom Sawvell wrote:

“They were shaped kinda like the VMC spike tail and CJ&S ratso.”…per Icefanatic

Kinda like this guy here, bud? The jig next to the plastic is a 1/32 jig for reference to size.

Yep very similar to that CT! I’ll shoot ya a pm

I had to wait until morning to coax this other bait out of hiding. I’ve taken the picture next to a dime and the bait pictured last night is one the other side of the dime. You can see the difference in size here real well. If I am looking to tease fish into hitting, the little dink is the one I use.

As in any plastic, the softness of the plastic is what dictates any bait its action. The larger baits shown here does better when shot with soft plastic for warm water use, but in cold water a medium formula plastic stiffens it up so that the tail does a real nice dance for fish that are nose to the bait and studying it. The stiffer plastic makes the very end of the bait shiver real nice by tapping the rod handle. BUT, winter fishing can also throw the old “down-size” option square in your face. And yes you can bite the body down. However you’ll still end up with a shorter version of the action you had before and actually may tighten the action up to the point that its isn’t so attractive to the fish. Enter that little guy.

The small bait is hardly an inch long and most of that is tail. In fact 3/4 of the bait is tail and that tail is some kind of skinny plastic. Made with a very soft plastic, there is no way you can hold hat bait and keep the tail from moving. The bait is nothing but motion. On a Diamond jig or any other compact jig, this plastic does an absolute war dance in front of fish without hardly any energy put into it by the angler. When things have to get even tinier, this bait’s body can be bit off at the half-way mark and the tail will still retain all of the wild dancing it possesses. The best way to describe the tail on this tiny bait is “alive”. Still, the supple plastic has an incredible amount of elasticity and sunfish are not bale to pluck the tail apart.

I’ve done this small bait in every color imaginable, but the two best colors I have ever used are glow red and blood red, in that order.

If I had one bait to carry on the ice with me, this little guy would get the nod. On a 1/10 Swedish pimple, two or even three of these on the hook are just as effective as two or three spikes.

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Good stuff! It’ll feel extra nice to know that plastics you’ve made are catching lots of fish!

You are such a wise plastic sage Tom, great info and thanks for the reply!

I’m not sure it is even legal to know as much about plastics as Tom does! I would have said it makes no difference until Tom showed me some of his work. It kept me on fish in Dakota last year when nobody else was able to get a bite.