I am a fairly avid walleye angler but recently a friend and I decided we need to work on becoming better at hole hopping and scratching out panfish to tide over the mid winter lull. As I look at hole hopping I can see many of the benefits of using plastics. The problem is I don’t have much experience and thus confidence in using plastics only. I would appreciate any advice and or pics of some of your favorite panfish rigs!!! Good luck on the ice.
Look down a few pages and there are a few threads that have been started on this already.
I haven’t bought any wax worms in over a year because we use our own homemade B-Y Baits plastics. I admit my opinion is a little bias (a friend and I designed and manufacture them in his basement and just started the company last october), but i have used these plastics for the past 3 ice seasons and haven’t needed to use anything else. We catch bluegills, bass, crappies, perch, walleye and white bass all on our miro plastics. Here are a few pics of some presentations. PM me for more details or check out our website. We have a link for tips and techniques right on the homepage. Also, if you check out our facebook page, i try and put pics of our presentations on there as well.
Darrin
Thanks for the photo! Is that your favorite color combo?
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Look down a few pages and there are a few threads that have been started on this already.
I haven’t bought any wax worms in over a year because we use our own homemade B-Y Baits plastics. I admit my opinion is a little bias (a friend and I designed and manufacture them in his basement and just started the company last october), but i have used these plastics for the past 3 ice seasons and haven’t needed to use anything else. We catch bluegills, bass, crappies, perch, walleye and white bass all on our miro plastics. Here are a few pics of some presentations. PM me for more details or check out our website. We have a link for tips and techniques right on the homepage. Also, if you check out our facebook page, i try and put pics of our presentations on there as well.
Darrin
I hate this web site. All I due is buy new stuff. 
LOL Actually these are great. I’m fairly new to ice fishing and these thing really catch the fish!! Thanks guys!! 
We have used lots of other plastics in the past and have had success w/ Trigger X, J and S, Little Atom, Etc. These are all great companies that make quality products. The reason we decided to make our own was because of those really tough fishing days, where most people shy away from plastics and go to a wax worms/spikes/etc. This is where ours shine because of the realistic detail and soft plastic construction that makes them come to life in the water. Just look at this comparison picture. We have researched commonly found bugs and larvae and designed our baits to match. To me there is no comparison.
Do other plastics work? Definitely, Yes
But ours work when theirs don’t and that’s the difference 
Maybe we could even convince Andy to give them a try?!?!? 
Good luck out there!
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We have used lots of other plastics in the past and have had success w/ Trigger X, J and S, Little Atom, Etc. These are all great companies that make quality products. The reason we decided to make our own was because of those really tough fishing days, where most people shy away from plastics and go to a wax worms/spikes/etc. This is where ours shine because of the realistic detail and soft plastic construction that makes them come to life in the water. Just look at this comparison picture. We have researched commonly found bugs and larvae and designed our baits to match. To me there is no comparison.
Do other plastics work? Definitely, Yes
But ours work when theirs don’t and that’s the difference
Maybe we could even convince Andy to give them a try?!?!?
Good luck out there!
Send him a free bag. After trying them he’ll want them.
Raymo, the other benefit to using plastics over traditional live baits is it’s faster and easier to change your presentation. Say you are using waxworms and the fish are still coming to check out your presentation, but just won’t hit it like they would 30 min ago. What do you usually do? Tie on a new jig to try a different color. We all know how difficult it is to tie on a new jig in cold weather w/ the 1-3 lb test line that is as thin as a hair. That’s what’s great about plastics. Generally i will use the same tungsten jig all weekend (usually a gold, white or perch pattern) and just change the plastic when i need to change the presentation a little bit. It’s so much easier and usually that’s all it takes is a little different color or style to get those finicky fish to bite.
life1978, you should have seen it 2-3 years ago when we first developed these plastics and would go fish a community hole on the river. We made them for ourselves and no one but a few close friends and relatives used them. There were days where no one was catching anything and our drag would be screaming every couple minutes till the crowd moved right in on top of us. Then when they’d get to close, we’d move outside of the mob and start catching them out of all the holes people vacated. haha good times
Raymo, my favorite color combo is a gold tungsten jig and a white or brown plastic. I usually start w/ white or brown and fine tune the color from there. The MayFly seems to be the hot bait this winter, but i have had good luck w/ the BloodWorm and WaterBug the past few years as well.
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We have used lots of other plastics in the past and have had success w/ Trigger X, J and S, Little Atom, Etc. These are all great companies that make quality products. The reason we decided to make our own was because of those really tough fishing days, where most people shy away from plastics and go to a wax worms/spikes/etc. This is where ours shine because of the realistic detail and soft plastic construction that makes them come to life in the water. Just look at this comparison picture. We have researched commonly found bugs and larvae and designed our baits to match. To me there is no comparison.
Do other plastics work? Definitely, Yes
But ours work when theirs don’t and that’s the difference
Maybe we could even convince Andy to give them a try?!?!?
Good luck out there!
Those look very cool. Nice work
I save my used plastic worms from summer bass fishing and trim them into little strips. Fish love that PowerBait in winter as much as they do during open water. It’s better than gulp too, which it too oily for my preference.
mplspug, that is kind of how we got our start. The first mold we made had 4 cavities to make 4 different baits in one shot. We started out just melting down our powerbaits and trigger x plastics that were ripped or melted to the inside of our tackle boxes. From there it became a sickness. Constantly tweaking designs and playing with different scents and colors. Trying to find the perfect hardness of plastic so it would have good motion, but wouldn’t get ripped off your hook when the first bluegill smacked it. There is a lot of work that went into each and every bait and color we carry. It took a long time to get our process down so we can consistently make a quality product. We laugh now when we look back at some of our older plastics because they look terrible compared to what we have today. It’s also funny looking at our first molds that we got less than 10 plastics from each shot because now we get at least 10 times that from each one. We would work our butts off just to get a good selection of plastics for us for the weekend, let alone our friends who wanted them.
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We have used lots of other plastics in the past and have had success w/ Trigger X, J and S, Little Atom, Etc. These are all great companies that make quality products. The reason we decided to make our own was because of those really tough fishing days, where most people shy away from plastics and go to a wax worms/spikes/etc. This is where ours shine because of the realistic detail and soft plastic construction that makes them come to life in the water. Just look at this comparison picture. We have researched commonly found bugs and larvae and designed our baits to match. To me there is no comparison.
Do other plastics work? Definitely, Yes
But ours work when theirs don’t and that’s the difference
Maybe we could even convince Andy to give them a try?!?!?
Good luck out there!
The plastics do look nice, but I have so many plastics that I don’t need to be buying any more. Maybe next year. But if you want to send me a pack, I’ll put them to the test 
Kevin22, we would love to have you as a customer next year, so please keep us in mind. I am willing to bet you don’t have any plastics in your arsenal quite like ours though I’m betting you’ll come around
We honestly don’t have many freebies to spare these days. Everything we got goes to filling online and bait shop orders to try and keep up. I have been trying to get some freebies together the past couple weeks to send to some very nice folks who helped us get to where we are today, but every time i would get some set aside they would get robbed to fill orders. Good problem to have i suppose, as long as it doesn’t start cutting into my ice time
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I am willing to bet you don’t have any plastics in your arsenal quite like ours though
I don’t know that I’d bank on that.
Darrin, thanks for all the insight on plastics I always love to hear what people are doing that’s new and different and it’s really cool you started your own company I think that’s most anglers dream is help pay for our obsession at least a little bit. I will be looking at your website and PMing you with any further questions.
Hey Dimer,
I can’t get through to you website. Even when I Googled
it and tried that access ….it was a no-go.
Help if you can.
tweed
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I am willing to bet you don’t have any plastics in your arsenal quite like ours though
I don’t know that I’d bank on that.
Dance off?
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I am willing to bet you don’t have any plastics in your arsenal quite like ours though
I don’t know that I’d bank on that.
He’s right.. I don’t have any of those little mayfly looking things. But I do have about 3000 custom ice plastic tails
I would like to try some of your plastics but I cannot access your website either.Just quits working. I PMed you on a couple questions. Thanks
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life1978, you should have seen it 2-3 years ago when we first developed these plastics and would go fish a community hole on the river. We made them for ourselves and no one but a few close friends and relatives used them. There were days where no one was catching anything and our drag would be screaming every couple minutes till the crowd moved right in on top of us. Then when they’d get to close, we’d move outside of the mob and start catching them out of all the holes people vacated. haha good times
I love when that happens. Best so far is last time I was out I used white plastic from you guys I got in Sparta. Offer the father in law one. He of course said no. He’s the old school meat works best type. was catching 4 to 1 against him. His bite slowed and he still wouldn’t switch. We’ll see what he says today. PS…. I’ll prabaly start using website to order too. Wife doesn’t like me driving to Sparta all the time.. LOL 
I have to admit I wasn’t much of a plastics guy. I have bought some in the past but never really caught anything on them, until I bought some from B-Y bait. The gills seem to love the mayfly plastics. I hardly used a waxworm at all last weekend. I also just ordered a mixed bag yesterday to try a few different ones. I had no trouble with the website.
For me it all started with a yell out from a guy just as I started to walk on the ice who asked if we fish with plastics. I was handed a sample pack and since that day I have not wasted any time sorting out dead bugs from a snoose can 
The mudbug and mayfly have been my favorite design but I have done well with the blood worm also.
I have been in community holes were I have seen guys catching one fish after another on waxies, 4-5 inch hand chillers that is. Only yards away my numbers being caught at times will be fewer but, my fish have been much bigger. It’s funny how the little dudes shy away while the plastic entices bigger pannies to hit. And if one of those pesky little bug eyed finned critters do take a whack at the bait it stays on so you are not wasting your time rebating.
I’m glad to hear of others having success with the plastics.
So what brand an type of plastic has been your go to plastic. Just wondering I might go after some crappies while I am on my 2 weeks off.
B-YBaits have been stellar!
Last year i rarely fished a day that i didn’t do good w/ either a white or brown B-Y Baits waterbug.
This year it has been purple, pearl pink and sweet potato B-Y Baits MayFly or MudBug. There is something special about our new MayFly. Rarely when ice fishing for panfish do i need to use my pliers to remove my hook, because you can usually just poke it in the direction of their throat with a finger and jar it loose so you can just dump it out. This year there have been days when we found the right color/style that they would have that plastic swallowed down to their a** because they smacked it so hard. Never seen that before with plastics. Usually you have to time the bite just perfect to set your hook, otherwise they figure it out and spit it out before you set your hook.
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