Customizing Soft Plastics
How would you customize a soft plastic? It
is impossible you think? You can’t just simply
trade out a treble for a red one. You can’t take
a marker and mark it up. Dip N’ Dye doesn’t
count in my book as a “customization.” I am
talking customizing baits that fish in your
lake have not seen. If you are reading this and
want to make your own custom soft plastic,
then I have the answer for you.
Since the invention of the soft plastic
worm and the inevitable arrival of all the
derivations; grubs, hula-grubs, creature
baits and tubes, anglers have tried in various
ways to extend the lifespan of these baits.
A package of Crème worms was only a $1
investment in 1970 but the average hourly
wage was only $2 so those five worms were a
valuable commodity and sad was the moment
one was lost or damaged beyond further use.
Skip forward a few years to the inception
of super-glue and the widespread use of it
as the replacement for the carpetbagger’s
snake-oil and miracle-cure. Claiming superstrength and the ability to fix anything
from your mother’s china to grandpa’s
pipe, cyanoacrylate was touted as the
future of adhesives. Enterprising fishermen
soon experimented with super-glue and
discovered that it would glue most soft plastic
baits together when they’d been damaged by
hooks and fighting fish. The downside was
Page 9 | Fishhound Mag
cyanoacrylate glues stick to your skin and
more than a few anglers spent any money
they may have saved while repairing their
lures, on a doctor visit to separate their
fingers!
Super-glues also dried hard and almost
always dried with a white, crusty residue
where the soft lures were repaired. This hard
spot in the lure often completely negated the
attractive undulations, the natural motion of
the l