Soft plastics

[Todd_B]

I am thinking about making my own soft plastic baits mostly flukes and worms. Does any body have any experience with the companys that sell the molds and plastic materials. Which companys has everyone tryed and which ones do you like. Thanks Todd

[mainbutter]

Yup! I used to do a lot, but as I fly fish more now my soft plastic production has halted while I have plenty of inventory to fish through

A few things to keep in mind:

1) It's not cheap to start

2) It may not be cheaper than buying in bulk from other small-time guys

3) $7 for a pack of senkos, $10 for a 6 inch line through swimbait, and $18 for a dahlberg mr whiggly is ridiculous, markup is very high on those items

4) Mostly it's fun to make and fish your own. I have the most fun out of fishing the lures that I carved masters out of wood by hand, sealed with epoxy, and made silicone molds with.

My soft plastic process is very basic, but it works on any open pour molds. The short process is to mix the plastic, heat the plastic in a pyrex measuring cup in the microwave, add color/glitter, pour hot plastic into mold, let bait cool.

My best advice is to get a few aluminum molds of standard plastics you like to use a lot, which for me are senkos and large swimbaits. Get a 5 gallon bucket of soft plastic, buying any less is pretty expensive per amount of raw plastic. Get a paint stirrer insert that you use with an electric drill, it is the best way to mix up your raw soft plastic before heating.

I don't use injectors, I only use open pour molds, and cannot speak to them. Injectors are often used for multiple cavity molds, especially smaller baits. Big swimbaits are often open pour, and senko knockoffs go either way.

I'd recommend hitting up some of the lure making specific forums on the good ol interwebs and see what everyone else is doing these days. New products have come out, specifically new plastics and additives. I'm still adding salt to my senkos to get them dense enough to sink and not float, but I think that's not what is typical anymore. There may even be new plastics on the market.

As for molds, those are still exactly the same thing with 2 options - open pour vs injection, in every shape and type you can think of. I found the aluminum molds from basstackle were cheaper and had the shapes I was looking for, but del mart and bears baits have pretty strong followings.

Lurecraft has a DVD available that shows the soft plastic process. You can probably find the same info on youtube, but I bought it anyways when I purchased a few of their silicone molds. Silicone molds are often not the same quality as aluminum, but at a drastic reduction in cost I like to have a few onsie-twosie random swimbait molds hanging around.

All in all I highly recommend it. You can make a LOT of baits with 5 gallons of raw plastic and have a ton of fun doing it. Just make sure you do your homework and find some websites where people are jabbering about everything to do with making soft plastics

[Agronomist_at_IA]

I am thinking about making my own soft plastic baits mostly flukes and worms. Does any body have any experience with the companys that sell the molds and plastic materials. Which companys has everyone tryed and which ones do you like. Thanks Todd

well i just bought a kit for $50 with everything you need to do it and it comes with 5 great molds. played with it today.......worked great. PM me if you want the place for the kit.