Customising Soft Plastics #3: What’s Cooking?
In my last two blogs in this series I’ve been exploring the exciting subject of customizing your soft plastic lures to alter their actions, colours and sink rates in order to better suit specific applications, fishing scenarios and target species. As I explained in both of those blogs, this entire subject area of customizing plastics is a branch of tackle tinkering that far too few Aussie anglers appear willing to experiment with. Many seem to believe that these lures must be used in exactly the form supplied for sale by the manufacturer. But as we’ve been discovering, that’s not the case at all! In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike most hard-bodied offerings, softies lend themselves extremely well to individual input and fine tuning from the angler, allowing you to clearly stamp your own personal identity and fishing preferences on the lures you use.
In the first blog on Customising Soft Plastics, I focused on tweaking colours and patterns using various dyes and marker pens to achieve specific results, whether attempting to “match the hatch”, suit the environment, stand out from the pack or simply emulate a successful hard-bodied lure finish. Last time around, in Part 2, we pulled out the scissors, razor blades and hobby knives and started playing with the actual shape, bulk and profile of these versatile lures to adjust their actions, overall sizes and sink rates.
This time, I want to look at the intriguing subject of lure hardness and its impact on action, “mouth feel” and durability. So, let’s kick off by tackling the subject of relative hardness in soft lure materials:
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Great read mate (as always!)
Do you ever find the plastic can melt entirely?
Also just out of curiosity have you ever thrown plastics in the freezer ? Say overnight?
Thanks Kris! No, I’ve never melted them completely but I reckon it’s possible! Haven’t tried the freezer thing, either, but it might be worth a go on heat-affected plastics??
Hey Starlo
This is particularly interesting in the context that there are now so many companies producing soft plastics, not to mention all the model variations within one company.
I started using Squidgies a few years ago but moved away from them because I (as some others do)perceived them as being too soft and easy to tear. I went hunting for other brands that gave the same action at low speeds and caught as many fish. I’m still looking.
At roughly 50 cents to a buck each, I’m now much happier going through a few different Squidgy tails in a session in the knowledge that it’s mainly fish attacking them that causes them to tear!
Cheers
Graz
Graz, you’ve nailed the paradox of soft plastic manufacture. Harder, longer wearing plastics lack the action and “mouth feel” of softer, less durable ones. Manufacturers constantly walk that line. With Squidgies, we erred on the slightly softer side, knowing they’d catch more fish… and hoping people would be less annoyed at chewing through tails when the reason for doing so was a higher strike and hook-up rate! So far, so good…
Hi Starlo,
Thanks to your Squidgy Secrets DVD and the Starlo Classix Squidgy Light rod I recently purchased I have fallen in love with soft plastic fishing (Im actually pretty new to fishing in general).
Anyway I wanted to try SP’s in the surf as its fairly close to me, but the local fishshop just snickered when I asked for a suitable rod.
Just wondering if your Classix Surf is suitable for flicking SPs? the main thing is i dont want to get tired flicking an excissvly heavy rod.
Thanks.
Squidgies in the surf can be highly productive! However, try the Starlo Coastline Light rod rather than the heavier Surf, David.
Cheers,
Starlo
Is it possible to melt torn up tails and pour them into Squidgy molds. If so ,where can you get the molds
I guess you could try breaking into the factory in Indonesia and stealing them. 🙂 No, they don’t sell the moulds. Sorry. But you CAN heat weld broken and torn soft plastics back together. Cheers, Starlo