Thread: UV baits

Originally Posted by CTom

I use uv in all of my plastic. The benefits are apparent in deeper water as well as dirtier or heavily stained water. The spray can help but you'll be spraying a lot.I don't offer anything for sale anymore during winter months. I might again about June but will have o see what travel plans look like then.

when you say "deeper water" ... How deep are we talking about?

locally I fish dirty water up to 20-25 feet deep, and clear water to twice or three times that.

Im sure the light penetration is better the clearer the water, and I also doubt that UV baits would have much effect in shallow water.

Being in Minnesota, I imagine you fish for walleyes? whats your impression of using UV baits for walleye?

Originally Posted by CTom

I use uv in all of my plastic. The benefits are apparent in deeper water as well as dirtier or heavily stained water. The spray can help but you'll be spraying a lot.I don't offer anything for sale anymore during winter months. I might again about June but will have o see what travel plans look like then.

You use it in all your plastics, even darker colors like black, brown and what not??? I only had put it in my chartreuse, green chartreuse and orange and what ever darker color it touched, it bled through and turned the darker color a bluish tint.

Originally Posted by warhawk

when you say "deeper water" ... How deep are we talking about?

locally I fish dirty water up to 20-25 feet deep, and clear water to twice or three times that.

Im sure the light penetration is better the clearer the water, and I also doubt that UV baits would have much effect in shallow water.

Being in Minnesota, I imagine you fish for walleyes? whats your impression of using UV baits for walleye?

My name isn't Tom but.........deep to me is 35'-40' plus on the great lakes so crystal clear, walleye primarily.

Found another guy who will add UV to his soft plastics. But he doesn't have a website, you have to contact him thru Facebook, Top Secret Jigs. Good looking stuff too.

Deep can be a relative term. In real dirty water deep might be six feet. In really clear water deep can be sixty feet. The uv additives allow the plastic to reflect uv light....the stuff fish can see but we cannot....in some waters as deep as 900 feet. And for that very reason it is used in all plastic I cook up and all colors. On the fringe of our visible light, the uv will give a ghostly blue-purple appearance to the surface of these baits, especially in the water near the surface.

It takes very little of the powdered product or just as little of the liquid enhancer I have on hand to get the results I look for. Too much and you'll gain nothing but waste. Part of the problem most people run into with using the enhancers is that they are looking for visible change in the baits or colors when those very changes are not visible to us. Add uv enhancer to any color, but try plain black and then put the bait in black with enhancer and one without under a black light and see what you see. The bait with enhancer will look like its a neon light while pain black you cannot see a difference in.

Another misconception is that the enhancer will make a color glow similar to glow pigments. Not true. The enhancer simply allows more uv light to be reflected. In bright sunlight the enhancer allows our eyes to see the shine mentioned earlier yet the fish simply lighter object.....it is like us looking at chartreuse plastics fished at five feet in clear water on a sunny day right next to one of plain yellow. The big difference though is that uv light penetrates very deep into even filthy bad water and the enhancer allows the uv rays down there to work off the baits and become more visible to the fish. Even during low light periods of daylight, the enhancer is working to allow fish to see baits better.

I fish Lake Supior quite a bit and uv coated lures have been hot there for years. I am convinced that our panfish respond to it as well. Fishing with a camera down with the fish we have seen crappies approach a glow plastic on a jig only to turn away from it while an identical jig and identical plastic with uv and non glow was hit repeatedly. Dr. Nip mentioned having it in all colors and yes, i add it to every single batch of plastic I cook. I have some small ice baits at a local shop and we did a little test last winter. One section of baits was uv enhanced and was marked as such. The same baits, same colors wee sold as plain colors. The beginning of the season showed sales leaning to the non uv. By mid season I could not sell a non uv and had a hard time keeping up with the uv baits where black and blood red were the best selling colors and most of these plastics were being used in reservoirs with water in the 30 foot range under ice.

I have made glow-in-the-dark lures in the past. These are some "Glowing Squirts" I made about four years ago. There was not much of a demand for them and the materials cost outweighed what the public was willing to pay for them. I did not see much difference in my own catch rates when using glow or no glow lures. They all caught fish. I retired from making lures a few months ago. Many of the lure makers here know where to get the glowing powder. Just add it to the plastisol the same as you would add drops of coloring, stir and inject the mold. This is what they looked like.

When I used it I only used very small scoop to 4 oz. My scoop was a paint can opener. I think my problem is I need to purchase a black light to see the effect and if I could get away with less.

I only put about half that to 4ozs it's very strong. I had the same results as you with the bleeding so I backed off and it helped. I really can't tell a different in how many fish I catch but fishing is easy most of the places I fish.