glow plastics

I am up here in Minnesota and I have been shooting glow plastics for ice fishing. My recipe has been real simple, even after trying a couple different plastics. Bears and Caney plastic recipes out the same so here it is.

4 oz plastic, soft formula
12 drops of stabilizer
1/2 - 3/4 tsp glow pigment, depending on the glow color

The pigments I am using glow in color, meaning glow purple glows purple even if the pigment and plastic show up a white to the eye. The glow green makes the plastic look a thin, milky green but glows an un-real bright green while the glow red turns the plastic a watered down orangish-pink but shows up red hot red when charged. Hit them with some direct sunlight or give them a pop from a camera flash and things sure take a turn from some drab colors to eye. Man these are bright when charged. Crappies and panfish love the plastics done in these colors. Perch are all over the glow red.

I have used a glow pigment from a specialty place for a number of years to use with my jig paints and it has served me best in pure pigment form so it was only a natural to try in the plastic. The three colors I mentioned have been my mainstays in the glow stuff eventhough I have four or five other colors I could do, so I am going to stick with the 3 for now.

The glow red and glow purple pigments are flour-fine and consolidate with the plastic real nice and don't seem to settle terribly fast, but I do take a second to give the plastic a quick stir before filling the injector each shot. Being a little grainier and denser than the other colors, the green likes to find bottom fairly fast so a stir before each injector filling is imperative.

I haven't been able to see where this pigment has weakened the plastic any. I am using the soft formula and adding only enough stabilizer to keep the plastic from scortching because of the pigment load. They still are very soft, yet very stretchy and the tail's action is still something else.

I shot about 250 of each color late yesrday as a trial run and after plucking the baits from the core laid them out to cure up a bit on a tray. I did this while watching the boob tube. The wife was shutting stuff off before coming to bed and was gone for quite a while so I went to see what was holding her up and here she was looking at that tray of plastics, glowing away in the dark of the room. lol Like a child. lol I have to say, that was certainly an impressive site....an sea of multi-colored sperm look-alikes glowing in the dark. Mission accomplished is all I said. I'm going to try and get a pic of that tray tonight.

What size and type of tails are you making. I may be interested in a few, if we ever get some safe ice this year.

this is a excellent post we do not use stabilizers we do use glow I do not like using colors I prefer to use it straight white to get all the glow I can out of it the reason why I do not mix in colors is because it cuts down on the glow.

Glow baits work good in some of the stained southern waters that I fish.

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Originally Posted by snake River

this is a excellent post we do not use stabilizers we do use glow I do not like using colors I prefer to use it straight white to get all the glow I can out of it the reason why I do not mix in colors is because it cuts down on the glow.

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Don't mis-understand here. I am using straight, clear plastic, no color. The pigments I use glow in the colors mentioned and slightly stain the clear plastic. Any color added to the plastic inhibits the transfer of light that creates the glow. The glow purple pigment is almost pure white, dry in the package. I can hit it wth the camera flash and it glows purple. I don't add the purple or red or green to the pigment nor do I color over the pigment, the pigments are designed to glow in those colors.

I added the stabilizer because the pigments are heavy and might heat faster than the plastic. I didn't want to work around scortching issues.

Tank....

Almost missed this question.

The ice plastics are an inch long and the body section is a mere 1/4 inch in length, maybe an eighth of an inch in diameter. The 3/4 tail is super fine and cannot be held still. These small baits do the best job of adding color via plastic to small jigs without upsetting the balance of the bait. The head end is large enough for secure hooking but it is not heavy enough to throw things out of balance.

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Originally Posted by CTom

Tank....

Almost missed this question.

The ice plastics are an inch long and the body section is a mere 1/4 inch in length, maybe an eighth of an inch in diameter. The 3/4 tail is super fine and cannot be held still. These small baits do the best job of adding color via plastic to small jigs without upsetting the balance of the bait. The head end is large enough for secure hooking but it is not heavy enough to throw things out of balance.

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Attachment 77670
is the picture similar to what you have would like to know if you guys icefishing if the glow makes that much difference in catching fish.

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Originally Posted by CTom

Tank....

Almost missed this question.

The ice plastics are an inch long and the body section is a mere 1/4 inch in length, maybe an eighth of an inch in diameter. The 3/4 tail is super fine and cannot be held still. These small baits do the best job of adding color via plastic to small jigs without upsetting the balance of the bait. The head end is large enough for secure hooking but it is not heavy enough to throw things out of balance.

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Are they available for purchase?

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Originally Posted by snake River

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/attac...s-dsc_0030.jpg
is the picture similar to what you have would like to know if you guys icefishing if the glow makes that much difference in catching fish.

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Snake, all of the ice jigs that are my go to's are glow. About the only thing I use that doesn't glow are my ice flies.

where are you getting those type glow pigments and are they expensive?

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Originally Posted by crappieseeker

where are you getting those type glow pigments and are they expensive?

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they are about the same price on the glow is that what you pay for regular colors we are getting our glow pigment from lure-craft .

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Originally Posted by Tank 1

Are they available for purchase?

Snake, all of the ice jigs that are my go to's are glow. About the only thing I use that doesn't glow are my ice flies.

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yes they are available in the above picture are on the website.

Wow....the topic kind of took off here.

First, yes I sell the ones I am refering to and will try to post a pic tomorrow showing some....can't promise those in the glow colors other than on a tray in daylight. I am working at getting a glow shot done tonight but my digital camera skills leave a whole lot to be desired so don't stay up late waiting. lol

The glow pigments I order come from glowinc.com . They sell a variety of glow products but you will want to focus on the powder, or dry, pigments. And no, they are not cheap. I purchased 4 oz each of the purple and green and 1 oz of the red for doing some plastics, not being certain how much was going to be needed in each batch per color. I paid almost $300.00 for those three colors in those quantities. I have several colors of the pigments in small quatities that I use in painting jigs that I sell on my website. The three colors I have used in the plastics are the most common colors being asked for by ice anglers.

I think I saw a question asking whether these glow colors work and the answer is a very pointed yes. The glow red under the ice is maybe one of the most aggressive fish catching colors we here in the north have come across in the last few years. The glow green I have is called Ultra Green Glow and has a charged life of hours, not "an" hour. It is by far the brighest green glow I have ever seen. The purple glow is unique in that it is closer to the end of the spectrum where uv is located. UV we cannot see, but fish can. The glow purple fits in when glow red seems to fall on its nose. Glow purple gets more of my attention in open water and ice fishing than any of the other glow colors. I think that the fish react to these colors simply because they don't have colors like this at depths the fish lay in when its cold and they are lethargic. Glow in color plastics simply tear the crappies and sunfish up here in the north as do the jigs painted with glow in color paints.

People can feel free to pm me regarding the plastics I have. I'm not sure what the policy for the site is about mentioning too much so pm's will work for me.

Looked at the web site and didn't find it. Can you post a link to what you are using?

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Originally Posted by snake River

yes they are available in the above picture are on the website.

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Bob, those will also work in deep water presentations for soft water fishing. They are not just for hard water anymore.

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Originally Posted by crappieslab

Looked at the web site and didn't find it. Can you post a link to what you are using?

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Glow in the Dark look to the left, second iten from the top....glow powder.

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Originally Posted by shipahoy41

Bob, those will also work in deep water presentations for soft water fishing. They are not just for hard water anymore.

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Ship is right. I have some two inch curl tail grubs in glow white and they work great on the crappie in these stained southern waters.

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Originally Posted by CTom

Wow....the topic kind of took off here.

First, yes I sell the ones I am refering to and will try to post a pic tomorrow showing some....can't promise those in the glow colors other than on a tray in daylight. I am working at getting a glow shot done tonight but my digital camera skills leave a whole lot to be desired so don't stay up late waiting. lol

The glow pigments I order come from glowinc.com . They sell a variety of glow products but you will want to focus on the powder, or dry, pigments. And no, they are not cheap. I purchased 4 oz each of the purple and green and 1 oz of the red for doing some plastics, not being certain how much was going to be needed in each batch per color. I paid almost $300.00 for those three colors in those quantities. I have several colors of the pigments in small quatities that I use in painting jigs that I sell on my website. The three colors I have used in the plastics are the most common colors being asked for by ice anglers.

I think I saw a question asking whether these glow colors work and the answer is a very pointed yes. The glow red under the ice is maybe one of the most aggressive fish catching colors we here in the north have come across in the last few years. The glow green I have is called Ultra Green Glow and has a charged life of hours, not "an" hour. It is by far the brighest green glow I have ever seen. The purple glow is unique in that it is closer to the end of the spectrum where uv is located. UV we cannot see, but fish can. The glow purple fits in when glow red seems to fall on its nose. Glow purple gets more of my attention in open water and ice fishing than any of the other glow colors. I think that the fish react to these colors simply because they don't have colors like this at depths the fish lay in when its cold and they are lethargic. Glow in color plastics simply tear the crappies and sunfish up here in the north as do the jigs painted with glow in color paints.

People can feel free to pm me regarding the plastics I have. I'm not sure what the policy for the site is about mentioning too much so pm's will work for me.

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but apparently the pigment that you are getting from this place is a lot better than what we can get from our local suppliers your stating that it shows or glow longer which would make yours a lot better in the long run so I definitely would stick with the pigment that you are getting though it may cost a lot more but it may be more effective in the long run and thank you for definitely sharing with this post you definitely put a lot of good information for us guys to read in we all appreciate it.

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Originally Posted by shipahoy41

Bob, those will also work in deep water presentations for soft water fishing. They are not just for hard water anymore.

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they have been using glow colors a long time for saltwater fishing is we started buying plastic skirts many years ago from a company in Seattle Washington that made a small 1 inch in my other one inch and a half these were made out with a florescent head and a glow tale but the skirts were terribly hard body I mean you could fish with them all day in the fish could not destroy very tough material or plastic they are no longer available I had a few left a while back they were very popular when we had them but they were very expensive for resale I believe that glow colors have been used for many years for freshwater fishing such as for salmon and steelhead in the Northwest it didn't come about until later on they started to use it in freshwater or I should say pan fishing I would like to mention about the colors red penetrates in water very deep is fish can see red a lot better in to make it with a glow would make it a lot better uv colors are very effective so if you guys get a chance to use them do so I do have some more powder painting and uv I had never used it to make up anything yet but I definitely like this post because it points out a lot of things that are very important to the industry besides the fishery or fisherman that use glow colors in the past I have worked with a major manufacture developing pigment colors for steelhead and salmon fishermen I will tell you a little secret in case you guys are interested in obtaining blades such issue walleye fisherman and the guys that use small blades for pan fishing we were using a high industrial paint that was used for instrument panels in aircraft this paint is very expensive but the unique thing about this stuff is it does not fade and sunlight and it will take a pounding this is a baked on finish or I should say the material that we were using was baked on on not so sure that powder paint would do the same thing is we did not have this available back when I was working with this company so the industry has changed a lot over the years since powder painting, board I still use a lot of vinyl paint to work with though it may be very smelly to work with for some people but I put forward over others such as powder but we use a combination of powder and vinyl to gather we like to paint the eyes with vinyl over powder paint with a certain reason that vinyl paint does a excellent job making eyes now that I got kind away from the plastics here but I did want to pass on that information in case you are working with jig heads for using with plastic baits the good thing about using vinyl and powder paints that it works good with plastics.

Do they sell it by weight or fluid ounces?

The powder form sells by weight.

I use way more purple and green glow on leadheads than I do the red so I get 4 ounces of those colors and an ounce of the red. After mixing the 1/2 tsp of red pigment into the 4 oz of plastic I think I could even cut back some, but it appears that I'll get about 6 batches at the 4 oz rate per batch. I shooting pretty small baits and after about 300 baits I still have enough in the cup to do maybe 1000 more, so bait size will determine the cost effectiveness of the glow pigments I use. I use glow in ice tackle primarily but will be trying some for open water plastics a little later on here.

I had nice sun a while ago and was running some errands thinking when I got home I could shoot a pic or two of the plastics I am making so you couls see the difference between mine and the one shown. But of course now that I am home, the clouds cover the sun. I'll try later.

wow that stuff is too expensive for me, but I bet it looks good and works good

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Originally Posted by CTom

Wow....the topic kind of took off here.

First, yes I sell the ones I am refering to and will try to post a pic tomorrow showing some....can't promise those in the glow colors other than on a tray in daylight. I am working at getting a glow shot done tonight but my digital camera skills leave a whole lot to be desired so don't stay up late waiting. lol

The glow pigments I order come from glowinc.com . They sell a variety of glow products but you will want to focus on the powder, or dry, pigments. And no, they are not cheap. I purchased 4 oz each of the purple and green and 1 oz of the red for doing some plastics, not being certain how much was going to be needed in each batch per color. I paid almost $300.00 for those three colors in those quantities. I have several colors of the pigments in small quatities that I use in painting jigs that I sell on my website. The three colors I have used in the plastics are the most common colors being asked for by ice anglers.

I think I saw a question asking whether these glow colors work and the answer is a very pointed yes. The glow red under the ice is maybe one of the most aggressive fish catching colors we here in the north have come across in the last few years. The glow green I have is called Ultra Green Glow and has a charged life of hours, not "an" hour. It is by far the brighest green glow I have ever seen. The purple glow is unique in that it is closer to the end of the spectrum where uv is located. UV we cannot see, but fish can. The glow purple fits in when glow red seems to fall on its nose. Glow purple gets more of my attention in open water and ice fishing than any of the other glow colors. I think that the fish react to these colors simply because they don't have colors like this at depths the fish lay in when its cold and they are lethargic. Glow in color plastics simply tear the crappies and sunfish up here in the north as do the jigs painted with glow in color paints.

People can feel free to pm me regarding the plastics I have. I'm not sure what the policy for the site is about mentioning too much so pm's will work for me.

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Its easy to find....the site rules/policy is at the very top of every page....just click on it.

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Originally Posted by snake River

they are about the same price on the glow is that what you pay for regular colors we are getting our glow pigment from lure-craft .

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we have to apologize but the pigments are definitely different prices I thought they were about the same but they are not think the case here is you get what you pay for the pure wanting high quality glow pigments you have to pay for them.

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Originally Posted by CTom

Don't mis-understand here. I am using straight, clear plastic, no color. The pigments I use glow in the colors mentioned and slightly stain the clear plastic. Any color added to the plastic inhibits the transfer of light that creates the glow. The glow purple pigment is almost pure white, dry in the package. I can hit it wth the camera flash and it glows purple. I don't add the purple or red or green to the pigment nor do I color over the pigment, the pigments are designed to glow in those colors.

I added the stabilizer because the pigments are heavy and might heat faster than the plastic. I didn't want to work around scortching issues.

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I'm more clearly understand what you're talking about now I should've read your feedback before I posted I have a bad habit of doing this the pigment that you're using sounds very interesting we may have to get some to work with it is not like what I thought it was just stuff that I'm using is different.

To All.. Hint taking pictures of Glow baits --Take one picture in dayligt or cloudy just to show color of plastic when not glowing, Second take another picture same layout on cardboard or similar with items numbered in same position as first but this time darken room a little and use Flash. The flash of camera should light the glow up beautiful.

Well I took a chance on them and ordered some beause I use midsouth glow all the time and have glow from the suppliers but it only glows the light green color. Been wanting to do a red/chartruse (both glow) because red disappears first in the light spectrum and hope to fish deaper with stained to muddy water.I have other ideas to I want to try also.

Sounds really neat! What does that equal out to per jig though? Sounds way too expensive for me to play with, I dont Icefish anyways, but sure am looking forward to a pic or two

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Originally Posted by crappieslab

Well I took a chance on them and ordered some beause I use midsouth glow all the time and have glow from the suppliers but it only glows the light green color. Been wanting to do a red/chartruse (both glow) because red disappears first in the light spectrum and hope to fish deaper with stained to muddy water.I have other ideas to I want to try also.

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Red disappears first as it descends in the water, yes. Depending on water color and water clarity, it may not take long either. But the concept behind glow red is exactly as you suggest....it takes the color red to new depths, pun intended. The assumption is being made up here where glow red is a hot color that the fish are seeing something deep that they have never had before them before at that depth and react strongly to it.

My thought is that I always have good luck with Midsouth red/chartruse glow in stained water and when the water is on the muddy side red is useless and then have two go to blk/chartruse glow,If that does not work I run into problems finding a color that works.

information that may shock you we found out many years ago fishing in muddy water that most of the colors that I was using did not work I made up a plastic jig that was chocolate color that were terrific don't know why but they seem to like that shade of brown morsels in white or chartreuse or any other color combination you may give that a try and try the chocolate brown to see if it works for you in muddy water I made and it was closer to a cup of coffee that you added milk to to get that shade of brown .

seems weird to read this because red I know once was a popular color in my area when the water was muddy.

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Originally Posted by snake River

information that may shock you we found out many years ago fishing in muddy water that most of the colors that I was using did not work I made up a plastic jig that was chocolate color that were terrific don't know why but they seem to like that shade of brown morsels in white or chartreuse or any other color combination you may give that a try and try the chocolate brown to see if it works for you in muddy water I made and it was closer to a cup of coffee that you added milk to to get that shade of brown .

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Small mouth bass in a stained dirty river water love a jig, a big medium brown head with blk/brown or Blk/blue plastic here in Illinois. I always start with the medium brown not tan jig head and 85% of time stay with it. Brown is a winner in nasty water in my book at least for smallmouth, for crappie I usually go with chartreuse & black but maybe I just learned something --time to try/find brown body with chartreuse tail.....................

Well I guess I will have to try the brown/chart and black/blue and the idea I have and see what works. Every year in the spring the water turns muddy after the rains in spring.:dono
Thanks for the replies and I will let every one know what works.

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Originally Posted by jaxsprat

Small mouth bass in a stained dirty river water love a jig, a big medium brown head with blk/brown or Blk/blue plastic here in Illinois. I always start with the medium brown not tan jig head and 85% of time stay with it. Brown is a winner in nasty water in my book at least for smallmouth, for crappie I usually go with chartreuse & black but maybe I just learned something --time to try/find brown body with chartreuse tail.....................

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yes I like Brown's because they are natural in color to the fish most fishermen like something that looks Purdy and not natural tell you one thing the others that I made in Brown's nobody would ever want them they were definitely ugly but they sure did catch fish especially in that muddy water.

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Originally Posted by crappieslab

Well I guess I will have to try the brown/chart and black/blue and the idea I have and see what works. Every year in the spring the water turns muddy after the rains in spring.:dono
Thanks for the replies and I will let every one know what works.

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the Browns may not look good with other colors but the fish have something else to do about that because of the natural color to them.

A friend is a professional photographer and took these pics tonight of the glow baits I am making. Of the three, the one that gave him the biggest headache was the one that does the best job of glowing, the green one. The red and purple seem like they are the strongest glowers, but the green is. It glowed so bright that he had to make all kinds of adjustments to quiet it down to shoot it and now it looks splotchy. In the hand, the green is a great color. They all are. Keep this in perspective....these are only 1" long.

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/glow_grn.jpg

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...r/glow_red.jpg

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...low_purple.jpg

WOW!!!! those look great CTom! The purple is so bright it almost makes me nauseous! Crazy Good looking jig.

These were photographed by putting a small dab of super glue to the head ends and sticking a super small, thin wire hook to hang each of these, one at a time, in a darkened light box. The camera was on a tripod and focused while the room was light, the shutter was remotely controlled. The plastic would get the charge, the lights turned off and when the plastic had se ttled a little, the remote was pushed to shoot the pic. The plastics were so light in weight that the activity of shuttling off the light even required a second person or the air in the room would set it in motion simply by walking past the light box. You'll notice how the tails seem to fade out on a couple....that was the tail actually having spun around to the rear a little and went out of focus. These three pics took over an hour to get. lol When the pics hit the computer, any visible portion of the wire was editted out of the pic.

One other aspect in the pics too is that the red and purple pigments are as fine as or finer than talcum powder while the green tends to be grainier and coarser. The green does however make it all the way into the whip end of the tail, just hard to see and get on film.

The glow purple is my all-around favorite glow color for crappies.