Pumpkinseeds

The heat has made me change my fishing habits....I've been heading out and getting home before the sun gets up. I have a lake near home where I can catch trout, crappies, bass, sunfish....you name it. Yesterday's jaunty showed me a couple decent crappies that went back to the water but while handling both of them they spit up their last lunch and most of it was small pumpkinseed sunfish. Got me to thinking and playing after I got home.

A while back i made up some small frys with an orange throat dot, but I wanted to do up some more similar to that first batch but with more orange across the belly's bottom edge. I came up with these.

http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/s...IMG_0787-1.jpg

Every color here is a left-over. The belly orange is a color I keep around for shooting tail pieces. The transparent belly color ia a bluegill that had begun to yellow just a tad from re-heats. The back color is a standard baby bass with some green hi lites add and then thinned out just a hair. One of these took the trip to the lake this morning and I have to say that it did very well on both trout and crappies. That one bait is still on the jig after 7 trout, up to 19 inches, but is minus one eye. All of the fish went back again today.

I use a dip stick to draw the orange line of plastic in the belly section of the mold, hand pour the belly color using a modified teaspoon, then pump the back color. The eys go on and then a top coat of clear thats been thinned down with softener finishes the bait.

Hey, those look good ... the plastics I have the most luck with around my home waters all have a small spot of orange or red on the belly/tail like you got there. PM me if you're taking orders, :).

Nice looking bait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will take 1000 of those they are awesome looking you did a good job.

You should catch a lot of bass also on those as the orange belly with either green or lite blue back is a sure thing for bass on one of my favorite lakes. If I have kids out and they want to fish for some bass I have several casting baits that I have put orange tape on belly wow do they catch fish, kids have a ball.

Very very nice work. I may try and make me a few.

I have noticed over the years that crappies very often hang around active sunfish spawning beds and will be there as long as the beds keep pumping out the fry. There used to "flats" (tiny same year bluegill fry) available in Iowa for ice fishing, too. This is a natural the way it looks to me. The size is also perfect. That size has become my first offering this summer.

I would probably have done some after dark fishing, too, as hot as the days have been, but my favorite park lakes close at 10:00 pm as does any convenient parking. One minute after they write tickets and then may or may not clear the docks as well. Still all our better crappies, or at least most of them, have been coming very nearly complete dark. It definitely pays to wait out the "witching hour". That was true last evening, too, although the other side was still around; my last crappie of the evening didn't make 5". :)

You aren't kidding about how well that plastic stands up to catching fish either. We get a whole lot of sunny nibble on the tails. That is murder on most plastic tails, but your plastics stand up as well as any thing I have seen.

Keep up the good work, if I can shake loose a few pennies, I intend to get a few of those in the picture, if you are offering them for sale. Those last I got from you just won't die, however... Some of them have stood up to easily three or four dozen bluegills.

They look Awesome CTom. Too hot here right now to try and plastics but it sure makes me want to get out in the heat and do it anyway.CF

CTom those look great

that color will tear them up around here I will take 250 of them if you want to sell any

again great bait sir

thank you

Short Grub, you have a pm.

one area i fish those punkinseed and small bream or the main crappie diet. their stomachs are full of them. when you say dip stick i am not so sure i know what you mean. is there any way you can do a few pics of that dipstick process with the modified spoon. i always make a big mess and after the time i put into trying it i get agrevated.. those look great

CS....I work well with my hands in spite of their size and this is one reason I use tools I adapt to a task. The dipstick is nothing more then a bamboo skewer about 1/16" thick. I heat smaller quanities of the dipping plastic slightly hotter [about 360] and load it with stabilizer. The mold gets laid open in front of me on the bench and I wrap the bowl of plastic in a towel as soon as it comes from the microwave and put it right next to the mold. I dip the blunt end of the skewer in the plastic and quickly sweep it thry the part of the mold where I want that color. On the Small Frys I can get the color laid in each cavity without needing to reheat. If the stick gets a build-up on the end that makes things smear a little I just pull the plastic off to clean the stick. Keeping the stick free of build-up is the trick really. And as always, practice makes perfect. Got nothing to do, open a mold amke practice the technique using junk plastic until you achieve a comfort level that allows you to start with the real McCoys.

The spoons I use a just old spoons I pick up at garage sales for next to nothing. Most of them are found in "free" boxes. I heat and test-bend pouring lips along one side of the spoons so that I can pour a small quantity of plastic in a clean stream from them. Keeping the spoons HOT while working with them to pour plastic is the key there. A hot spoon is less likely to "sheet" the plastic, something that causes a lot of aggrevation while trying to get a clean pour.Working with smaller quantities also helps.....don't fill the spoon with plastic, just enough to pour one cavitiy. Again, practicing is the only way to develope a feel for it and you will develope consistancy with the practice.

Something else that I live by is that nothing in nature is perfect. I don't mind some uneveness in the dipping and hand pouring....it gives each and every bait its own unique character. Instead os striving for perfection I strive to work smoothly. Remember that the crippled minnow or the one that looks off base is the one first targeted as a food source. Allowing that line of though to guide you in the small detail work will make things a whole heck of a lot frustrating.

Here are a couple other back colors I have done for some special orders lately. Both are nice and compliment this scheme very well.

http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/s...IMG_0796-1.jpg

In the hand that smoke back is uncanny.

Here is a baby bass over a pearl white lower belly. This is a very natural looking bait.

http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/s...IMG_0800-1.jpg

And this pic shows a smoke over the pearl white belly that is absolutely the most natural bait I have done. There is also a smoke over a chartresue lower belly that grabs the eye too.

http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/s...IMG_0798-1.jpg

ct as i saw on your other post these are just awesome i would really like to try them this summer bt also ice fishing here in upstate ny.
canyou pm me with prices and availability on anythingbyou have on hand.
thanks,
icejohn

Ice....you have a pm.

These look great! I would love to try some. Please pm me also.

CT, could you pm me with prices as well. Thanks