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Jack Wollitz: Save cash, catch fish with home-made lures



Published: Sat, June 29, 2019 @ 12:00 a.m.

Many anglers get a special satisfaction when they catch a fish on a lure they fashioned with their own hands.

When I was a youngster, I confiscated a pine dowel from my father’s basement shop. I cut a four-inch section, sanded one end to a rounded point and the other to an angled face. I inserted a screw eye to which I tied my line, hung two treble hooks on eyes screwed into the dowel and painted the top black and belly yellow.

Soon enough I caught a little bass on my homemade black and yellow lure. It was perhaps my most special catch up to that point.

Fast forward to 2019. I have added another dimension to my own arsenal of lures. I have begun repurposing used soft plastics and love it when they continue to produce long after other anglers might have discarded them.

My interest in extracting a few more bites from a tattered tube, worn worm or bruised beaver-style bait began a couple of years ago when I purchased a little bottle of Mend-It soft plastic glue.

The glue enabled me to repair tears so that a tube, worm, creature bait or craw trailer might serve up a few more fish despite their battle scars. I essentially doubled the life of my stash of plastics.

I also discovered the glue worked great in grafting the upper part of one kind of lure to the bottom end of another. I welded craw pinchers on tubes, twin trailers on beavers, twister tails on stick baits and all manner of other crazy creations. They all caught fish.

The sky is the limit when it comes to color combinations a clever angler can concoct with the plastic glue.

But all good things eventually run dry and my Mend-It bottle must be replaced. I haven’t found it on local store shelves, so until I ordered a few online, I was temporarily without the means to extend my soft plastics’ service lives.

Or so I thought.

With all due respect to the great companies that market their plastics specifically as trailers for jigs, spinnerbaits and bladed jigs, other options are available – including repurposed plastics.

Though they may no longer stay put on the shank of a hook or remain Texas-rigged so hook points avoid snagging logs, stumps and aquatic plants, my pile of Sweet Beavers and Rodents can continue to chew up the largemouths I enjoy catching.

They are perfectly functional and decidedly effective as trailer bodies on bladed jigs. They add bulk, color and a different action compared to the standard trailers we bass anglers have become accustomed to using.

They also are versatile in how they can be rigged. I’ve found the bladed jigs kick up a fuss like a fleeing perch, bluegill or shad when I rig the bodies so the tail section is vertical. They also glide like wounded prey when the bodies are threaded onto the hook horizontally.

I add a dab of Super Glue to the hook shank to hold the trailer bodies securely. The set-up can survive four or five solid bites and battles before the trailer needs to be replaced.

Repurposing soft plastics saves money over the long haul, but more important these days is the fact that extending their usefulness results in less scrap in landfills or – worse – on the bottom of our lakes.

Jack Wollitz is a lifelong angler who writes about fishing in Northeast Ohio and ideas to help us enjoy our time on the water. He appreciates emails from readers. Send a note to him at jackbbaass@gmail.com.


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