...or your swimbob (swimbait) won't swim, who ya gonna call?
Well, they call me. Before the recent "Big Bait" revolution in the USA, there was one right here in Japan. At that time, there were only two companies that made big (soft plastic) swimbaits--Castaic, and Optimum.
Companies like Osprey, and Rago Baits had successful hardbaits, but had yet to tap into the market where most of the money is--soft big baits.
I did joint venture projects with some of the USA companies, and since my area of expertise (don't laugh) was soft swimbaits, I was the the guy in charge of making the designed proto baits swim. I worked with a designer, who would carve the models, then send the un rigged baits to Japan, where I would modify, and then rig. 9 out of 10 baits that I was sent did not swim well enough for production, some not at all. Any big swimbait will swim straight with a 2 oz leadhead--but we were developing internal harness rigging that had little on no weight, so they had to be perfectly balanced and spec-ed out from the git go.
Most of my job was "cut and paste", which just mens trimming or modifying with cutters, or re-melting with heat. Often the baits would be sent tail-less, and I would attach (melt, or with glue) a series of different boot tails to get them to go. If I got a working model, I tried to duplicate it, and if I did, it would be sent to a master mold maker (I can barley make amateur molds) for production.
Anyhoo, Frank sent me a bunch of swimmies to fish, and a "problem" bait that will swim with a jighead, but not with a harness rigging and light weight. He sent two soft baits, and the hard model.
This thread will be how I modified (and how you can modify almost any bait) the soft bait--I will post later about how to modify a hard model for making a completely new mold.
Here we go, more bait history.
In the 1980, and up to the mid 90's, a group of old school guys were dominating the local WON bass tournaments (again) with an interesting soft bait. Places, typically tough under tournament pressure like Perris, Castaic, and especially Casitas necessitated modifying regular lures/worms if you were to be successful. These guys were taking a regular 6 inch shaking worm and stretching them out to 9 inches. This made the tails incredibly thin, and move with the slightest rod action. Why not just use a skinny 9 inch worm? Because they were not readily available, and these worms were also much softer than typical plastic.
Here is why:
BS (Boil & Stretch).
Looking at the bait, I could see that is was rolling due to taper thickness from the mid body point to the tail, as well as side profile taper, again from about the mid body point to the tail. The head size and proportion, as well as the tail size were very close from the git go, which made this bait an perfect candidate for the boil and stretch. The area in front of the paddle tail was a bit too thick, and could be cut with scissors, but I wanted to try to right the swimming action without loosing body parts.
Boiling will make the plastic much softer, so I reasoned that this added softness would compensate for the necessary extra flex needed in the tail.
I use a eclectic hot water heater, which keeps the water at 98 degrees Celsius (water boils at 100 degrees C)--you can do this on your stove as well. I planned to boil for three minutes, and lay flat on its back on a table, and stretch with my gloved hands. Stretch out and hold until the bait cools. It stretched out about 20 percent, so I boiled it again for three minutes, and stretched.
Compared to the original (top) bait, the bottom one has become much thinner and longer, especially in the place where that was needed--the tail.
You can stretch a straight worm as much as fifty percent--the aforementioned six inch worms were stretched out to 9 inches.
This swimbait did not stretch as much, which tell me that Big Pancho is using saltwater formula plastic, with a little softener; FW plastic will usually stretch much more.
Also, by boiling it twice, it got gummy soft, which told me that it was probably going to swim with a nice kick.
I made a simple harness from #135 wire, with loops on both ends. The left loop is attached to some #100 spectra, that I will use to pull through the body of the bait once it has been pierced with a mortician's (bait rigging) needle. The other end has the split ring that I will attach the hook.
I wrapped the bottom part with some thin lead wire for a little ballast--only about 1/4 ounce to keel the bait.
I slip on a silicon tube, which will keep the lead from reacting with the plastic. How many of you have seen how nasty an internal jig head swimbait can get--a white sticky mess.
Another thing you can do with your leadheads or other lead parts you put inside of plastic swimbaits is to dip in 5 min. epoxy, and let dry before you insert to your molds or swimbaits.
Mark the insert point in the belly, and the exit point on the nose/head, and run your needle through, taking the spectra, and finally your harness through the lure. If your harness weight is thick, you may want to core out a path before doing this.
I put a 2/0 treble hook on the split ring...
and it was ready to test.
It was close to begin with, and with the stretching that made it thinner, and the boiling which make it about twice as soft, this bait swam really nice; I am sure it will catch fish as is.
To do this with every bait takes a bit of time, but what you can do is take the stretched/re configured soft bait, and make a new master, and finally a new mold. You can be assured this time it will swim.
Rock on, Rock solid,
Linear Mode
