Rigged And Ready At Ice-Out

For instance, Persuader offers one of the few smoke-green plastics (the Curly Tail) on the market. The smoke-green Curly Tail not only produces big smallmouths for me every year, it tempts some huge, shallow walleyes as well. I make my own smoke-green plastics by bleeding them, placing 5-inch Kalin clear or smoke grubs into packages of watermelon or green pumpkin plastics. After a few days (unless left in a very warm car or boat), the clear grubs become slightly tinted. After a few weeks they become darker, almost too dark, in some instances.

This is just a suggestion. It requires a lot of experimentation and time to find the shade you’re going for, and some plastics don’t bleed much. Forget about them for a month or so and you might end up with colors designed for the wastebasket. But it’s a great way to add chartreuse, purple, or green hints to subtle grubs, too. And, if you’re a smallmouth angler, what else do you have to do all winter?

I always believed black, white, brown, or grey were the only colors I needed for jigheads, probably because those colors represent about 90 percent of what the market provides in terms of bass jigs. But something made me paint a few football heads watermelon green, and, side by side during numerous hot bites the past two years, watermelon heads produced more strikes than any others. Then I started experimenting with nail polish, which comes in thousands of shades, most of which have never been seen by any smallmouths on the planet. What I discovered is scary and I don’t want to get into it here except to say “mauve.” Take it or leave it.

Combinations of signature colors you can create are almost mathematically endless. Bleed some plastics and paint your own jigheads, choosing shades not found on jigs anywhere, remembering that paints can be mixed. Or try nail polish (remember to put a clear sealant over it or heat will make the polish soft). For the most part, my nail polish experiments have been confined to panfish and steelhead jigs. For those species, I seldom use standard colors found on the SKUs anymore. From what I’ve seen so far with smallmouth bass, I’m leaning in that direction there, too.

Do-It Corporation offers over 50 shades of powder paint alone. Do-It, Spike-It, and several other companies provide a variety of dip paints for customizing every kind of lure. Spike-It pens are very effective for adding orange, chartreuse, and other highlights to plastics while you’re on the water. Creating new colors is one way to stay ahead of the crowd, and a great antidote for cabin fever and bad ice.