When your into the numbers it's hard to stop!

[SPOONMINNOW]

One lake I've fished for over 35 years has gone through transitions. 3700 grass carp introduced by the homeowners 15 years ago did a number on many species reducing their populations from fewer weeds for young fish to survive. Finally the carp are dying off and fish of all species are coming back! When a private lake offers different species that aren't pressured by the public, it gives a lure maker such as myself opportunities to test lures. Long ago I learned to fish and caught fish on all types of lures in this lake and took that with me to other waters. But as of 10 years ago I don't buy lures anymore but make and test them myself. More important is to dispel certain fishing facts promoted by the media for years.

The latest idea I wanted to test was the use of clear plastic lures. Clear plastic does have color via a background color as well as reflects light from the upper surface and internally.
I made a few clear plastic lures in different shapes and started fishing them last week: straight thin tail, curl tail, spiketail and mini-stick. The clear plastic curl tail like all the other shapes caught bass, white and yellow perch, sunfish, bass, pickerel and crappie.
Curl tail, straight thin tail and modified stick:



Note how background color was transmitted through the plastic.

Another was a club tail that had a tint of chartreuse and dipped in Spike-It brown dye:


One lure I didn't make that caught different fish species was a tapered plastic worm rigged on a light jig head.


There are about 6 other types that also helped catch over 118 fish yesterday. But one thing that amazes me every year are the pattens that may or may not be present in a body of water. The fish were found in water shallower than 3' - 5' - no deeper. Mixed schools allowed consecutive hook-ups adding to the numbers. This year spring rainfall has been significant allowing wetlands to be flooded more than usual drawing in spawning y. perch and everything else.
Now that the water is going down and lily pads are getting larger outside the wetlands, fish are again schooled in a few areas or hit-or-miss in others such as the solo 2.5 lb bass caught in 3'.

Good thing I discovered a thin wire to attach to my jig heads. Yesterday 6 pickerel would have snapped the line if I hadn't rigged the wire:
(Crappie Magnet tails)

 

[Hawnjigs]

The first soft(?) plastic lures introduced in HI back when I was a kid 60+ yrs ago were clear plastic which replicated glass minnows and small shrimp. They were somewhat popular within a niche but at the time most preferred the actual live baits easily caught along the Kaneohe Bay shoreline. And, no jig heads were available to mount them on so they had a standard Limerick hook embedded internally in the plastic. Also, a prevalent socio-economic value was to use cheapest possible and for that reason I never actually tried any even tho I had a part time job in a "fishing supply" shop that sold them.

Perhaps it was to catch fishermen that all manner of fancy colors and glitter additives later became mainstream to replace the already effective clear plastics? They sure caught me and they supplanted bait and hard lures in my fishing till JiggerJohn taught me how to properly tie jigs.

These live prey still exist so indeed clear plastic should attract bites speshly since it would be a new look difficult if not impossible to find plain clear colorless plastics available commercially. So nice to be able to create your own.

Personally I'd like to see a fine textured clear tying material.

Do clear plastics work well enuf to be a first choice ?

 

[SPOONMINNOW]

Do clear plastics work well enuf to be a first choice?

Most defintely! 108 fish caught yesterday would not have been caught if I had to rely on hair or feather jigs. Here's an example from yesterday experience:
The water level is slowly dropping in a local private lake I've fished for many years. Since my last report, the fish are starting to leave the shallower wetland and are schooling in water a bit under 3' to 4'. I got to try more lure designs in different colors - including clear plastic and all worked good though curl tails not as much.

One thing I wanted to confirm was that clear soft plastic lures can work as well as colored lures. I made a few clear plastic lures in different shapes and started fishing them last week: straight thin tail, curl tail, spiketail and mini-stick modified. All clear plastic shapes caught bass, white and yellow perch, sunfish, bass, pickerel and crappie. I'll post some copies of the above photos to make a point.

Curl tail, straight thin-tail, modified stick and spike-tail:



Another was a club tail that had a tint of chartreuse and dipped in Spike-It brown dye:
club-tail perch:

Good thing for the wire. All eight pickerel were boated - some nice size:

Good thing for a decent size net.

Also confirmed were the successful catches of all species of fish using a 4" tapered body plastic worm rigged on a light jig. This worm design has worked excellent with this light jig presentation:


Even just the front part of the worm caught fish:


The worm or part of it caught everything from 3 lb bass, and 32" pickerel to small perch. To me, this means the length of a lure is not as important as its action/ profile. This proves in my mind that plastics allow for a variety of actions, profiles and size combinations not accessible using other lure types. Their strike-provoking ability - (and not fooling a fish into striking some prey animal) - is second to none! Plus, I continually learn things about lures in general:

So, what did any of the above prove or disprove by yesterday's catch?
1. clear plastic lures - hard or soft plastic - catch fish as well as any lure with a color or color pattern.
No more shad imitations or any other prey colors.
2. Action tails are sometimes a distraction and put off the bite. Straight-tail designs did great and could be worked slower whereas action tails have to be moved faster. Even the stubby tail design gets consistently bit by all species.
3. Small jighead hook points must be sharp and parallel to the hook shank in order to hook any size fish. If either is off, fish come off. I always check and have pliers and a file at hand.
4. Thin wire attached directly to jigs prevented pickerel from slicing the line. It still allows good lure action.
5. The spincast reel (Lew's) I kept having casting problems using braid was corrected by re-spooling it with 6 lb test fluorocarbon. Distance casting light jigs are good though I'm wondering if line stretch will prevent good hooksets as braid does. Other brands of spincast reels do fine with braid (Daiwa and Zebco).
7. Confirmed were the successful catches of all species of fish using a 4" tapered body plastic worm rigged on a light jig. This worm design has worked excellent with this light jig presentation.

Don't get me wrong. Any single lure above is capable of catching fish (once found) all day long. But casting a variety of shapes, sizes and actions may make a subtle difference you or I aren't able of knowing the reason. Sometimes even larger soft plastic lures are better for all sizes of fish for reasons only fish know.

 

[jiggerjohn]

Yep,clear plastic tails are proving to be a real winner (i'm looking at photo evidence directly above!). But I note that some saltwater fly guys have had wild success with clear, almost invisible ties, and one late,old time fly tier from Florida developed his famed ,catch everything,all-the-time "glass minnow" pattern by merely wrapping clear mono over a hook shank. And,of course, we once had (now illegal) real polar bear hair,the ultimate fish killer it was said, which science now tells us is absolutely CLEAR material ! Check out this quote from nature ranger.com -
"Polar bears are white, but their hair is mostly clear! To recap … when light shines on the Polar bear’s mostly clear guard hair, some light gets trapped in the hair and bounces around, creating luminescence. When it hits a light scattering particle on the inside or salt on the outside, the light breaks up even more and gets sent in all different directions. This light scattering gives off more white-coloured light due to luminescence. UV light also gets transmitted along the guard hairs onto the bear’s dark skin, causing florescence and don’t forget about the keratin protein whose molecules give off a slight white colour. Each of these elements brings you the white Polar bear you know and love."

 

[SPOONMINNOW]

I bet John that the clear plastic lures catch fish even in murky water. The water I fished was moderately clear minus the floating algae of summer and warm water. I'll make more clear lures and try them in different waters to confirm that more is going on than just the visual.

 

[Hawnjigs]

This past seasons trouting firmly established my choice of #6 Sickles vs. straight point round bends for tied jigs. Apparently there was enuf demand for Eagle Claw, Mustad, and Victory to offer their own knock offs of original Matzuo Sickle jig hooks. Even Gamakatsu now offers larger sickle jig hooks.

Unfortunately light wire 60* standard gap jig sickle jig hooks don't exist - in larger sizes they would be my choice for warm water species too.