Senkosam

I agree. And there are plastic designs that are useless with salt. Yamamoto grubs are a prime example considering the fact that too much salt make the tail flimsy and stiffer. Zoom's frog is another and the first year the frog came out, the tail action was non-existent unless you buzzed the bait fast. Definitely can not see myself using salt in finesse drop shot worms. I think the only designs that benefits from salt and extra softener are soft jerkbaits (sticks, rat tails and flukes). That combo sinks the jerk faster on the horizontal drop producing more tip roll and the softness increases the jerk action on the horizontal plane parallel to the bottom. Casting distance is phenomenal, even into a 20 mph wind!

Recently I cast a Bass Assassin rat tail type soft jerkbait (ie Zoom Super Fluke except with a non-forked tail) and caught quite a few shallow bass in a few hours. The plastic had less softener and was more like salt water plastic than regular soft, but still had a decent jerk/dart action. The only thing missing was the fall rate and softness which I prefer to be like the usual salted sticks we pattern after the Senko. At least the hardener improved the drop rate some, but the bait still jerked to the surface sometimes. When do you prefer less salt and softner?

Very professional and puts you at ease. His show targets only amateurs and he's considered doing a show about tackle crafters, by tackle crafters. Tackle crafting is an art and really a separate obsession tied to fishing, as many on TU have realized for years, but for the general public, hand crafted lures (especially those for sale) seem new. He had no idea.

The one and only. It was touch and go for the first hour because retakes (trying to remember what you just said and repeating it exactly) are a real pain! Plus, I gave a guarentee that I would catch five species on the same lure (flash-a-bou jig), as well as bass and picks on a handpoured stick. Thank god the post spawn lake cooperated. I wasn't exactly sure what they were after before filming, but after seeing the dvd, there was nothing I was ashamed or embarrassed about given that it was over 4 hours of tpaed, unrehearsed improv. (Though I kinda do look like the mad scientist pouring sticks. Wish he would have edited that out!)

You can watch all the episodes on: Welcome to Lunkerville! (I'm in the show 'MacGyver', where we catch fish and I demonstrate how to pour worms and fuse hybrid baits.)

A friend just told me about Kosher salt which he mixes with Diamond fine salt. He says the crystals are flat and thin (like mica) and also stay suspended. He usually uses both for weight and says it reduces the amount of stirring. As a big time producer that does a lot of business, he does what he can to save time. (BearPawHandpours)

Diamond fine salt (in most supermarkets) is the cheapest (79 cents for the usual cylinder box) and the best at allowing translucence. LC and others charge too much for fine salt and popcorn salt is the most expensive. Fine salt stays suspended longer, doesn't clog Lee pots and stays on corn without bouncing off!

As long as the plastic is hot enough, fusion will take place. For a hard plastic middle, I would count as I'm pouring and check to see how many seconds it took to come almost to half way. I'd heat two containers at the same time, pour the rear, pour the middle and then pour the rest. Again, fish don't care about a different colored band of plastic - it could be clear.

I wasn't too concerned about the tip colors. In fact, I used some Spike-It dye to color the tips the same or different color or used glitter in the clear salted plastic. Fish didn't care and weren't put off by the small color difference. On a 5" sticks, the weighted tip is about 3/8" from the front or rear of the stick. The amount of salt (fine salt) is dependent on how much you want the tip to level off the fall. (I use about 3 tablespoons per half cup.) On a 4.25" stick, about the same or a little less than 3/8", but the wide gap hook needs the room.

I've been successful this spring with my usual sticks in different styles and sometimes prefer to cast unsalted sticks over shallow wetlands. The slight problem (if you could call it that) is that when I jerk the stick, it sometimes surfaces rather than walks from side-to-side and the Gammie hook does little except on the horizontal drop. I figured out a way to keep the nose level with the body, horizontal to the bottom, and still maintain a high whip-action soft body. It requires a second pour of the front (and/or rear end for rehooking after the front is torn up), 1/4 of the way, with salt-water plastic with a high salt content. Salt water plastic weighs more than regular soft or super soft and salt adds to the weight, plus, it gives you a hard-nose bait that lasts even longer than super soft sticks. The result is a horizontal dart from side to side and a nice horizontal drop with the Senko action. I was able to catch 4 bass and a 18" pick on the same stick last Sunday, poured the way mentioned. FM

If the test comes out positive, swear to them that you didn't inhale!

Thanks SW. Wonder how much they cost back then.

I've been looking for a good silicone and source. Some lure reproductions just have to be done in RV. Thanks guys (RA for posting the question!!)

A friend that I help out and exchange ideas came over this weekend and he brought over some old LC silicone molds. The silicone was encased in wood and the date read 1972 on both. Wonder if Dave was the original owner? The copyright printed on the wood suggests that the name was protected. My buddy bought them on E-Bay.

The problem with sand is that it settles faster than any crystal salt. I believe Senkos contain large crystal salt which they can mix/inject at the same time. .015 sugar flakes, when used in a certain amount, add weight and hold fine salt in suspension longer. Flourized salt is nice because it doesn't clog Lee Pot nozzles but does produce a more opaque bait unless used with sugar flakes (clear flakes).

I segregate most colors anyway and for a radical quick fix, it works pretty good. I even swabbed it with a pipe cleaner on one side to make a laminate. So far so good.

Back to the original post, dropshot or any finesse worm action will always depend IMO on: softness, slim design of at least 3/4 of the worm body to tail and buoyancy. It's been a great topic that opened up a discussion on key attributes regarding the physics of plastic shapes and substance used by us ordinary mortals. I'll continue that discussion in another thread. Thanks for starting this one.

We tried PVC primer instead of acetone but the color medium gray. Acetone worked great. I've been smelling Spike-It for a few years trying to figure out where I smelled that odor. Still can't figure it out. The same goes for Spike -It Chunk Paint which has a shelf life of only a few years after being opened.

I couldn't find the term hyrodynamics, only hydrostatics. hy·dro·dy·nam·ics : a branch of physics that deals with the motion of fluids and the forces acting on solid bodies immersed in fluids and in motion relative to them. The principles of lift, pitch and yaw, etc. found in aerodynamics applies to most hydrodynamics principles. I wonder how many new lure designs were done on a computer loaded with hydrodynamics formulas and then sent to a lazer program to cut the mold.

I got my neighbors 15 yo son into pouring his own and modifying soft plastics. Two things I discovered in our quest this winter was: Using a magic marker to make a perament swirl on the surface of a plastic (his idea and one I'm sure that has been posted before) and the other: For a quickie dye when you want to dip-color without blowing a lot for Spike-It, is to used a small bit of liquid clothing dye in an equal amount of acetone. Black was solid black (not gray) when white plastic was dipped in black for a few seconds, dried and rolled in a paper towel. To prevent black from rubbing off a bit on my fingers, I rubbed worm oil on the bait. I'm sure any of the rainbow of clothing dye colors would work on white or light colored plastic.

I see what you were trying to say, namely, the lowest part or surface of an object suspended in a fluid (and therefore the furthest from the atmosphere), has a greater pressure exerted on that surface than the surface closest to the atmosphere. Having read the thread and done a little research, all the information clarifies to me why battleships float and Senkos don't! But one thing that is so important in lure design that supersedes buoyancy, are hydrodynamics. None of us have to understant the concepts to design a unique lure, but understanding how different lure parts or components dictate why a design is unique, is of utmost importance. I was out yesterday trying different hybrid soft plastics in my pond that my neighbor and I came up with in the winter months. A few baits I thought would do well, didn't; those that I was certain wouldn't have nice action, did. Even the cheap 4" Sassy Shad k/o shown in a previous thread, had IMO as good a shimmy as any of the Bastrix hollow minnow baits going for 200% more. I took photos of the lot this morning and will refer back to them for reproduction. Viewed in the semiclear water with polarized glasses, it was obvious why certain baits worked and at the same time blew away some misconceptions I had of design. The most important thing I was trying for in most lures was how slow I could move them to get action. Those that I had to move very fast to get component or body action, failed the test. Some poured and manufactured k/os, as well as a few Senkos that I thought would have a nice, wacky worm shimmy, didn't. Some Mann lizards were crap! If a soft plastic bait doesn't work in the water in a desired retrieve(s), it doesn't matter how nice the lure looks or feels. Iceout give me the opportunity to test many baits before I do some serious fishing. (BTW, a yellow perch came out from under the ice into the 10' width of open water and tried to take one of the new baits.)

Let me give this a try (with a little help from my old text book). (It’s been decades since I studied chemistry.) Buoyancy is caused by a difference in fluid pressure at different levels in the fluid. Particles at the lower levels are pushed down by the weight of all the particles above them; the particles at the upper levels have less weight above them. Consequently, there is always greater pressure below an object than above it, so the fluid constantly pushes the object upward. (IE a hot air balloon rising into the atmosphere against the pull of gravity) The force of buoyancy on an object is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by that object. An object with greater volume is pushed upward with greater force because it displaces more fluid. If the object is denser (and therefore heavier) than water (or air in the atmosphere, it doesn't matter how much water it displaces -- it will still sink. (IE a sinking Titanic versus one that floated) To put it simply, an object will float depending on how much it weighs (mass) versus how much space it takes up (volume). The forces of buoyancy and gravity cancel each other out when a large enough volume compensates for an objects density. For example, to stay at a particular level, a fish fills its bladder to the point at which it displaces a volume of water that weighs what the fish weighs, causing upward and downward forces to be equalized. A finesse worm floats because its volume compensates for its density and the depth at which it suspends is based on that balance. Suspending jerk baits, hard or soft, take that balance into consideration. To get a salted bait to suspend or float, requires a larger bait volume, which makes me wonder why anyone would suggest using Senkos C-rigged rather than a bait that is more buoyant; ditto for Zoom's heavy topwater buzz frogs. Question: Will an X-rap float upwards if in 60’ of water versus at 15’? BTW, I question whether water temp has much to do with an object's buoyancy. Also, as to the statement, "the pressure is not exactly equal on all sides because the bottom is deeper than the top so on a bait, there is a slight upwards force", the position of a bait's bottom relative to its top has little to do with its buoyancy. A bait could be upside-down and yet relative buoyancy would still be determined by the volume (displacement) / density relationship.

.062 and especially .090 should suspend easily. At 300 or less I never see flake settling.

How much?

Would like to see some pics after you pour a few. The five inch below was poured from a POP two part.