Had a custom mold cut

[TDobb]

I designed a bait in collaboration from one of my good friends who is a top tier ice fishing tournament angler. He wanted some specific attributes to the bait and I think we nailed it. I modeled the bait up in Rhino and got quotes from several CNC shops with prices ranging wildly. I got quotes from overseas vendors as low as 300 bucks but it would be 4 to 6 months before they could get it to me. And I got quotes from local CNC shops as high as $7,500, absolutely insane high. I ended up getting it cut at Protolabs for just about 800 bucks. And yes, that is still a lot for the mold that I got but I have a huge list of guys that want this bait profile and have no worries about recouping my investment on this bait profile.

I will be shooting a bunch of baits in this mold over the next couple nights and getting ready to test them out on the ice this weekend!

[Charles Prestridge]

That will also be killer for crappie and bluegill fishing year-round.

Good luck with your testing.

[Les Young]

I thought it was a wacky rig bait for crappie. Good luck with it & let us know how it goes.

[RangerTim619]

Looks great ,,our Crappie will not bite plastic wish they would.

[21XDC]

our Crappie will not bite plastic wish they would.

Sure... We have smart crappy in MI...

[Whitaker201]

Looks good man.

[FrickerDude]

Very nice

[OH_Ranger]

Looks great ,,our Crappie will not bite plastic wish they would.

Plastics outfish minnows 95% of the time.

OP, bait looks great. I use a similar bait. Southern pro panfish stinger. Shoot any spilt tail colors?

[TDobb]

Plastics outfish minnows 95% of the time.

OP, bait looks great. I use a similar bait. Southern pro panfish stinger. Shoot any spilt tail colors?

Not yet on the split tails. The Stinger is pretty good but this one is designed with that spade on the tail for an incredible swimming action when vertically jigging thru the ice. When you get this thing in the water and pound the jig, the tail almost stays stationary while the head and body give off that swim. I will have to try to get some video of it this weekend out on the ice. All of my panfish tourney buddies are hitting me up for baits and I packaged up 200 bags of them last night to get in my friends' hands this weekend.

And I would absolutely agree with the plastics outfishing minows. We fished these baits side by side with minnows, waxies, and eurolarve last weekend and did better on the plastics than all three variations of live bait. But just like bass fishing, you have to impart the action to make them come alive and entice a bite. If I give a piece of plastic to my uncle who has only ever fished minnows and he drops it down on a bobber, he can sit there all day and not get a bite but he'll catch a couple on minnows cause they tend to move around a little on their own.

[DrewFlu33]

Agree with the plastics outfishing minnows by a pretty wide margin. The only times I've found the opposite is when they're super, super lethargic during a really cold snap, post front type situation under the ice. In open water it's unbelievable how much better you can do on plastics. I like throwing them out under a slip float set to put the bait just above their head, then making that bobber hop in the water, almost the same rod movement I'd use to walk a Spook or a frog. Let it pause for a second or two, and do it again. It's amazing how often that float dunks as soon as I pause.

Those look absolutely awesome, TDobb! PM incoming!