BassBlaster

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle… Your Baits?

It’s the end of a long day of bassin’ and you’re packing up your tackle for the trip home when you look into the bottom of the boat and observe a moment of silence for all the “dead soldiers” littering the floor of your rig—chewed-up flippin’ chunks, one-armed creature baits and tubes torn to shreds. It’s at that very moment you have a decision. Do you scoop up the mangled plastics and toss ’em in the trash, or do you try to salvage a few?

I fall into the salvage category. First off, baits ain’t cheap, so it never hurts to try and get more life out of something if you can. Secondly, as I’ve confessed before, I like to tinker with tackle. Whether it’s sharpening hooks, replacing skirts, dipping tails or fusing soft-plastics back together—messing with tackle is how I keep myself entertained in between fishing trips. And third, I’ve been able to repurpose some beat-up old plastics in ways that I think help me catch more fish.

One of my favorite ways to recycle a plastic bait is featured in the picture above. That’s a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver with the “ears” torn off and rigged sideways as a Chatterbait trailer. The vibration of the Chatterbait really makes the broad tail on that Beaver kick. Any time I’m fishing a Beaver that gets too chewed up to hold a flipping hook, I’ll toss it in my Chatterbait box and save it for later. Rigging the Beaver sideways behind the Chatterbait gives the whole setup a perfect sunfish profile.

Jig chunks are another type of plastic I save a lot. Chunks aren’t good for much once they start to tear or lose a claw, but I like to use small pieces of the chunks the same way you use surgical tubing (I always seem to lose that stuff) to hold trailer hooks in place. I just punch the trailer hook into the plastic and thread it on my spinnerbaits or whatever else needs a stinger. Works great.

How about you guys? Am I the only one miserly enough to actually scavenge plastics off the deck after a day of catching fish? Any tips for reusing baits—like how to keep them fresh or moisten them back up after they’ve been used and sat out in the sun all day?

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Rich

    April 7, 2011 at 10:12 pm

    Nope, do it all the time!

  2. Kevin

    April 7, 2011 at 10:17 pm

    I’ve been using Mend-It to repair my soft baits and get more use out of them. I haven’t found too many rips or tears that can’t be fixed enough to catch one or two more fish.

  3. Clem

    April 7, 2011 at 11:35 pm

    What color skirt is that on the ChatterBeaver?

    • Jason

      April 8, 2011 at 9:11 am

      It’s called Clembone’s Bane.

      • Jason

        April 8, 2011 at 9:24 am

        No, actually… are you ready for this? They call it: BROWN.

  4. Bass Pundit

    April 8, 2011 at 3:38 am

    Mend-It

  5. Alex Voog

    April 8, 2011 at 2:15 pm

    I do it all the time, and what I can’t fix/re-use, I put in a big bag for future “sperimentin’ ” , re-melting, or swimbait repair. My fav mod is welding the front ‘spider’ of a Yamamoto Hula Grub to the front of a 6″ Pro Senko (5″works as well) of a similar-esque color. It makes a giant “slender” IKA. Which I fish with the flare as the rear of the bait, it also lets it ‘float-glide’ before sinking. When it stops it flares a bit. The Feeshes, they loves it…

  6. Clem

    April 13, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    Brown? Looks more red than brown.

    I’ll bet they eat the snot out of it, though.

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