Years ago I found that curl and sassy shad tails worked some of the time, but not most of the time. A few years ago I found that no-tail or straight tail plastic grubs worked best whenever I was in the right spots -for even the most inactive fish. One thing any angler can try is to modify what they already own so that the lure can now be retrieved at the slowest rate possible for any fish activity and for most fish species.

It's amazing what you can do with a candle flame to modify a soft plastic lure. The following simple process allows you to modify a curl tail grub into a straight tail and to connect parts of two different lures of your choice.

I haven't been crazy about using curl tail grubs for some time and accidentally caught bunches of fish with a cone tail grub made by accident. Other than cone tails, I found out that thin straight tail grubs worked as well when rigged on light jig heads.
The following straight tail was made from a curl tail:



I like the body of one and the tail of another and decided to fuse the parts using a candle flame:


As you can see, the straight orange tail was cut from the curl tail and fused to the grub body of a different color:


Never hold the ends over the flame for two long or too much melting of the ends happen. I slightly melt one and then the other end and hold together for five seconds:


This was just an example of how you can modify a plastic lure any way you can think of : shorten, add/combine or delete parts, make a new body or tail shape.

The other soft plastic lure making process I use does not require a mold and one design I discovered by accident has made catching fish every time I go out a certainty.

Awesome post with some good information.

Thanks. Small plastics rigged on ballhead jigs account for 95% of all species caught in the lakes I fish. I have five or so basic designs that work all of the time as long as I can locate fish.

For the most part fishing for sunfish I use live worms (Night Crawlers)! I have caught numerous BIG fish form Sunfish to Gar,Tilapia,Bass,Crappie,Rainbow Trout,etc using worms. It's the natural food that all fish seem to like. Just my two cents.



Side Note: I have used the grubs over the years the times that I do fish artificial with very good results!

Great post. I have always cut soft plastics of various jigs and baits to make them fit better on a jig head or to simply modify them for the bite.

Great post! Good information.




Side Note: Modifying soft plastics while fishing is part of the game. Again nice post.