Materials science explores how the physical properties of fishing lure materials influence action, buoyancy, durability, vibration, sink rate, and fish response. Learn about plastisol, elastomers, natural materials, synthetics, metals, and other materials used in modern fishing tackle design.
Temperature changes color. That is the entire idea behind thermochromic fishing lures — and it sounds like a gimmick right up until you understand what is actually happening inside the bait, and when water temperature changes fast enough to matter on the water. This is the second article in the effect-pigment family covered on the…
Plastisol is the material every soft plastic fishing lure is made from. Understanding it — what it is, how it behaves, how to work with it, and how it fails — is the difference between pouring baits that fish well and last, and pouring baits that tear, scorch, go brittle, or come out of the…
Same bait, two states — UV light flips a molecular switch that turns the color on, and shade turns it back off. Photochromic lures can look completely different depending on the sunlight. Pull a certain kind of soft plastic out of a shady tackle box and it looks pale, almost washed out. Hold it in…
A fluorescent color cheats — it returns more visible light than fell on it by converting invisible light you can’t see. Fluorescent fishing lures can look almost lit from within. Hold a chartreuse worm or fire-tiger bait in sunlight and it appears brighter than a color has any business being. That effect isn’t glow-in-the-dark paint—it’s…
A glow bait is a light battery — you charge it with light, and it discharges as glow in the dark. Glow-in-the-dark fishing lures are deadly in deep water, night fishing, murky water, and the first gray light of dawn. But anyone who has used them knows the frustration: some glow baits blaze for hours,…
The color is a gauge. Clear is healthy; yellow is the warning; amber and brown mean the plastic is breaking down. Why plastisol turns yellow is one of the most common questions in soft plastic lure making. The answer lies in PVC degradation, heat stabilizers, and the release of hydrogen chloride gas when plastisol is…
It isn’t heat — it’s chemistry. Touching the wrong two plastics is enough to turn a bait to mush at room temperature. You open the tackle tray after a few weeks and find a horror scene: two baits fused into one sticky, half-liquid blob, sometimes welded right to the bottom of the box. Proper soft…
A soft plastic moves like living flesh because, like flesh, it’s part spring and part fluid at the same time. Soft plastic lure action is what makes a bait look alive in the water. You can nail the color. You can match the shape to the forage perfectly. And a fish will still swim up,…
When a tail bends, the outside stretches and the inside squeezes — and almost all of it happens at the thin hinge. Understanding soft plastic lure action begins with understanding how a lure bends. Every soft bait flexes according to its material properties, geometry, thickness, and hinge design. Here’s a thing that should bother you…
Almost every time soft plastic baits tear, the damage starts at the hook hole and spreads through the body of the lure. You’ve seen it a hundred times. A great-feeling bait catches one fish, maybe two, and then it’s hanging off the hook in shreds. It didn’t wear out evenly. It didn’t dissolve. It tore…
