Hacks To Customize The Colors Of Soft Plastic Lures
- By: Pat Ogletree
- on
Here’s a quick way to customize the colors of soft plastic lures!!
Most jigheads have a colorful head design to attract strikes and provide more attention to the lure presentation.
But that is lost when you switch over to using rigging hooks or weighted hooks.
Find out more in the video below!!
Customize The Colors Of Soft Plastic Lures [VIDEO]
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Featured Lures:
- F.R.E.D. Mulligan
- Slam Shady 2.0 Paddletail
- Alabama Leprechaun Mulligan
- Gold Digger 2.0 Paddletail
It is very common to take your soft plastic lures and dip them in color dye.
Usually, this is to change the color of the tail or head of the lure.
I personally took the NEW F.R.E.D. Mulligan and dipped that in dye to turn the tail into chartreuse.
The dye I use is called Spike-It Dip-N-Glow.
This lure dye has been around for a long time and is popular amongst freshwater and saltwater anglers.
Typically, anglers do this to dye the tail of their lures a different color.
However, you can also dye the heads of your lures to mimic the color change that a jighead would provide.
Now you can rig any lure weedless and maintain the contrasting color pattern.
I also put little dots on either side of the lure to mimic the eyes of a baitfish.
For that, I use markers (also from Spike-It) that come in a four-pack of different colors.
One thing to keep in mind is that these dyes don’t work with all types of soft plastic lure materials.
This dye does not take well to the stretch, elastic material used to create Z-Man Lures and our Brazilian ‘Power Prawn’, for example.
You shouldn’t have an issue with most standard plastisol soft plastic lures.
I have not tried this with Gulp! lures yet.
Furthermore, in my experience, it takes about 3-4 dips of the lure into the dye to cause the full-color change.
Meaning, I would dip the lure in the solution, then let it sit and dry for about 10 seconds, then repeat.
Painting Jigheads
Similarly, you can also paint the color of blank jigheads whatever you choose.
Get the jigheads you need without any color and then paint them the color you want.
Or you can leave those jigheads unpainted and continue to dye the heads of your lures the color you want to maintain a color contrast.
Darker-Colored Lures
When it came to dying the darker-colored lures like our Gold Digger and Alabama Leprechaun, the dye did not really stand out against the dark green and black of those lures.
If you know of any dyes or solutions that work with dark-colored lures, please let us know in the comments!!
Conclusion
This is an easy and fast way to present your lures the way you want and gain confidence in doing so.
Have you ever dyed your soft plastic lures before to change the color and create new patterns?
Do you know of other types of soft plastic lure dyes that work better??
Please go ahead and start the conversation below in the comments section!!
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Wow, this is definitely a great hack !!! Thanks !!!
Glad you liked it!!
@Pat Ogletree this is a great idea. Did not even know the markers were a thing but it really made the mulligan pop for all application use! Great video and hack! If you are ever going to be near NE NC or the OBX let me know and we will wet a line! Thanks again!
Great tutorial, and the wide range of comments which followed! I have been using nail polish for a while now, but with concern for the lingering solvent odor, so all this info is relevant and useful to me. Appreciated it……. d
Glad you liked it!
I went and tested some lures out that I dyed this morning and I can say without a shadow of a doubt the fish don’t mind the smell at all if there is any.
Pat-Just bought some some Spike-It die and was surprised by how good a job it did. Red looked pretty good on head on Alabama leprechaun but Slam Shady was best
Glad to know it worked on the Alabama Leprechaun! The FRED and Slam Shady both take the dye well.
Hey Pat,
Have you ever tried the dye on hard baits?
The markers would be great for touch ups.
Keith, no I haven’t and to be honest I don’t think it would work well at all. I always used finger nail polish to touch up hard baits.
Great Video Pat! Can’t wait to see the on the water test!
Thanks Matt!
Gulp products drink up Dip-N-GLOW. I dipped a white grub Gulp into the solution. SPIKE-IT had left a bright band of garlic-scented dye towards the white end, and the rest of the lure was less colorful but adequate.
Great to know! Thanks for sharing!
Dude, I rinsed the stuff right off. It doesn’t work at all. Sorry about that.
Also good to know!!
Great review Pat. Ive never tried the dyes but kinda always wanted to so maybe this will make me go ahead and give it a shot Thanks
Thanks Greg! I’ll be messing around with the dye and see if I can tell if it makes a difference or is it just a confidence thing.
Can you store them back in their packages without them bleeding on the rest of the plastics.
I checked the bag that I had them mixed in and no bleeding or change although that was a short term test. I’ll see how it does long term.
To color my jig heads I buy nail polish from Dollar Tree. All different shades and silver or gold metalic. works really well and if they chip, just redo them. $1.00 a bottle.
Might give that a try. Could make some translucent colors.
It does work!
Great tip! I’ve done this with spoons when they loose their color. Works well!
Any thoughts/experience with the nail polish putting out a chemical smell? Have you notice any uptick in short strikes since applying nail polish?
I don’t think it would be any different than the paint they use to coat hard lures. But just to be safe I would let them cure before I used them.