Page 15 - ODUDecemberWinter2019

Ice Plastics

Closer and

Closer to the

Real Thing

By Joel Nelson

My first experience with ice-bait of
any kind wasn’t a wax-worm, euro-
larvae, or or silver wiggler, it was with
a humble goldenrod grub. Each fall

we’d collect goldenrod bulbs in a
cardboard box from around the farm,
then sit in the basement and pry them
apart. Holes in the bulb would
indicate the grub had left, but an
intact pod would be split just up until
the center. After which, you’d extract

the tiny white grub from the center
and put it in small jars with corn meal.
It was free and plentiful but took
some time to pull those little buggers
out. It also led to a few scars and
plenty of frustration, though the
panfish certainly appreciated them.

Fast forward a decade or more, and I
began to fall in love with plastics for ice. Anything with a flicker tail could be threaded on your favorite
jig with the greatest amount of customization. I had color, shape, length, and rigging choices galore to
fully experiment with, day-in and day-out. Ice plastics made me a better angler then, as I was able to
spend more time fishing, less time re-baiting, and ultimately learn to fine-tune a presentation with
utmost detail. You could adjust the angle of the plastic, rigging backwards, curling it up to cover the

hookpoint; whatever the situation needed, you had a way to mimic or stand-out.

Now, as plastics designs have moved forward, we’ve gone much further than adjusting shapes, colors,
and sizes. Attractants “baked-in” to the design of these plastics are all the rage, though simple scents
have been a part of the plastics routine from day-one. Anise scent is commonly used in a variety of soft
plastics, but the new breed is going as far as making them out of actual organic materials. You guessed
it, fish food for lack of a better term. That said, you may see them expressed as “fish proteins,”
“amino acids,” and even “donkey-sauce.” All of which would seem like a good thing to both
entice fish into biting, but also keeping them on the tasting menu.