Panfish Plastics

While at the Ice Fishing Shoe, I saw a booth for Panfish Plastics. I was impressed with their action in the water. I was going to purchase of their products but with so many colors and patterns I didn’t know what to purchase.

Is it necessary to have so many colors? Aren’t there a set of standard colors that have proven effective for catching fishing anytime?

Thank you,
Mike

Glow, glow red, blood red, white, purple, chartreuse, hot pink and fluor.orange might be seen as standard colors.

My preference is to keep a bait simple. Those with a myriad of tiny tentacles washing all over create too much area for a fish to zone in on and hit. One small, lithe tail on a bait 1″ or less is all that’s needed for sunfish. Plastic Stingers up to 1 1/2″ in the shape of the replacement tails for the Custom Jigs Ratso or Shrimpo will suffice for crappies.

I have found 3 colors to be pretty universal, at least for me: chartreuse, pink, white. I agree with Tom in that I like to keep it pretty simple when fishing plastics. Generally I have found if those 3 colors aren’t working they probably want live bait that day so I switch to waxies or minnow heads depending on the species I am targeting.

I’m with Justin on colours. I find white pink or chartreuse to be my most productive 3 and the 3 I have confidence in.

You are all a wealth of knowledge. Thank you very much.

I’ve been with Panfish Plastics for a couple years now and Mike the owner is a true mastermind when it comes to plastics and injection molding! All plastics are hand poured and even sometimes he will custom color dip the tails, one at a time, on special request. He takes his plastics molds on fishing trips and will try to match the exact color of any special aquatic insect you may find to the particular area. South Dakota shrimp, the Lake Gogebic wiggler in Michigan, mayfly larvae, nymphs, etc. It’s always great idea to have a spread of bright colors, natural colors, and glow to match specific water conditions, time of day, or weather conditions.

Panfish Plastics makes a great product and I will be on my second year of use. Chart, Pink and white are my three go-to colors, like many have stated above.

The one thing I will add is that although I end up cutting or pinching off most of the tentacles sometimes it is nice to have that larger profile so i would suggest like a Maki type of plastic that you can alter or configure. I am just suggesting this since your looking to just start using them. If you get the ones with more tentacles you can modify to get to the smaller. I find that you end up somewhere in the middle. I would suggest too to try the mustache worms from trigger X. As far as colors I think what is said so far is correct.

Good luck hope we get to use them soon.

Panfish are great at telling the angler what they want if he pays attention to the bite and their level of biting activity. And sunfish, crappies and perch can all have different preferences even when found together. Some plastics can be plucked or cut off or otherwise altered to fit the bill but those that start small and are simple one tailed wonders will do best as is for sunfish. Perch like compact, bright colored baits. The “eye” baits work very well on the perch. Crappies can take some thought. All too often people see crappies stacked on bottom and flip on the bottom lock and focus at attempting to get these idle and negative fish to hit while not paying any attention at all to those marks above the mess on the bottom that comes and goes from the screen. Not all crappies will eat at the same time especially in daylight hours and the eating fish are NOT going to be laying there waiting with a multitude of others for some food to happen along. If you want the better crappies, you’ll have to go after them and they will most likely want some meaningful food portions. Up sizing will be the key. Some how big? Think in the 1 1/2″ to 2″ range for plastic. Matt mentioned the Mayfly Nymph. Its a two inch bait. The Panfish Plastics site shows several baits that will fit into the size one would want to use. Color is something that remains variable and the wise angler will have at least a moderate assortment of colors in each bait. Over time a person will find that some baits only need to be bought in a couple colors and yet others will see better activity in a small handful of colors. Using that experience will help the angler pare down what’s best to have along.

Plastics and colors are an “experience” thing that can take a few seasons to figure out. My suggestion is to put together a box with a lot of size and color options and keep only the colors separate. You can find what you need by color and that way you won’t need nine boxes along on each trip.

My absolute always favorite color is blood red. What it lacks for in numbers of fish it catches, it more than makes up for in the size fish it produces.

While red had been mentioned, I am always carrying some black around as well. I have very impressed with the TriggerX nymph in pink, red and black this summer. My brother is a big fan of tipping plastic with a waxie/spike and I convinced him by outfishing him to try and stick with just the plastic. Also we use a lot of the Powerbait/Gulp waxie in white…

Mark

These plastics are 1″ long and are shown in the 9 most common colors I have been asked to make over the years. They include glow green and glow red, the two most commonly used glow colors. Glow blue and glow purple can be done too but they have a limited popularity. Hot pink and fluorescent orange can be done too but I rarely get asked for those colors.

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I started to use the Chigger Fry from Panfish plastics last year. The best color was chili red followed by white, I have not used live bait the last 5 years. I have used other plastics but Panfish Plastics action was by far the best I have used. I live a few miles from Mike and purchase the red in bulk. I gave a lot of them away last year to other anglers to use. Many of them used bobbers and did not catch as many as just straight out pounding like I do. I seldom stop jigging and if I do it is when the fish are in a negative mood. You have to have confidence in what you use for bait and the Chigger Fry filled that need for me. Check out all the products on their website. I think they are in the process of updating it.If any of you have any questions pm me and I will answer them.

I’d go dark red, purple, and motor oil as my top 3. I always stay natural, as I’ve outfished many people using those bright unnatural colors especially on big panfish and on pressured lakes.

A 1″ brown “tail” on a white 1/64 jig head slays em’ in the warmer months.

Chilli Pepper, White, snow flea, motor oil, and pumpkin green are my go to colors for the Panfish Plastics Chigger fry. But the biggest gill I caught last year was on the strangest color combo I could think of… a lime green Fiskas with a Bubble gum chigger fry..

Tom Sawvell wrote:

These plastics are 1″ long and are shown in the 9 most common colors I have been asked to make over the years. They include glow green and glow red, the two most commonly used glow colors. Glow blue and glow purple can be done too but they have a limited popularity. Hot pink and fluorescent orange can be done too but I rarely get asked for those colors.

Ooh, I want some of those!