Melting Minnow Plugs
It’s summer time and that means that it is going to be hot. Well no S Sherlock. How does that play into your day’s fishing? The obvious things would be to bring plenty of iced beverages, sun screen, and maybe some form of shade. The not so obvious problem may be the heat’s detrimental effect on your expensive box of plugs.
I often joke with the cashier’s at our local sporting goods stores upon my checkout that fishing is super expensive, and I would have been better off taking up a relatively cheap hobby like betting on horse racing, or perhaps spending my money on hardcore narcotics. Long story short, I have spent a ton of money on boats, lures, rods and other paraphernalia associated with the craft of angling. Of course, in the year 2013, the cost of a standard minnow plug has gone up just like everything else. Let me tell you sonny, way back in the good old days of the late 90’s when I was just a pre teen, I could buy a Rapala J-9 for around 5-6$. Nowadays, that same lure might be 7-8$ depending on the retailer. Of course, Rapala doesn’t just make their good old balsa wood plugs like they did back pre Y2K. Nowadays, they make all these new fangled plastic plugs, and some of them are deadly effective.
Recently, we’ve been having success with the Rapala Clackin’ Minnow. The Clackin’ Minnow is a good plug that features a wide wobble and it has a metallic drum in its center that produces a loud “clacking” sound when the lure is retrieved. The lure is well constructed with quality components that are made to last, and unlike most old school Rapala’s the lure is constructed of plastic instead of balsa wood. A typical CNM 11 Clackin’ Minnow retails at Cabela’s for 13.99$ a pop. Are you sitting down? Just saying that makes me woozy. Apparently Rapala must make the clackin’ drum inside the plug out of gold or platinum.
Needless to say, the plug is worth 13.99$ because it produces results, but it has one huge flaw, and this flaw is shared by virtually all plastic minnow plugs as evidenced by the minnow plugs residing in my clear plastic tackle box on 6-8-13. On 6-8-13 we had record setting triple digit heat in western Nevada, and I naively left my plug box lying on the floor of my 18.5’ North River frying pan. When I went to attach one of the now morphed and melted plugs onto my line, I was appalled at what I saw. My Clackin’ Minnow now looked like a Clackin’ Burned Banana. The plug that was previously shaped like a 4.5” long baitfish now looked like somebody had put an anchovy in a dehydrator. It had curled on both ends, and the seam on the back of the plug had burst wide open like a fat person’s pants in a cartoon.
The Clackin’ Minnows suffered the worst mortality rate at 100% fatalities, but two Rapala Husky Jerks also had minor damage. The best lure in my whole tackle box as of late has been a CD 11 Rapala made of balsa wood, and even the wooden lure had problems with melting when its plastic bill took on some mean warping. Paradoxically, I was able to twist the eye of plug enough to make it track straight despite the warped diving bill. It also gained a sick wide wobble inherited from all the tweaking. That lure went on to be the hot lure for a couple of days despite its jacked up grill. Unfortunately, the bill must have been weakened from the heat, and it unexpectedly bust off while banging the bottom.
So, to rap it all up, take care of those expensive plugs by keeping them cool. Is it out of the question to treat a good plug like some sort of precious bait by keeping it on ice? You may want to make a little extra room in your ice chest.
