How To Fix Crooked Soft Plastic Lures
- By: Luke Simonds
- on
Are there ways to fix soft plastic lures that become bent or twisted?
How do you repair bent plastic?
If soft plastic lures are not straight or shaped as intended, the lures will not swim naturally and become ineffective.
Learn how to fix soft plastic lures here!
Repairing Bent Soft Plastic Lures
Bent soft plastic lures will swim unnaturally and most likely spook off any fish in the area.
Most soft plastic lures are made the same way by melting down a liquid plastic and then waiting for it to harden in a mold.
Once the material hardens, it will take the shape of the mold.
But if the lure is exposed to heat again, it can bend and become misshapen.
This can happen if the lure is left in a tackle box out in the sun or in packaging.
Then, when the lure cools down again, it takes on a new shape.
To reverse this process, you need to mimic how the lure was misshapen to bring it back into form.
Fixing Soft Plastic Lures
There are a few methods you can use to bring your lure back to its proper form.
An easy and effective way is to just use the sun.
Use some sort of straight, flat surface and place the lure upright out in the sun.
You need to make sure the lure is upright or it could bend in a different direction and then cool in the wrong form.
Another method anglers use is to drop the lure in a pan of boiling water to apply heat.
Although this method may work, you might not want to cook with that pan again due to the melting plastic.
The main and quickest method is utilizing the heat of an air dryer to fix your soft plastic lures.
To set this method up, have a board or flat surface ready to go in front of you.
Observe where the problem spot is on the lure and direct all of the heat from the air dryer to that one area.
In just about or under 2 minutes, the lure will heat up enough and begin to fall back to a flush, streamlined profile.
If the bend in your lures occurs in the thicker part of the lure body then it may take a bit longer to heat up.
You now need to let the lure cool down to take on its proper form.
Prop the lure up with something to keep it upright during the cooling process.
After the lure has cooled down, the issue should be fixed and the lure will be ready to swim properly.
Repairing Bent Soft Plastic Lures [VIDEO]
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Conclusion
If you normally fish with artificial lures, then you know how important it is for your presentation to look natural and appealing to predatory fish.
Be sure to check your lures and be positive they are streamlined and straight to swim naturally in the water.
If you don’t, you might be scaring the fish away!!
Do you have any more questions or suggestions on how to fix soft plastic lures?
Let me know down in the comments!
And if you know someone who wants to learn more about how to fix soft plastic lures, please TAG or SHARE this with them!
P.S. – Want to get 11 soft plastic lures for just ONE PENNY with no catch? Check out our 11 Lures For ONE PENNY Special Offer HERE.
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This is great advice. I use a lot of soft plastic baits. And this can be a problem at times. Thank you.
Cool man.
Thanks for making time to post the nice comment Brian!
Great tip Luke thanks for posting!
Thanks Mark!
What if you cool it by dropping it into some cold water? I wonder if it would set the shape quicker.
It probably would. But you’ll just have to make sure the lure holds its shape while in the water.
Excellent solution Luke! Why didn’t I think of that! I don’t have that happen often but I do have a few jerk shads that curl a bit and it drives me nuts.
I’m glad to see that you enjoyed this tip for fixing soft plastics.
👍👍
Thanks!
Luke have you tried this with Gulp? Just curious….I have some gulp pogy shad with a paddle tail and about half the tails are bent in the package
I have not tried this with Gulps, but I’m confident it’ll work for them too… you’ll just need to make sure to not let them sit out too long because they’ll dry up.
Great tip, couple months ago I received a whole bag of Slam Shady Bombers with offset tails initially I thought the design was intended until I got the Bomber in a different color
Thanks Rey! Sorry to see that you somehow got a pack of bombers with offset tails. The good news about paddletails is that the drag of the water from normal use will most often put them back into shape without needing to heat them up. But this heating process will of course work for them too.
Great tip with the hair dryer. I guess the one question I have is, does heating the soft plastic change the composition of the lure? It may straighten the tail, but does it change the action? I remember seeing a video where the lure was dipped in a pot of boiling water for a minute or so. The result was the lure kept its original form but the lure seemed to soften and actually gave the tail more action. Which isn’t a bad thing, just may affect the durability.
The composition of the lure will not change unless it gets stretched while it’s heated up or if it gets too hot and starts taking on a new form.
When hot, the lure will soften up. But it’ll go back to it’s normal feel once it cools down.
Great tip but would that work with Z-man lures too? I’ve left Z-man paddletails in a Z-man bag without the hard plastic it comes with and the tail sometime come out crooked.
I have heard that the boiling water trick works with zman👍🏻
Yes. It should work with Zman lures too.