New Glues for an Old Problem

It wasn’t that long ago when I would have to toss (if the fish didn’t toss it for me) $20-$30 worth of Senkos and Beavers on almost every trip to the lakes or Delta. In fact, for a very long time the only solutions for the short life span of soft plastics was either melting baits back together with an open flame – a task that even veteran bass guys found dangerous, flawed, and only partially workable – or gluing them back together with superglue, and like the melting trick using super glue was not only messy and dangerous but also caused permanent changes to the bait such as severe hardening which is kind of the opposite of the entire idea behind using soft baits….they’re soft!

Tackle manufacturers also took a swing at this problem about 8-9 years ago by creating soft plastic baits out of elastomeric plastics that made the baits amazingly sturdy and amazingly stretchy without losing the softness. In fact these types of soft baits were softer than regular plastics. So, what’s the problem? They are a nightmare to fish. They literally fight you every step of the way to be un-rigable. They even, in the case of worms, suck the energy load of your cast from the rod by stretching at the exact moment of energy transfer from the rod to the bait at the release of the cast.

So it looked like we needed to just shut up and eat the cost of constantly burning through soft plastic lures at 50-60 cents each. However, with the explosion of West coast style swimbait fishing and the revolutionary new soft swimbaits like the Huddleston, Mission fish, Osprey, Basstrix, Mat lures, Baitsmith, and Maverick lures a whole new generation revived the quest for a glue that would repair baits and for good reason.

We are no longer talking about power worms and lizards for 3.99, and crankbaits for 4.99, but instead anywhere from $8-$12 for Basstrix all the way up to $39 for Huds.

The glue breakthrough happened about 1 ½ years ago when Tom Leogrande started Mend-it. Here Tom can tell you what Mend-it is in his own words:

CLICK HERE to watch the video w/ Tom Leogrande.

This stuff is incredible. I have tried dozens of glues and bonding agents and Mend-it has the best ease of use and capability. As far as I can tell the only material that even works the same way is Baitfix, a new glue from Baitsmith. They are similar products, but Mend-it has the ability to bond baits with a lot of PVC in them and has a short set up time. Because Mend-it has been on the market for quite some time they have solved a lot of issues with the applicator and the bottle for optimum storage with minimum evaporation over time. The Mend-it applicator seems to maintain flow from the tip without needing to be cleaned out every few days.

We do have Mend-it available on JigMonster.com – click here.

On a slightly different topic, many of the high finishers at record breaking Lake Falcon’s BASS stop this year were reported to have been gluing baits together in order to create a bigger worm. For example Ben Matsubo bonded a bunch of 5” Senkos together for his best fish so here’s a look at one I made in about 8 minutes with Mend-it.

Below there are two Gambler Ugly Otters; one was cut into three pieces and repaired….can you tell which one? Me neither.

So, give these new glues a try and get creative!