New TPE Lures Could ‘Change Fishing Forever’

Anglers, take note: Those fishing lures that look so colorful in the package on the store shelf have little or no appeal to fish in deep or cloudy water. Fish do see in color and use it to hunt for food, but as a fishing lure sinks into water, the deeper it goes, the less light penetrates, and the lure loses iridescence, color, and contrast. For example, the most brilliant red turns almost to black at 45 ft below the surface. Cloudy or murky water, or adverse weather conditions, only detract more from the lure’s visibility and attractiveness to fish.

Armed with this information, Robert Senter of Castle Rock. Colo., an avid fisherman with a degree in chemistry, knowledge of polymers, and years of experience in the medical supply field, aimed to do something about it. He heads up R2 Innovations, LLC, which has patented new Actiglo fishing lures (actiglolures.com). These U.S.-made products use proprietary mixtures of plastics with transparent colorants and mini LEDs to light up the colorful, iridescent lures at any depth and under any water conditions.

What’s more, the plastic blends are tailored to allow each lure to sink and remain at a specified depth from 2 to 60 ft or more, using no lead weights.

Said to be the first of their kind, Actiglo lures are made using a half-dozen TPEs from Alliance Polymers & Services, LLC, Romulus, Mich. R2 Innovations wanted non-yellowing plastics with soft touch and flexibility, tensile strength of 700 to 7000 psi for “bite resistance,” densities that would allow them to float or sink to specific depths, appropriate optical properties to remain bright and appealing to fish, good colorability and moldability, and no plastisols or harmful ingredients. The lures were engineered by WayneGo Design in Evergreen, Colo., headed by Wayne Gonnering, another avid fisherman. Injection molding was by High Performance Engineering in Colorado Springs.