Soft Plastic Luress contain phthalates [Sounds like tha-layts]
By Henry L Clement
Soft Plastic Lures (worms and bait fish) that mimic what we fly fishers and conventional spin fishers, respectively, use are toxic. They contain poisonous chemicals like phthalates or plastisols.
Ingested plastisols worms can swell to four times their size, killing their host if made with certain plastisols. There is less swelling of phthalates, but they can be many times more toxic.
Reality
It is impossible to eliminate the use of SPLs, but amelioration is possible if the Bass Pro organization can convince the industry to improve its chemistry. This huge hurdle can only be resolved with economic pressure. ‘Show Me The Money.’
Note: Most reports of ingestion kills are of flathead catfish and panfish. The most significant deaths were reported among bass, but the text does not distinguish genre. However, the read describes very aggressive feeders, which suggest smallmouth bass and largemouth bass.
Also, reports from Canada about lake trout ingesting soft plastic lures [Featured Image link below].
A Texas-rigged ribbon tail worm.
Image by BRDSWRD – Own work CC BY-SA 4.0 Created: 7 June 2023
Uploaded: 8 August 2023
No, these plastics, like worm lures and bait fish lures, are not biodegradable
These go-to plastic worm lures and bait mimics are toxic to fish, particularly children and pregnant women handling them in stores. They emit fumes while degassing and not quite odorlessly.
Anglers regularly lose SPLs while fishing and more information needs to be provided about their environmental impact. How can soft plastic worms and lures be curtailed or made chemically nontoxic?
Worms, a favorite of many fly fishers, would be very disappointing to have to give up. However, I repent for losing umpteen ‘pieces’ of worms to more largemouth bass than countable.
Losing worms is a game-changer for too many of us
Pro bass anglers can help us overcome this problem by combining their financial potency with better science from soft plastic lure producers.
Unfortunately, our sometimes flimsy source of truth is outright lies that come from the power of money interests.
Do you recall this?
YUM Soft Plastic Worm Bait Assortment.
- Remember the ‘suits’ who protected spraying poison to kill insects (Silent Spring by Rachel Carson 1962). How about tobacco and lung cancer are suitable outcomes for you?
- The U.S. tobacco company CEOs dubbed the “seven dwarfs,” denied under oath before the U.S. Congress in 1994 that cigarettes are not harmful to us.
- Now, despite overwhelming evidence of humanity helping power climate change, the clown car is driven by a new cadre of faux industry scientists and our nation’s dumbest legislators, quarterbacked by the infamous MTG of Georgia.
Sources:
Also:
NOAA – multiple related papers and research documents.
Bass Pro tournament participants.
Independent fly fishing guide interviews.
Smallmouth Bass watercolor by Thom Glace, a national award-winning Pennsylvania watercolorist. Image commissioned work of a Micropterus dolomite, caught in Minnesota’s famous Boundary Waters in June 2017.
