Paul Brown, Corkies and More

“The majority of soft–plastic fishing lures are made from plastisol, which is a vinyl plastic,” Mike says, “You can make lures as soft or hard as you like by simply manipulating the ratio of resins and plasticizers to change the plastic’s durometer.”

Plastisol is a suspension of PVC or other polymer particles in a liquid plasticizer; it flows as a liquid and can be poured into a heated mold. When heated to around 177 degrees Celsius, the plastic particles dissolve and the mixture turns into a gel of high viscosity that usually cannot be poured anymore. On cooling below 60 degrees C, a flexible, permanently plasticized solid product results.^[1] Aside from molding, plastisol is commonly used as a textile ink for screen-printing and as a coating, particularly in outdoor applications (roofs, furniture) and dip-coating.

Paul Brown in the 1970s in Texas, started to play with forming soft plastic baits from plastisol a vinyl plastic in a plasticizer with various molds. His worms were a hit. He was encouraged to expand his baits from simple worms to other soft plastic baits.

The “Paul Brown Revolution” began in 1974, in a garage that Paul and his wife, Phyllis, called “The Shop”. Today MirrOlure, is producing Paul’s line of lures under the watchful eye of Paul himself. What has always been the Brown’s dream is now coming to reality, the ability to supply Paul’s special line of lures to every angler from Texas to North Carolina.

Paul wanted to mimic a Zara Spook Topwater bait and did so creating the original Corky Lure. Why Corky? Need to adjust buoyancy he tried wood and other items and a friend came up with the Idea of using a cork from a discarded wind bottle. This bait disappointing to some didn’t float but sank slowly. He made them by and with wires, beads, reflective tape and cork tubes and plastisol and cooked them in hot molds. Slow sinking twitch baits were born, especially deadly to trout and other fish too.  Especially in shallow and cold water.

Recently MirrOlure purchased the rights to the original Corky, Fat Boy, Devil, Soft Dog and other creations. I have used them for years and one of my favorites in the Soft-Dyne which are sort version of the 17 MR suspending hard baits (MirrOdyne) because they rock seductively from side to side while slowly sinking.

The original Corky and others do the “walk-the-dog action” like some top-water baits but do so somewhat submerged.

I have some of the sink rates of these baits under salinity and water temperature conditions. Great baits for winter and cool water fishing. As temperature falls the more effective these baits become. Fish slowly and let sink and fish almost always strike the bait on the way down.