Reinforced hydrogel lures and bait

Abstract

A fishing lure comprises a hydrogel material and at least one water soluble attractant. The fishing lure can be a single hydrogel component or can have a core-shell structure having one or more shells on a core, where the shells and core differ by repeating unit composition and/or by the cross-linking density of the shell and core material, wherein the core is more highly cross-linked than the shells. The hydrogel can be cross-linked ionically, covalently, or physically by phase separation of a block copolymer. The fishing lure displays a loss of attractant during use, but the lure can be reloaded by submerging the lure in a solution of or in neat liquid attractant. When the fishing lure has a core-shell structure, an additional attractant that has low water-solubility, such as a lipid or oil, can be infused into the lure.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.