Spoons are easy to fish with too: Cast, let sink a second, then crank like hell. There are a couple of types of spoons I'd like to talk about, of the dozens of kinds available.
Spoons are one of the very best pike baits. If I am fishing exclusively for northerns, I use a red and white Daredevle spoon, with the treble hook removed and a big ol' octopus hook replacing it. I am told that spoons work well for largemouth too, but I've never tried it.
Spoons are also common trolling baits when fishing for big salmon on the Great Lakes. Again, never done it, don't know how. I'll stick to the spoons I've used and that work for me.
Daredevle is a brand name, but most fishermen that I know use it as the generic term for this type of lure (sort of like Kleenex for facial tissue).
My favorite (most productive) colors are red and white (not the one with the white triangle, but the solid white stripe) and firetiger (the big one at the top). Northerns eat these things up. They come in sizes from tiny to huge (1/8 oz to several ounces). A great bait to have in the northern part of this country-I'd be interested to know how pickerel and/or bass hit on these in the south.
These are made by the same company as the Daredevle. This is the bait I always used as a kid, and this is the bait that caught my first pike ever. These come in several colors too, but I like silver. The smallest comes with only the rear treble. On the one I had, I took the treble hook off and put the double hook from the front on the back. It worked very well, until I lost it.
I bought two of these on clearance because I thought they might be good for salmon or trout last winter at Lake Michigan. They weren't, at least, not from shore. I had a 1 oz silver one that I lost in weeds in ND. I still have the other: 5/8 oz blue. It is the spoon on which Melissa caught her first northern, a very respectable five-pounder. I have read that these are very popular spoons for trolling for lake trout and giant Great Lakes salmon, but they are great pike baits too. If you find one cheap, give it a try for bass and let me know if it works.
I have had one of these, but I lost it before I caught anything. The press assures me that it is an excellent bass and pike bait. They are not weedless, though-perhaps "less weedy," but definitely not weedless.
Some assembly required
These are called casting spoons because they cast like a bullet. This photo is of the Cabela's knockoff; the original is Kastmaster brand. I haven't used mine very much. I guess if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to pick a spoon that I thought would work best for bass, this would be it. they are solid brass, nickel (I believe) coated, and very heavy for their size. The Kastmaster version comes in several colors and sizes, but I'd stick to silver I think.
Back to Spinnerbaits
Next: Hard Baits
Back to the Table of Contents