Paddle-Fishing.com

Executive Summary
Winds 0-2, water temps low/mid 80's, 2 anglers, 5 reds. Targeted snook on top water but no luck.

Details
Sometimes less is more. Need to break out photoshop to get things spot on (touch of wash out on some shots), but the shots tell the story.

Regardless Wonderboy continues his way with his goto lure and finally lost his goto spoon on a bigger red. Not quite a full year's worth for fishing on that spoon, but close. I think I swapped the treble hook out 4 times. Frank at the HOW event was using the same spoon.





Fishing a top water all day I swapped out to a spoon after he had his 3rd red on.

Nice fish...i have still yet to catch a fish on a spoon......ever .....If i had his luck i would never take it off the line

Ya fish with what you're confident in, so he throws it a bunch.

I have a friend who does the exact same thing. He broke his neck a long time ago so his number of casts per day are limited to about 40% of mine (maybe less). He ties his braid straight to the lure and consistently out fishes our "group". It's something to watch...we can be right next to each other and he'll be yanking 'em out.

I think he has two lures in his repertoire. A spoon and a gold plastic jig.

Swapped the treble out.....is he using a Johnson Sprite?

Yup...used abused and thoroughly misused. Seemed the more the shine wore off the better the results were. It was practically bronze. I want to say it was the 1/8 oz - maybe 1/4 oz - I would have to see it to know which.

Lord knows how many reds were caught on that thing...

The snook bite mellowed out after the shine was toast. Trout still liked it, but not the bigger ones. We didn't use the skirt that they provide, and I yank that red spinner "thingy" too.

I did put a red/maroon treble hook on it. Something about those FSU colors that the reds love.

The orange and blue makes 'em puke.

I like the Aquadream because it's weedless and practically bullet proof. I've used white, green, black, green, and gold. Reds liked all of 'em, diff color for diff color water and time of day. Snook liked the gold one only - at least for me. Big trout like 'em too - little trout - not so much.

From the museum of what it's worth...if you want to rub some of that shine off use some 150 grit sandpaper.

Funny yesterday I caught a Ray the size of a Dinette Table with a Aquadream(Well the old Capt Mike's before he sold the name)Gold...which is my go lure to for a long time now..........

I don't like the treble hook spoons you catch a lot more grass than fish and I have had the snap ring straighten out on me before too. The silver minnow is hard to beat. It is definitely a go to lure for red fish.

Work it slow.

My standby too. The other day while raping Riks hole with a buddy we were fishin a huge mullet school. I was throwing the gold silver minnow and he Mirrodine. After 2 reds for him and none for me I switched and instantly hooked up. Just when ya know everything.

DaveR wrote:The other day while raping Riks hole with a buddy

sfurman wrote:I don't like the treble hook spoons you catch a lot more grass than fish and I have had the snap ring straighten out on me before too. The silver minnow is hard to beat. It is definitely a go to lure for red fish.

Work it slow.

Man the ring straightened!? Never seen that before. I've never replaced the snap ring on the spoon - just the treble hook. I guess you could replace the treble with a single 2x hook. I did that on my spook jr. - no impact on action.

Regardless of water clarity 50-75% of the time we use a swivel on the spoon too - less line twist and more action. More hardware for them to see, but that doesn't seem to make a difference to them. Trout and snook don't seem to like the swivel. However, you can swap colors out quickly.

One thing I have done on a big sand pothole is if I can see the spoon over the sand I'll reel it slow enough to bump up some sand. I kinda did it by accident once and saw the strike - since then it's part of the toolbox.

Come to think of it I should try that for snook on the beach with a white/silver spoon.

That said, if Wonderboy gets hot on that spoon it's something to watch...course I'm kinda biased.

Caught on a gold spoon. Not near cow creek, though.

I've been killing it with the spoon. Not gold though. As the sun goes up, slow the spoon waaaay down

OK, since this topic is here and I like learning new fishing stuff my question is this. Never used a spoon before and caught a fish. Havent used one in at least 10 years....probally more like 15+. How do you all use them? Really asking for any info on them cause they have never worked for me.

Tickle the tops of the grass.

TRKpoker wrote:OK, since this topic is here and I like learning new fishing stuff my question is this. Never used a spoon before and caught a fish. Havent used one in at least 10 years....probally more like 15+. How do you all use them? Really asking for any info on them cause they have never worked for me.

There really ain't much to it. Many people get sick of throwing 'm because it's almost mindless.

Reel in at a slow but steady pace. No jerking or anything. Just reel it in. Like Rik said just above the grass - I don't recall throwin' a spoon in more than 3-5' of water. I've fished 'em in as little as 6" of water but you better be flipping the bail before the lure hits the water. (just need to find that 1' hole where they are hanging out)

If your confident that the fish are in there change the speed of the retrieve. Every now and them I get ticked off and crack it in as fast as possible looking for a reaction strike. Seems to work better on snook.

Some people don't like using the shiny gold one on bright days - it seems to be too bright.

Basically it's powerfishing and you're playing the law of large numbers. It's pretty much like photography - you take enough pics, one is going to come out good.

For what it's worth - Wonderboy's technique is the same with paddletails. He's not much into topwater, jerk baits... for him simple = success. He sticks to his formula.

On the Aquadreams I'll get shortstrikes - with a treble hook if they bump it they'll probably get hooked. So will all the grass...

spoons rock...especially fishing mullet schools...pump and fall retrieve..