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Hi all,
So this is probably a stupid question, but here goes.
I've been walleye fishing for about 15 years, going from weight foward erie dearies to worm harnesses; now the spoons seem to be the hot thing. I've played around with them a bit, but so far haven't had that great of luck with them.
So here's the question: to bait or not to bait? I've never fished for walleye without bait, but it looks as though these are designed for 'no bait'. What do you think?
To bait at all . Spoons trigger a reaction strike from the fish. Harness plain out catch fish all year round . I prefer the harness as trolling at the slower speeds allow you to feel the fight. Trolling at spoon speeds lots of times the fish comes to the surface and you just reel it in while its flopping on the surface. Most captains between themselfs call spoon fish a meat haul ..trolling spoons is just a way to cover more water quicker.
Good fishing
Be a leader not a follower !!!!
Spoons are designed to be ran right out of the package with no bait and are very effective but are ran at a higher speed than most run their harnesses.Quote:
Originally Posted by jonk
If you feel more confident in bait and would want to bait them go with the spoon harness design, ebijack posted a link in a thread that will give you an idea as to how they would work.
Here is the link to the thread.
http://community.walleye.com/showthread.php?t=6370
Check the link in ebijack,s reply.
the stinger scorpion spoon is designed to be run at slower speeds than most other spoons. I mix harnesses and stinger scorpions all the time with good success. but I run about 1.8 to 2.0 anything any slower than that spoons might not work so well.
some days the spoons work really good. but day in day out the harness is going to out fish the spoons. and I never use bait on my spoons. I don't think you catch as many trash fish with spoons. and this is just my opinion.
sherman
wakina ive been following your post on harness and spoon rigs can i get more info id love to be more successful running down the eyes and seems that you have found a good system
No bait on spoon. Try using rubber bands on releases. They are a good white bass indicator. Not good trolling one of them on your spread
jiggin.....can you explain what you mean or how the rubberband works?Quote:
Originally Posted by jiginitis69
I believe what he is talking about is when running big boards, using rubberbands in the release clips (wrapped/looped around the rod line) the rubberbands all stretch to close to the same distance, if one line is pulling the rubberband further you have something on that line. They are good detectors if your used to using them. They are cheap and release nicely when set correctly and once your line out is dialed in, you reset right back to the exact same number.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eyezcrazy
"Spoon Harness's"Quote:
Originally Posted by Fringe10
ebijack uses a system that is very similar to mine, he uses beads on the harness part of the spoon harness which I have not yet tried, when I tie more Snell's for my spoon harness application I am definitely going to include beads and give it a try. I feel that if you use his system that you could not go wrong. He also has a few more years experience(experimenting) with the spoon harness than I do. So a little research on his posts would benefit you tremendously.
My own personal experience with baiting is if you get to much weight right on the business end of the spoon, such as a night crawler on the standard treble hook the spoon likes to squat and just surf along under water with the backside up with little or no flutter, that is the reason I added the short Snell. I have also had better luck using the Wolverine Jr. Streak series of spoons as they are a little bit heavier than the Stinger series of spoons and they seem to react to the weight of the Snell better. Please keep in mind that I tied most of my Snell's with wire and not mono or fluro for spoon harness's and that adds some extra weight to the Spoon harness that probably affects the Stinger spoons more so than the Wolverine Jr. Streaks.
Keeping the first hook as close to the spoon as possible also helps with a higher ratio in the of number of hookup's vs's pullback's and the night crawler seems to add some lift to the spoon that counteracts the effect of its added weight.
Later today I will try to explain my choice on worm harness's but ask forgiveness for being unable to do so right now. I have to many irons in the fire with graduations, my Daughter's wedding this coming Saturday not to mention a boat that is in need of motor surgery before I can get out to fish this year. Some of those irons are in need my immediate attention in the next several hours.
Worm harness blades
I have used worm harnesses in one form or another since I started to fish lake Erie in 1955 as a 7 year old boy. My father bought most of them back then at a bait store that was converted from a small Dairy bar that used to serve iced cream it was located along Lakeshore Drive in Port Clinton west of the draw bridge.
I have tried almost every blade design available and have settled on 2 blade designs and no longer make any attempt to use the others. I might add at this time that it is my intention to try the whiptail blade as soon as I get around to getting a few. I have settled on the Colorado Blades in sizes 5, 6, and 7. I have also settled on the Doc Shelton blade commonly called the hatchet blade, it is a unique blade in as much as all of the odd numbered blades spin one direction and all of the even numbered blades spin in the opposite direction. My own personal size preference is size 6 and size 7. Size 7 is huge and the biggest is size 8 and I have not tried that yet and it is a monster.
My most favorite blade to date and one that is always out there fishing for me is the Doc-Shelton in size 7 with a golden shiner finish gold or copper back or Rainbow shiner finish silver or copper back. I experimented with these for quite awhile 8 or 9 years ago and they were the walleye’s favorite from the get go. I ran 3 rods on the port side with my favorite #6 Colorado’s and 3 rods on the starboard side with # 6 Doc-Shelton blades. The Doc-Shelton blades out fished the Colorado’s by at least 3 to one. So we then brought in all the rods from each side of the boat and switched the baits from one rod to the other once all 6 baits had been switched we went back to fishing with the same results only on different rods on different sides of the boat. I continued to do this switch bait’s thing the rest of that summer and found that with few exceptions the Doc-Shelton Blades out fished my beloved Colorado’s at least 2 to one. So that is where I am at today.
Please be aware that if you purchase these blades and the vender calls them hatchet blades that the size of the blade may be one size smaller than the ones that are called Doc-Shelton they seem to size their blades different than an authentic Doc-Shelton blade. Meaning if you think you are ordering a size 6 you may get a size 5. That has happened to me on a few occasions so I just order size 7 and am done with it. Here are some links! I order most of mine from the last link and decorate them myself. They furnish them in the proper sizes and not one size smaller. I don't Know about Jann's Netcraft though as I have never purchased any from them yet but really like a couple of their colors.
http://www.jannsnetcraft.com/silver-...s/312453.aspx#
http://www.jannsnetcraft.com/tommy-h...s/312401.aspx#
http://lurepartsonline.com/Shop-By-C...helton-Blades/
Thanks for the post Wakina... People always make fun of me when they roll up and see thos big number 7 Colarado blades on my rods. They joke and say, what are you planning to catch, a monster?
To which I reply, PRECISELY!
EB helped dial me in on some spoon harnesses. I tied up 6 different combos on the way to the lake a couple weeks ago and had good success pulling them. Best of both worlds flavor and flash..:)
Wakina, I tried the whiptail spoons, after buying 20+ in different colors, for me they have never produced, gave them all away and I tried them for 3 to 4 yrs ( maybe more as I got in on the ground floor of those before they hit the market), not saying they don't work. They just never worked for me. Right now I'm working on a cheap easy to make hopefully more weedless inline weight, I know that's not much of a problem in the Ohio waters but in Mi waters it is a big problem at certain times of the year. I hope it helps when the mayfly hatch carcasses turn into those floating mats too. Hope to try out my first trial run this weekend.