Spoon Fed Walleye
By Douglas Peerbolt with Mike Bringedahl and Tod Conner
Midwest Outdoors . July 2001 Issue
When People think of walleye fishing they generally conjure up images of bouncing a jig, dragging a crawler or maybe trolling a crank bait. But few people consider spoons for walleye for some reason. It's time to change your thinking. According to walleye pros Tod Conner and Mike Bringedahl spoon feeding walleye can be just the ticket.
Tod Conner
Spoonin' for walleye is a year 'round sport whether jigging them or trolling them. You can use jigging spoons ice fishing, and open water fishing in mid to late spring, summer and fall. About the only time jigging spoons don't seem practical is in early spring when fish are pre-spawn and they are not very aggressive. Spooning does call for a hungry, aggressive fish. I use Hopkins Jigging spoons about 98% of the time.
The 3/4 No Equal is one of my favorites in either gold or silver. There are two basic ways to fish a jugging spoon. Vertical jigging is the first method. This technique works will in deep water, especially on sharp drop offs. You let the spoon fall to the bottom then snap the rod tip up sharply from one to three feet off the bottom with a quick wrist jerking action and then let it fall and flutter down. When it's falling it kind of looks like a darting minnow trying to escape from a predator. When your line goes slack as it hits the bottom, snap it back up again. The fish will usually grab the lure on the drop but you won't normally feel it strike until you come back up on a snap - then bang - there he is! If you watch your line closely as it's dropping you might notice it stop early or move to the side - set the hook immediately. Mist of the time you won't have to set the hook because as you're jerking the spoon back up you'll automatically set the hook if the fish has grabbed it.
To rig a jigging spoon you should use a good quality snap on the lure. This will give it a little looser action in the water. You should also tie a ball bearing swivel up the line about 16 - 24 inches from the lure to reduce line twist. Line for spoon jigging should be tough. 14, 17, or 20 pound test monofilament or 20 pound FireLine works well. The heavier the line, the slower the spoon will fall. However, if you're fishing in an area with a lot of zebra mussels you will definitely want to use a FireLine leader or even a fine wire leader. Spoon jigging isn't just a walleye technique. You'll find yourself catching a real mixes bag including walleye, northern pike, smallmouth and largemouth bass, white bass, sheephead, rockbass and any other aggressive game fish. Anything that will eat a minnow will hit a spoon.
Another way to use a jigging spoon or Hopkins spoon is in shallow water. Cast it away from the boat and retrieve it with a hopping, jigging action. Snapping it again every 2 - 3 feet. Let it hit the bottom and jerk it off the bottom quickly towards the boat, then let it free fall. As it's falling you reel in the line and get ready for another snap.
Mike Bringedahl
When it comes to rods for jigging spoons, it's critical that they be stiff.
Tod
One of my favorite rods for jigging spoons is a Sr. Croix Avid 7 - foot, medium/heavy rod. Sometimes I'll even use a 7 1/2 foot heavy. I like the stiffest one I can find because when your snapping like that you want the reaction of the spoon to be quick and precise. The other thing is that a jigging spoon is a heavy hunk of metal. When a fish grabs it and feels the metal he won't hang on to it long because it doesn't feel natural. When you set the hook you don't want the rod to give, you want a good, quick hook set.
Mike
Boat control is crucial with working submerged humps or points. Use your bow mounted trolling motor and work the outer edges of the hump first, then work your way to the top the hump as you vertical jig the depths. On points, work your way around the point and hit all sides of the point thoroughly. Reefs are also a good area for vertical jigging. Bay De Noc and Saginaw, for example, has some excellent deep water reefs that produce great fish to the jigging spoon technique during the months of June and July. We've done well jigging spoons in White Lake, Muskegon Lake, Lake Macatawa, Manistee Lake - all the way up the western side of Michigan. The best areas on waters connected to Lake Michigan are around channel mouths where winds and tides move bait fish around and the water is relatively clear. Even in murky water a jigging spoon has enough vibration and flash that predator fish will still find it and strike. Tod and I use Lund Pro-V boats with Minn Kota 74 pound thrust Maxim trolling motors on the bow and fish them hard throughout the summer in tournaments all over the Midwest. It's important to have electronics that are visible from the bow mount operators view so he can stay on the structure and follow the contours. On a windy day or in choppy water this van be very difficult if your trolling motor is underpowered or you have a boat that dips it's bow into heavy waves. We use a high quality Lowrance 350A and LMS 160 graphs on the console with built in GPS to locate and relocate good structure. We also have a smaller Lowrance X 85 unit near the bow for close in work once we're on the spot.
Tod
You can also catch walleye with trolling spoons. They're not just for salmon and pike. We've had great success with Michigan Stinger spoons on walleye all across the US. The Scorpion is a light flutter spoon that comes in a 2 1/2 inch and the standard is a 4 inch size. We troll them a lot on big, open bodies of water like Saginaw, Lake Erie, Green Bay, and Little Bay de Noc. We run them off downriggers, Dipsy Divers or our favorite, three way rigs with a crank bait on bottom and spoon on top. A 1/2 ounce Hot-n-Tot or Tattle Tot works well to pull the bait down. We'll put a three-way swivel about 16-20 inches above the crank bait with a 36 inch lead going back to a light weight flutter spoon like a Scorpion. Because the spoon is very light weight it doesn't drop down and get tangled up with the crank bait. A heavier spoon would drop down when you make a turn or hit some heavy wave action that slows the boat down. We Like to match the colors up. If we're using a Fire Tiger crank bait we'll use a spoon with green and orange in it to match up the colors. We experiment with colors and spoons with accent colors seem to produce well. Watermelon and purple are also good, especially in Saginaw Bay.
We use St. Croix ProGlass 7-foot medium action or medium/heavy action trolling rods paired up with Okuma Contender counter reels loaded with 10-pound Berkley XT line for trolling. Speed is critical for the proper action of most spoons but the scorpion will run all the way up to 3 1/2 mph without a problem. We turn off the big motor and fire up the little 8 horse Mercury kicker motor for trolling. An engine from 6 to 15 HP will work best for a long day of trolling. 1.8 - 2.8 mph is the best speed.
Mike
The ability to run two baits off each line helps cover more water. We use Off Shore In-Line Planer boards to run a wide line off each side of the boat. If you have enough guys in the boat you can run two off of each side and put together a pretty productive set up. You can run the high and wide and down and deep and reach fish that are chasing schools of baitfish at many different depths. Trolling with spoons for walleye is a technique that works best for big water in basin type lakes rather than structure oriented walleye. But it's a technique that you should try someday if you haven't already. It can be a very productive and exciting way to fish.
Tod
It's especially exciting when you get doubles - two fish on one rod. I fished a tournament with Terry Weber from Michigan Stinger Spoons and we won the tournament fishing three-ways and I think that day we had three or four times when we had two fish on at the same time. Coming up with two three pound fish on one rod is a lot of fun.
