Japan style trout spoons

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BRONZEBACK32
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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by BRONZEBACK32 » Mon Oct 08, 2018 4:34 pm

Dalleinf wrote:
BRONZEBACK32 wrote:I caught a 4lb rainbow today on these spoon :big grin:
Picture. Or it didn’t happen :lol:
Just seen this, I will try and find the pic soon.


I'm wondering how well these spoons for for jigging, targeting smallmouth....anyone?

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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by CM_Stewart » Mon Oct 08, 2018 5:03 pm

I've caught smallmouth with them, but not by jigging.
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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Dalleinf » Mon Oct 08, 2018 8:52 pm

I have purchased a bunch of different JP spoons in the past couple of months. I did not find the Megabass Izabella to be great for casting and straight retrieve - but instead I have been thinking that it should be good for jigging (perch in my neck of the woods).

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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Houndfish » Tue Oct 23, 2018 1:30 pm

I got the stocking alert email for my after-work pond today, which reminded me of this thread which reminded me that I never got around to ordering any spoons over the summer. ](*,)

I went ahead and ordered a few Daiwa Crusaders to try, if I miss this round then I can hit the second stocking in early spring. I am putting together a UL casting combo to throw 1/8oz inline spinners for stocked trout and white perch and have wanted to get some spoons into the mix. I have tried to take small Kastmasters and switch them out to single hooks but it really seems to mess up the action, I think they need a bit of weight swinging around back there. I'm hoping the Daiwa spoons will run a bit better at lower speeds.

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Craigthor
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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Craigthor » Sun Nov 25, 2018 11:11 am

I’m interested in the new 3g versions of the Smith DS Spoons, http://smith.jp/product/trout/dsline/dsline.html might have to find a source for them. I’m a big fan of their 3g Edge series spoons for my first choice needs.

CM_Stewart
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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by CM_Stewart » Sun Nov 25, 2018 11:20 am

OOOh, new spoons! :D

Hadn't seen those.

Just let me know - how many in what colors. You have my email address.
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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Houndfish » Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:54 pm

Houndfish wrote: I went ahead and ordered a few Daiwa Crusaders to try
Reporting back. I think I am in love with tiny spoons! I got some in in time for a trout stocking and the tail end of the fall white perch season. I did not catch many trout with them, but the fishing was poor in general and I never really found a school of them. The perch were far far more accommodating and I managed about a few dozen dinks in the span of an hour or two.
Image
If tiny perch like these guys will hit them then I have high hopes for the big ones this spring when I can get out sooner in the season.
Image
I also managed a few sunfish that trip, which is rare for this pond.

The 1/8oz Crusaders cast far far better than the 1/8oz inline spinner I have been using. They are a small bit heavier overall, but the profile is about the same. I am starting to realize that I don't care about my lures being *light*, but I want them to be as *small* as I can get them. But in any case the spoons are far easier to cast and can be retrieved far slower than the spinners and seem to be as productive or very close to the spinners.

My one complaint with the Crusaders is the hookup ratio. It was very very poor, with maybe 4-5 solid bumps per hooked fish and a very poor landing ratio of like 50/50. I think the hook gaps are too small for perch and I am going to swap a few out to the Owner-Cultiva hooks I use on my inline spinners to see if I can boost the hookup rate.

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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by CM_Stewart » Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:09 pm

If your gear can cast smaller spoons, like the 1.8g Daiwa Lupin or even the .8g Daiwa Vega, I believe you will get a better hookup ratio. I don't think the problem is the hook gape. I think fish that hit the spoons from the side, hit them near the front of the spoon and miss the hook entirely. With a smaller spoon they are more likely to take the whole spoon.

It seems that the fish I see chasing down the spoon from behind result in solid hookups
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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Craigthor » Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:41 pm

Houndfish wrote:
Houndfish wrote: I went ahead and ordered a few Daiwa Crusaders to try
Reporting back. I think I am in love with tiny spoons! I got some in in time for a trout stocking and the tail end of the fall white perch season. I did not catch many trout with them, but the fishing was poor in general and I never really found a school of them. The perch were far far more accommodating and I managed about a few dozen dinks in the span of an hour or two.
Image
If tiny perch like these guys will hit them then I have high hopes for the big ones this spring when I can get out sooner in the season.
Image
I also managed a few sunfish that trip, which is rare for this pond.

The 1/8oz Crusaders cast far far better than the 1/8oz inline spinner I have been using. They are a small bit heavier overall, but the profile is about the same. I am starting to realize that I don't care about my lures being *light*, but I want them to be as *small* as I can get them. But in any case the spoons are far easier to cast and can be retrieved far slower than the spinners and seem to be as productive or very close to the spinners.

My one complaint with the Crusaders is the hookup ratio. It was very very poor, with maybe 4-5 solid bumps per hooked fish and a very poor landing ratio of like 50/50. I think the hook gaps are too small for perch and I am going to swap a few out to the Owner-Cultiva hooks I use on my inline spinners to see if I can boost the hookup rate.
Something else to try is take your hooks and flip them over, they are directional on the spoons and they may be riding hook side down causing the hookups to miss. I’ve flipped mine so hook point is up compared to the top of the spoon

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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by CM_Stewart » Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:58 pm

If you retrieve a spoon very slowly, the convex side of the spoon stays down, so in the factory configuration the hook point is up. If you flip the hook, the point will be down when retrieving very slowly, which will likely result in more snags.
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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Wpeart7 » Sun Nov 25, 2018 3:01 pm

Took out my 6g Daiwa Crusader to a local remote forest pond that is loaded, strangely the bass and bluegill didn't give it a look but I caught a massive Warmouth on it of all things. The Trout Magnet on the other hand resulted in 20-25 bass and bluegill.

Thing casts like a bullet, if I really winged it with my 6'6 light spinning rod I could cast all but a few coils off the reel.

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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Houndfish » Sun Nov 25, 2018 3:19 pm

CM_Stewart wrote:If your gear can cast smaller spoons, like the 1.8g Daiwa Lupin or even the .8g Daiwa Vega, I believe you will get a better hookup ratio. I don't think the problem is the hook gape. I think fish that hit the spoons from the side, hit them near the front of the spoon and miss the hook entirely. With a smaller spoon they are more likely to take the whole spoon.

It seems that the fish I see chasing down the spoon from behind result in solid hookups
The combo can handle 1/16oz inline spinners, but the ease of casting and generally more chill day I have using 1/8oz ones really makes lures around that weight more appealing. I also get a fair number of pickerel and schooly stripers as bycatch so I run 6lb mono which isn't super great with lures under 1/8th. I am spoon-crazy so I will pick some up, I also use a few UL spinning combos for my perching and a light spoon will cast far better on them as I can use light braid and a (relatively) heavy leader.

I use a ton of 1/8oz Rooster Tails and bought a bunch of the factory-single hook ones to save some time in swapping the hooks out. But they are very tiny and I was having the same hook up issues as with the Crusaders. A swap to a #4 OC hook solved it and got me back within striking distance to a treble.
Image

I think you are right about the fishing hitting the lure body however. It is very common to get a hard bump or two before hooking up, WP's are stupidly aggressive and will keep hitting a lure until they hook themselves and will at times re-hit a lure they just spit. I think with the larger hook I both have a greater chance to hook one up before it gets stick of hitting and helping me cull out the super-dinks, who often maim themselves even on single hooks when they are small enough to take it entirely in their mouth.

As I said, I am more and more wanting a lure that is as compact *and* as heavy as I can get. I have tried a few inline spinners made using tungsten worm weights as the body and they work very well, but I assume no one makes tungsten spoons.....

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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Dalleinf » Sun Nov 25, 2018 10:03 pm

I catch most of my trout on inline spinners - Mepps Aglia/Comet, Mapso Reders/Org/Orion, Ilba Tondo etc.
I normally swap the factory hooks to larger owner hooks/trebles or to owner or decoy singles. Not for better hook-up ratio - it is already very good - but because I chase big fish.

I also catch some trout on spoons where I swap hooks in a similar fashion. However, I find that spoons have much worse hook-up ratios than spinner, which I believe is a design issue. Spinners get their action from the rotating blade but the lure itself follows a more or less straight line towards you. Spoons get their action from swinging and dancing back and forth when retireved, and from pauses/spinstops. Spoon hooks dance about even more than the spoon itself and as such often get hit poorly or at a wrong angle by trout.

Spoons still work best at times (catch more fish despite worse hook-up)...

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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Dalleinf » Sun Nov 25, 2018 10:24 pm

Houndfish, with regard to tungsten weighted compact lures you can have a look at Italian company Black Flagg and their Drop Spin. Make sure not to buy the first generation of that spinner where the tungsten was just a little too heavy relative to blade size, which meant that the thing was very hard to get spinning (even on downstream casts). The second generation works very well:
http://www.lurefishingplanet.com/view/3 ... _Spin.html

Although not tungsten, the Ilba Mariner is also a great heavy-for-its-size spinner:
https://www.ilba.it/uk/products/mariner.html

Sorry to interrupt a Japan style spoon thread with EU spinner info.

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Re: Japan style trout spoons

Post by Houndfish » Mon Nov 26, 2018 7:34 am

Dalleinf wrote: Spoon hooks dance about even more than the spoon itself and as such often get hit poorly or at a wrong angle by trout.
That is interesting, I had never considered the different action affecting the hookup ratio. Also thanks for the links!

The spoons cast so much better and can be retrieved so much slower (and deeper) that I want to make them work. I might also try adding a little chartreuse flash to the hook to make it more noticable.

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