Fishing Michigan

Scorpions and Streaks, Stingers and Jr.’s, Silver Leafs and Fintails?  All are just crazy names given to one of the latest groups of lures designed to catch walleye on Michigan’s Lake Erie.  Don’t even get started with all the crazy names given to their color patterns, like “greasy chicken, confusion and bumble bee”.  Ok, Ok…they work on Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay, and Lake Michigan’s Bays de Noc, too.

This is actually my second attempt and writing this blog about walleye trolling spoons.  Wouldn’t you know it, just as I clicked the icon to enter it,  everything froze up.  Hopefully things work out better this time.

Spoons are nothing new to trollers on the Great Lakes.  These are not the same type of spoon everyone grew up with in their dad’s or grandpa’s tackle box.  Most are familiar with the Dearborn produced Daredevle, trolling spoons are basically an ultra thin metal blank, and walleye spoons are their little brothers.  Average size is roughly two inches.  I took the pics to post, but didnt measure them out.  Where did they come from, not a clue, but if I was to make an educated guess, their roots lead back to the those Detroit River handliners.  Since the 1930’s anglers on the river have been fishing with locally produced spoons off of their wire lines.

As in most cases, the tackle manufactures see where a locally produced homemade lure works, improve and run with it.  Its is little wonder then, that most of the spoon companies can be found in Michigan and Ohio.  Wolverine Tackle and their Silver Streaks and Jr. Streaks,  Michigan Stinger with the Scorpion and Stinger spoon, Fishlander, the Erie Dearie Silver Leaf and the Pa’s Fintail; are just some of the manufactures out there.

Trolling these baits does require a device of some sorts to get the bait down to where the fish are.  There are the divers, downriggers and snapweight systems available.  You can also rig these spoons with deep diving crankbait on a three-way swivel.  Connect your mail line from your rod and reel to the top eye on the swivel.  Then attach a leader of 10 or 14 lb fluorocarbon, 4 to 8 foot in length to your spoon, on the middle eye.  On the bottom eye connect your crankbait on a 4 to 6 ft lead.  The crankbait you already own, is your diver, and dont be shocked if you start feeling two fish on at a once.  Double headers are FUN, if not just plain crazy.  I would suggest trolling the spoons anywhere from 1.5 to 2.2 miles an hour.  There are days where the fish will dictate the speed you will take, often slower on cooler days, and when water temps are up, then the faster end of the spectrum.

Storage of the spoons can be done in a number of ways.  The Plano tray, either a 360 or 370 size works, but you can end up with a jumbled mess of hooks and spoons.  There are hanging boxes available, but I went with the simplest method available to me.  I choose the bass spinnerbait box.  In this case it is a Plano model, and the feature I like the most is that each of the dividers where you can hang the spoons, has a locking arm that comes down over the treble hooks.  No more messes from trasit, or from the box being tipped over.