Paperclips, yarn, and shoelaces

I'm heading to Michigan this weekend, and plan on fishing either the Rogue River for trout or the Flat River for smallies and trout. I've had some good times on the Rogue- caught my first brown trout there last fall - and can't wait to get back in the water.

For some reason I'm not fishing right now, so I spent a little time and made some new spinners. Luke, one of my trio of fishing teachers, hipped me to a particular spinner that supposedly works great for smallies on the flat.

This one is great, he tells me

Instead of going out and buying a few, which would certainly make more sense and almost definitely get the results he's personally had on the river, I decided to make some of my own to throw in another variable. Maybe they'll work, maybe not. In my limited experience making lures, I'm consistently surprised the stuff fish will hit. They don't care if it's pretty, it just has to get their attention in whatever way they are focused that particular day. This one, which looks like a child made it, caught a 20" catfish.

Looks silly, catches fish. Fine with me

A few weeks ago I took some thick paper clips (you know, the big kind) and bent them into rough spinner shapes. Today it was a simple matter of adding the components and adding the dressed feathers. Here is what I came up with trying to emulate that rooster tail:

I made each one slightly different (more weight on the right one, willow blade instead of colorado on the left) so I can see how little changes affect how the lure runs. You might be saying "Well hey Chris, that's a willow blade on the rooster tail one, why did you use colorado blades instead?" The answer is I only had one silver willow blade. I've been really liking the action of blades attached directly to the shaft, i.e. with no clevis (the thing that holds the blade on Mepps-style spinners). They spin more and more easily, providing a lot of motion.

I made some others too:

and one with the specific intention of catching a pike with it:

A special thanks to Dan Sims of Sims Spinners for sending me some spinner components. The stuff I've been getting from Jann's Netcraft is ok, but the pieces Dan sent me are clearly high quality stuff. The finishes are very nice and glossy, and assembled the spinners have a great weight to them. Thanks Dan! Can't wait to catch some monsters on your spinners.

My last order from Jann's included some jigheads; although I love jigging (tube jigs, twister tails, grubs) I rarely throw the other kind... I think they're called swim jigs. The kind that has a skirt or hair or something on it. I got some skirts from Jann's, but so far those haven't landed me any fish. Maybe this one will. Yarn and shoelace skirt:

Yarn and shoelace

Hopefully I'll catch some monsters with these. Someday I'll finish that dub album, but for now I'm going fishing.