We have received a lot of questions about our 1-ounce “Hawg-N” flutter spoon. While spoons are certainly not new to the bassin’ world, this style of spoon has been a well guarded secret among a few select anglers. In 2007 the secret was unveiled when Kelly Jordon (BASS Elite Series Pro) caught several big bags on a big flutter spoon on the nationally televised “Ultimate Match Fishing” show while fishing on Lake Guntersville. A little research revealed that this style spoon had been used at Lake Fork, TX for quite a few years, but nobody was talking about it. Results with this spoon under the right conditions can been tremendous!

What is different about this spoon compared to a regular slab (vertical jigging) spoon? While this spoon can be fished vertically, it is really made to be cast out and worked horizontally back to the boat with a pumping retrieve. It is great for covering large amounts of water on river ledges and deep grass lines. The spoon is cast out, pumped off the bottom, and allowed to “flutter back” to the bottom on a slack line like a dying shad. The large surface area of the spoon as it is going back to the bottom gives it an extremely erratic fall that is much different than a regular jigging spoon. It can also be worked through suspended fish when they are up off the bottom.

When should this spoon be used? Any time the fish are on structure spots and/or deep grasslines, and are feeding on shad this is an excellent bait to have tied on. Post-spawn, when the fish have moved off the bank and are feeding on newly hatched or spawning shad, is a prime period. The large size of the spoon often attracts the biggest fish in a school which makes this an excellent bait for a tourney angler who is looking for a kicker fish.

For gear we recommend a fast retrieve reel, medium heavy rod and low stretch 17-20 pound test line for working the spoon. The spoon can be cast a mile because of its weight, so a reel with a large line capacity is recommended. Won’t I get snagged a lot with this? While you will get snagged you can often easily retrieve the spoon by getting directly over it and shaking it free. The heavy weight of the spoon will work the hooks free. If that doesn’t work send a heavy piece of lead (2-3 ounces) or lure retriever down the line on a snap. Often the spoon will come free when the weight hits the spoon. Further shaking will often free it up, if it doesn’t come free immediately.

The big spoon is not a “catch-them-every-time” bait, but then such a bait really doesn’t exist. It is however a bait every serious structure angler should have in their arsenal and it is a presentation not many fish have seen. Give it a try and let us know about your results!

Steve Magnelia
Amistad Tackle

Watching coverage of the recent BASS Elite Series event at Lake Amistad I took note of a comment by Kevin VanDam on modifying his spinnerbait to mimic the dominant forage. VanDam said he started out with a shad imitating spinnerbait and couldn’t get a bite on it. After switching to a brim/tilapia imitation and fishing the same water he caught over 100 bass in practice and ended up with a top ten finish in the tournament. This was a simple modification, changing the skirt to a greenish/brown color and coloring the head of the bait red with a marker. I’d never really thought of a spinnerbait as a brim imitation, and had always used a crankbait or plastic bait when wanting a brim imitator. While a fluke or wacky worm would have probably caught some fish in this situation, a spinnerbait allowed VanDam to cover water extremely efficiently and still generate plenty of strikes in the clear water. Because of the extreme water clarity at Amistad, a crankbait may not have fooled the fish as well. Many scientific studies have been done on the forage of black bass. The common denominator in most studies is that forage often changes seasonally, with bass eating what is most abundant at the time.

Brim are often the dominant prey fish species for largemouth bass in many reservoirs and are the dominant forage fish in reservoirs which have abundant aquatic vegetation. Anytime bass inhabit shallow water these small sunfish species will be a main prey item. The three dominant sunfish species in many Texas’ large reservoirs are redbreast sunfish, bluegill and redear sunfish. Redbreast sunfish dominate in reservoirs without vegetation, while bluegill dominate in reservoirs with aquatic vegetation. Redear sunfish are present in lower densities in both situations, often inhabiting deeper water than the bluegill and the redbreast sunfish. I have often seen redear sunfish spawning as deep as 20 feet while scuba diving in clear reservoirs. All sunfish are prolific spawners, with peak spawning in late-March and April. They often spawn multiple times from late-spring and into summer. Multiple spawns creates many cohorts of different sized prey for bass to feed on. During the spawn and post-spawn bass will be up in the shallows and their main food item, sunfish, will be right there with them. In reservoirs where bass stay shallow all year sunfish will remain the dominant forage.

Gizzard and threadfin shad are also important food items for bass. However, these are an open water species, and other to spawn, spend much of their lives in open water. In reservoirs with good open water structure and little vegetation shad will often be a major food item, and/or will be seasonally abundant. Shad are also prolific spawners and usually spawn in Central Texas starting in mid-to-late March. Adult shad in March are too large for most bass to eat, so if bass are feeding on shad at that time they are going to be small. Downsizing your bait or spinnerbait blades might help trigger strikes in that situation. In early (May – June) when bass are moving to offshore structure or deep weedlines shad may become a primary food item. Shad grow very quickly and will be 1-1.5 inches by that time.

Crayfish are also important food item, especially early in the year, when sunfish and shad numbers are low. If you’ve ever looked at a crayfish from Lake Austin (Texas) you can see why red and orange baits have been so successful in Texas early in the year. Crayfish in Central Texas really are red and green, often with orange dots on the pinchers this time of year. I’ve also seen them this color in November and have often wondered if they remain this color all the time in Texas waters or change color throughout the year. Interestingly, a friend of mine from Florida, gave me back a red rattletrap I’d given him years ago saying he couldn’t catch anything on it in Florida waters. He claimed chrome with a blue back was the only color rattletrap they had success on in Florida.

Adjusting bait color and size is a key component to success in bass fishing. Very successful anglers, like Kevin VanDam, always seem to be making adjustments to match the conditions. At Amistad Tackle we offer a variety of custom crankbaits colors to match the dominant prey items wherever we are fishing. We do the same thing with our Thumping Bug vibration jig, with both shad and sunfish imitators. Next time you’re on the water and aren’t catching them, think about the conditions and be sure to include the main forage the bass are feeding on in your color selections.

Steve Magnelia
Amistad Tackle

Here is what every angler has been looking for to pair with their paddle tail swimbaits!

Below is a video with Amistad Tackle co-owner Steve Magnelia demonstrating our new Big Daddy Swim Bait Hooks.

Half the battle of visiting a reservoir you’ve never been to before is finding your way around. Couple a paper map with standing timber or bad weather and precious time will be lost just figuring out how to get to that spot that looks so good. Often if you do find “the place” you’re looking for you’re never really sure you’ve actually found what you marked on the map.

Speaking from experience, things often don’t look the same on the water as they do on a map. I’ve often thought I was headed into one creek and ended up in another creek further up or down the lake. In the last couple of years a lot of the anxiety and frustration of navigating our reservoirs and attempting to locate fish has been alleviated with advances in global positioning system (GPS) units, mapping software and web based aerial photography viewers. Combine the knowledge of these three products together and you’ll be better prepared for safely navigating unfamiliar waters, finding fish on a strange body of water, or for that matter finding new fishing spots on waters you’re already familiar with.

Web based aerial photopgraphy is certainly not a new concept, but new features and the ability to view multiple features without special software are. Below are links to many of the best sites and products:

Terraserver – This mapping resource has been available for many years and has an extensive database of maps.

Recently several new viewers have been introduced that will be of interest to anglers.

National Map – This site is produced by the United States Geological Survey. The viewer allows anyone to look at a multitude of features (called layers) at the same time. Of most interest to anglers will be aerial photographs, satellite photos and contour lines. Since many of our reservoirs in Texas were low when the aerial photographs were taken many features of interest are revealed. Features like roadbeds, weedlines, humps, tank dams and tree lines can be easily seen when the viewer is zoomed in. Contour lines can often be overlaid on aerial photos. The tip of the pointer on this viewer gives the GPS coordinates at the bottom left of the page. Find the spot of interest, write down the GPS coordinate, and then load it into you GPS unit.

National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) – This is a comprehensive set of digital spatial data that contains information about surface water features such as lakes, ponds, streams, rivers, springs and wells. The layers available on this viewer aren’t nearly as extensive as the National Map, but this viewer often updates images quicker.

Google Earth – A free program download from Google (upgrades will cost you), which allows you to view any area of the earth from your computer. Images are updated frequently and you can save your own coordinates and notes right on the maps. Unfortunately image clarity outside of heavily populated areas isn’t real clear, but you can often see weedlines, humps and road beds on reservoirs when zoomed in.

Microsoft (MS) Virtual Earth – A competitive product to Google Earth that often has different aerial photographs. Look at both Google Earth and MS Virtual Earth and you can often see the lake at different lake levels. This will give you a great idea of how structure is laid out in an area of interest.

With any of these viewers a high speed internet connection is a must.

New mapping software and maps have also taken great strides in the last view years. If you ever tried to manually enter GPS coordinates into your GPS you know how time consuming it is. Map software like Garmin’s Mapsource and Lowrance’s MapCreate make this process much quicker. Saving waypoints by lake in separate files on your computer allows you to upload what you need for a trip and be ensured you won’t lose your GPS waypoints if your unit fails. You can also plan routes, look at your track from a days fishing in relation to contour lines and add waypoints by pointing and clicking. Garmin (Fishing Hot Spots) and Navionics also offer electronic contour maps. Navionics premium cartography chips have many lakes with one foot contours. These maps are simply amazing for finding new spots and/or patterning fish. A newcomer can often find spots that would usually take years of scouting to locate. Many brands are compatible with the Navionics chips. Lowrance also offers “enhanced” maps on their website for free downloading, which are often quite detailed.

Global positioning systems have certainly changed fishing. Couple the products mentioned in this article together with your GPS and you’ll be a step closer to putting a limit of fish in the boat.

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