Spoon Fed

By Ben Bowman

Reproduced with the exclusive permission of Bass West Magazine, Please Click on the Bass West Enhanced banner to subscribe.

Spoons like the venerable old Silver Minnow have enjoyed continuous popularity in certain regions of the country, often being associated with specific bodies of water--Lake Okeechobee, for instance--but many bass fishermen have abandoned these simple lures in favor of "sexier baits." After all, a spoon is a tool that dates back to the stone age.

Western bass pro and veteran lecturer Rich Tauber is fond of saying that most lures catch more fishermen than they do fish. However, last year Rich provided me with a perfect example of what can happen when meaningful changes are made to an old standard.

Check This Out

Rich and I were out for a day of fun fishing on Castaic when, after dropshotting a half-dozen small bass, we decided to net some shad and get on bigger fish. Motoring up into a small cove, we found pods of 1- to 2-inch shad hanging in dense weeds and moss. Before the shad net even got wet, a nice fish chased up some bait about 20 feet ahead of the boat. Rich immediately laid down the net and said, "Hang on, I need to try something."

He grabbed a stout-looking baitcaster from the box, clipped off a doughnut-sized floating frog, and tied on a small, silver-colored spoon. Winging a cast all the way onto the bank, Rich skittered the lure over several feet of moss and killed it at the first pocket of open water. The spoon didn't sink more than a foot before a healthy 4-pound bass nailed it.

After releasing the fish, Rich said, "Dude, you've got to get hip to this," and pitched the lure onto the back deck. A beautifully finished bait with several features grabbed my attention: Unlike most weedless spoons, it sported a fiber weedguard, had a fully integrated rattle, plus a clever keeper for securing a skirt or soft plastic trailer. My response went something like this: "Cool." And when Rich didn't volunteer any more information, I had to ask, "Where’d you get it?"

He let me hang for a few seconds more while he reeled up, then launched into a diatribe worthy of one of his seminars. (I’ll just hit the high points.)

"The lure’s called a Red Ripper, and I saw it at the ICAST show at the Chicago Classic. It, and another lure, an inline buzzbait with a spoon body, won Best in Show. In the last nine months, anglers have made $250,000 in tournament earnings off the Red Ripper spoon. They’re made by a guy named John Nemire down in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the things are stone killers. Really, man, it's an absolutely bulletproof lure."

I asked Rich if he was practicing for a lecture, but he just laughed and said, "I don’t work for the guy...yet."

Rich added more tips. "There are no hard or fast rules for how to fish these lures, which is one reason why they’re so good. You can snake them through pads or peppergrass, twitch them over slop, swim them from hole to hole, burn them on big weedy flats, "tick" the tops of deeper weeds, or even pitch and flip them, but the big advantage that a spoon has over other weedless baits is the ability to cover water, fast." Or, as Rich put it, fished "Okeechobee style"--making monster casts across acres of grass. By using a spoon, you can dissect huge areas that you can’t work other "coverage" baits through, eliminating unproductive water.

"When I used to fish back east a lot, guys on the tour would use a spoon to locate fish, but then you’d usually have to go in and get them with another lure." The reason? "Bad hook-ups, man. The spoons with the metal, stem-style weedguards have a terrible hooking percentage. That’s why I love that Red Ripper spoon. It's not just a great fish finder, its a great fish catcher."

But even when fishing the Nemire spoon, it's important you set the hook correctly. As Tauber explains, "Whether you're fishing cover where you actually see the strike--like pads or moss--or casting flats where you're relying on feel to tell you when a bass has it, your hookset should be the same: Drop the rodtip, take up the slack while giving a 'one-one-thousand/two-one-thousand' count, and swing for the fences when you feel the fish, or on 'three,' whichever comes first.

"As a general rule, the hot color from Texas east is gold; from Texas west is silver. More specifically, choose spoon colors the same way you do spinnerbait blades. Clear to slightly stained water with a greenish tint means a silver spoon, tannic (tea-colored) or muddy water means gold. Overcast conditions might call for solid colors like black or white, or a 'hot' color like chartreuse."

Man Behind The Lures

At this point I thought it might be a good idea to call Nemire Lures and get some backstory on the products. The first thing that impressed me was that John Nemire himself answered when I called the toll-free number: (800) 232-9909. The second impressive thing was, he spoke with me for over a half-hour about his personal history, his company, and the process of designing lures. Much of the info is available on the Nemire website (nemirelures.com), so I won’t repeat it here, but one story intrigued me.

"When I began designing the Red Ripper, I didn’t set out to try and reinvent the spoon. I just wanted to make a weedless metal crankbait that rattled. I originally was playing around with plastic rattles, but I wasn’t happy with the results. I realized that I was going to have to design my own rattle in order to get what I wanted, eventually hitting on the stainless steel sound chamber I use today. I had a lure in hand that I knew caught fish, but I kept thinking that the sound and action might be made better if I just kept playing with it.

"I spent the next six months doing nothing but playing with the design of the sound chamber, experimenting with wall thickness, moving the rivet and line tie by thousandths of an inch, even varying the temperature at which the steel for the chamber was tempered, until I had what I believed to be the right sound to generate the most strikes over the widest variety of conditions. I’m real proud of it.

And what about the finishes I’d heard so much about? "The Ripper and the Spoon Buzzer come in three finishes: 24-karat gold, silver and black. Before starting this company, I owned--and still do--an automotive accessories business, and learned a ton about plating techniques from working in that area.

"Everything I learned from the Red Ripper I built right into the Spoon Buzzer, too. I’ve made a version of the buzzbait since the 1970s, and experience with its design put me on the path to making the Ripper, and its development came right back around to making my original product a better bait."

I guess I’d just have to sum up by saying, "secret" baits don't stay secret too long, and good things tend to get around. So remember to try a new technique now and again, and the next time your spinnerbait can’t go a yard without fouling--spoon feed 'em!