the scottie spoon -- and a link for more lures (as if you need more)

[scottyhoover]

did you know this is called 'the original scottie spoon' :)
http://www.little-atom.com/images/sct1.jpg
well I thought it was cool anyway.

check out www.little-atom.com
i'm going to start fishing soft plastics a lot more after some recent experiences. taking less and less minnows out with me each trip. hard to hop holes in temps like this with anything but artificials too.....allows you to fish faster under all conditions as well.

[tommy-n]

Sounds like you like running and gunnin for the biters like me :D

[scottyhoover]

i just can't seem to come across a mother load of feeding fish in any one spot this year. last year was different i had several nights of 30+ crappie. this year same spots and some new spots....different story. I like to drill a ton of holes and then go searching, and with the plastics, even if i don't mark a fish right away I can still work the hole quickly and see if anything shows up. if a fish does show up then its time to set up shack on em'...... but overall i'm having a tough go of things, numbers-wise...quality is good but the quantity is not.

the exception is the small fish, i could go sit over schools of 8 inch crappie all night long but that's not really what we're after now is it :)

[tommy-n]

I have had good sucess this year, but I know what your saying, the fish seem to be very scattered this year. I have noticed the barometer is very high, I could have went today but it's so cold makes the runnin and gunnin game hard to play. I have yet to catch more than a few fish out of one hole ( good ones) :confused:

[MichiganMike5]

Scotty,
Speaking of artificial baits... have you tried the Gulp brand stuff?
I have started using it this year and I think I have caught as many or more fish on Gulp as live bait. actually have had fish prefer the gulp to live bait.. two of us fishing 4 holes within 6' of each other and get more hits on the gulp than the live minnow swimmin less than 2' away. so far I've seen Perch, Pike and walleye take this stuff. It seems to hold it's attracting quality for a long time and it holds the hook well, so it's tuff for the little buggars to rob ya blind so easily. Iv'e only tried the ziplock bag container of the pumpkin colored worms so far but I would guess that all their stuff performs similarly.
Mike

[scottyhoover]

tried it, watched fish run away from it,.... for scents I'll stick to mashed up spikes. plastic alone is enough to get a biter to bite. for sniffers you have to dig deep in the box and get really tricky (flies).

sounds like you and your bud were over some very aggressive fish, at times like that many many baits would work, (think poop on a hook).

[Wareagle1]

Nice pic of spoon. Could you post up your artificial rig? I'm curious if it is a good perch rig.

[scottyhoover]

wareagle the spoon was just something i happened upon on the little-atom website...i rarely use jigs like that if at all.

as far as rigging goes, wedgie tails from www.customjigsandspins.com threaded on a genz worm hook. sorry don't have a pic of that. Also check that same website for pics of ratsos and shrimpos, all killer plastics. (will work with some meat applied as well) (Cj&S and little-atom basically have a lot of the same selection, only little atom came first I hear). anyway wedgies have great action but there are many more i'd like to try.

take basically any jig in your box and most will perform with a plastic on the hook in place of meat. ( i prefer horizontals) I'm still learning all about this so I can't claim to have any great insights as of yet. Other than fish bite em!

[IceFishingManiac]

What color wedgee are you using? Obviously glow would be great at night, but what has been working during daylight for you?

[patcheroo]

No wonder you can fish so much! What kind of royality do ya get off of the " Scottie Spoon " Ya bum! :lol: ................Patch