A flash like this is hard to ignore.

With each turn of the reel handle, the rodtip pulsated as if it had a life of its own. Suddenly, everything stopped. A fish rolled and exposed its white belly where I last saw my spoon flash. I set the hook hard and my rod arched deeply. After a fierce tug-of-war, the commotion subsided and the chunky redfish came alongside.

During the fight, its schoolmates fled, but settled down and started to feed again, though a pretty good distance away. It would be tough to get my skiff as close to the school this time, but long casts are a snap with a spoon, so I let fly. And I’m happy to report that a few more reds were spoon-fed during that tide, on a day when the fish were so wary that without a heavy spoon to cast, I may have been shut out.

Spoons are perhaps the oldest lures of all. Legend has it that in 1811, after a slow morning’s fishing on a Vermont lake, angler Julio Buel, who later founded the J.T. Buel Company and received patent on the Buel Spoon in 1852, was having his lunch and dropped his dining spoon overboard. Julio watched it sink and a fish streaked in, inhaled it and disappeared. Buel returned home to cut the handle from another silver spoon, and bore holes in the rear for hooks and one up front to which he tied his line. He returned to the lake and caught a large bass on it. However, this story was shot down by Buel, whose original patent was actually for a spinner, in which the spoon blade revolves around a shaft. Such spinners were called “trolling spoons,” which might explain the confusion. There is archeological evidence that spoon-like lures existed 5,000 years or so ago. But let’s concentrate on the evolution of spoons that work well on the flats.

While fishing a coastal marsh, I caught my first redfish many years ago on a Johnson Silver Minnow. This forerunner of today’s single-hook spoons was first marketed in 1920 and remains basically unchanged, a testament to its eternal effectiveness. While freshwater fishermen have been the primary users, a peek into the tackle bags of seasoned shallow-water anglers shows many of us are using single-hook spoons to catch a variety of coastal species.

In Florida, single-hook spoons take reds, snook, trout, tarpon, barracuda, sharks, and from to time, you hear about anglers catching sheepshead, flounder, mangrove snapper and pompano on them. Of course, ladyfish and jacks will beat the above crowd to your spoon if given a chance. And that’s just the flats crowd.

This seatrout ambushed a Hakala Willow Spoon, a thin, wide-bodied spoon that tends to ride high in the water column.

Anatomy of a Spoon

Spoons not only mimic the size and shape of a multitude of baitfish, but also have built-in action, and flash and vibration to attract the attention of predators from afar, in all degrees of water clarity. That’s a good start, but the same thing can be said about a lot of hard-plastic plugs trailing treble hooks. What sets spoons apart is that they are stamped from metal, usually chrome or brass, and the best types for shallow-water fishing have a single hook attached on the concave side of a spoon. They are not elliptical—either the leading edge or the trailing edge of the spoon will be wider across than the opposite edge. A single hook is soldered or screwed to the concave side of the spoon so that the hook faces upward, and a metal or wire weedguard is standard. Typically, a hole is punched in the leading edge of the spoon and a small split ring inserted, to which you tie your line. Some manufacturers, however, solder an eye on the leading edge. If you are using a spoon with an eye, as opposed to a ring, be sure to tie a loop knot when you attach your line so that the spoon’s movement is not impeded.

Visualize a spoon coming at you head-on. Because single-hook spoons have two distinct curves at right angles to each other, they tend to rotate around both axes when retrieved. When retrieved at slow to medium rate, it will roll, or wobble, about 30 degrees clockwise and then counter-clockwise, back and forth, without rotating completely. If the spoon were a sailboat and the single hook a mast, the boat would list with the mast swinging an arc from 11 o’clock to 1 o’clock and then back again. It will also zigzag its way back to you, much like the “walk-the-dog” action of a walking topwater plug.