Spring Spinner Bait Fishing by Steve Evanoff – E-Factor Lures

I keep my spinnerbait selection kinda simple. I throw a 3/4oz 99%:

Perfection and Chart/White…..Occasionally Purple Shad and Mouse

Blade and/or blade combinations:

Big Single Deep Cup Colorado: (Gold or Nickel)

This is the 1st blade I start with about 44-46 degrees (make sure you read the double willow part also). I slow retrieve it where I can just feel the blades thumping. Makes it look slow and lazy, trying to mimic the actions of colder water fish that move slowly. I cast it to the bank and/or past the structure/lumber. Off the bank, the first 2 feet I work it with my rod by just raising my rod slowly, letting it “flutter” down. Once it gets 2 feet or so, I retrieve it with the reel. On lumber I cast it past, as always, and work it right to the wood, when it gets close to the back side. I reel it up quickly, pull it over and let it “flutter” down again with my rod. Then continue back with my reel. I also use this first anytime a cold front passes through in early spring.

Double Willows: (Gold/Nickel, Gold/Copper, Copper/Nickel on Chart/White and Perfection) (Nickel/Gold, Double Gold on Mouse & Purple Shad)

This one Is my baby! I do throw this as early as 44-46 degree water as well. As long as we have had several days of sun. The bait can move just as slow as the single colo or I can choose to retrieve it higher in the water column (I get more options with it). The key is that is can move slowly, but the blade rotations will be much faster than the Colo and I can get reaction strikes with it. I work it the same way as I do the single colo “fluttering” it initially off the banks. I then adjust the retrieve raising it or lowering it in the water column until I get that first bite. Then I try to keep it at that level until I lose the bit and then I start all over as the fish moved. On this one I will occasionally pause the retrieve, crank one or two times quickly, pause and then repeat. Especially coming down a dock, at the end of the dock, or just as I get it by lumber. This lets the blades of the bait “clank” together and at times this drives the fish crazy. At other times they just want a steady retrieve.

Early Spring and Spring:

I don’t do much different than anyone else except, I start farther back in the coves than most people do in colder water temps. I want to find the fish that have moved back first, then I will go look out farther if I have to. If you find them they are all yours while everyone else is out towards the main-lake. I also run pea gravel pockets, especially on sunny days, when the water creeps to the high 40’s and into the 50’s. They are better of course when there is just one log laying in the back or 1 dock. Isolates any fish that would be there. I have found them up on flats in 2-3 feet of water in the tail end of coves (such as Linn Creek) with lumber on them when the water was still around 44-45 degrees (but a cold front will drive them away quickly). If I can not find them there I work out of the cove instead of into the coves 90% of the time. I do what everyone else does, fishing about 10 feet on either side of rock transition banks. I also run the deeper banks where I see a fast drop off the bank and a transition to shallow near-by, even if its only a 5 foot stretch. But again, I start at the last deep bank when I am doing that and work them out of the cove.

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