spoon jigs

[jiggerjohn]

One of my top "jig" patterns is derived from a small willow leaf spin blade with a #4 or #6 hook soldered (Jig lead!) into the concave section. This flutters & twitches down (maintaining an effective horizontal position) very slowly, which Spring crappie seem unable to resist. The rear of the hook can be dressed in all manner of materials, including tiny plastics -all tippings are "rocked" into extra action which have called in for me bluegills, bass, trout, carp, and many others. The slow descending action of these jigs has produced scads of fish when faster dropping leadheads have been blanked! One small company makes & paints these- microspoons.com - and has such great prices on these and other jigs, that I don't know whether its worth the time & gear to do these "spoon-heads" up at home!

 

[Hawnjigs]

Here's a pic of one JJ2 sent me.

View attachment 7

 

[Jubs]

That thing looks like a killer! What method do you use to fish them, cast and let sink. slow retrieve, ect. ?

 

[Jiggin Joe]

a friend of mine wants me to make something similar but with a 0 or 00 colorado blade and a #8 or so hook. I tried and was a pain to get hook soldered to blade. Can you explain how you did it?

JJ

 

[jiggerjohn]

Jubs, These microspoons ARE killers -got trout,bass, and bluegill on them just today,under tough conditions! My best retreive is to reel a few cranks, then let sink for several feet. They sink very slowly with a unique twitchy wobble. Last spring on a very good day (tho others had a tough time!) I let the microspoon wobble down while carrying a single waxworm ,and got 37 trout(rainbows and browns) before noon!

Joe, I agree with you, the soldering would be a bear!! Yet, the gal at Microspoons, Jessica, turns these out by the thousands, yet charges almost nothing!

 

[Jubs]

I have made some ice blade style ones but I am not sure how to fish them since I have never ice fished. I found using light duty (more flex in the tips) hemostats that lock worked well for me in holding the blade to the hook. My only problem was painting them with powder paint but I got it down once I started getting a feel for the timing with the heat gun heat source. I ended up getting a larger trigger style solder gun because I was having trouble getting consistent heat with the pen style ones.

Jubs, These microspoons ARE killers -got trout,bass, and bluegill on them just today,under tough conditions! My best retreive is to reel a few cranks, then let sink for several feet. They sink very slowly with a unique twitchy wobble. Last spring on a very good day (tho others had a tough time!) I let the microspoon wobble down while carrying a single waxworm ,and got 37 trout(rainbows and browns) before noon!

Joe, I agree with you, the soldering would be a bear!! Yet, the gal at Microspoons, Jessica, turns these out by the thousands, yet charges almost nothing!

Are you weighting them to get them out further?

 

[jiggerjohn]

Jubs, I generally fish the microspoons "large" size (about 1" long and 1/32 oz) and the "jumbo" size (1 1/4", around 1/25 oz) with 4# test Ande Tournament (very thin) mono. These cast just fine and seem almost aerodynamic when sailing out! Some guys will put a split shot or two up the line, or better yet, trail the microspoon about 10" back from a small leadhead jig.

 

[Jubs]

I think I need to order some larger stuff to make my own. Thank you for all the info.

 

[Mepperson]

Do you have to use anything to keep the line from twisting?

 

[jiggerjohn]

Mepperson, No need for any swivels, as the solder weighting within the microspoon concave keeps em dropping & swimming in an upright but horizontal position. Especially with any sort of hook dressing such as a waxworm,minnow, rabbit fur strip (my favorite), small plastic grub, etc. the microspoon is very stable!

 

[papaperch]

I have made these for years in all sizes. Up until a few years ago I only used them for ice fishing. I also make a variant using a jig hook to make a horizontal presentation. Can't say which one is more effective until more research though.

This came about when I started to make my own pinmins for ice fishing. One day I grabbed a small hammered willow leaf blade and soldered a #8 hook on it. It set in my tackle box until a friend asked to borrow it while we were ice fishing an old strip mine pond. The crappie jumped all over that thing and of course that was the only one I had. By the way he never did give it back. Couldn't blame him though my catch was pathetic compared to his that day. Upon returning home I made several of them and have been using them ever since. I just called them " magnum pin mins ".

Couple of hints for soldering these things

1. Use silver solder it will give the spoon a more finished look.
2. For holding the hook in postion use small alligator clip or small heat sink clip. The small heat sink clip works best of all if you can find them. Back in the day they were used to solder heat sensitive transistors to printed circuit boards.
3. The small pencil type soldering irons seem to work best for me.

 

[jiggerjohn]

Papaperch - a neat insight into how you also discovered this little glider! My first use of them came from an innovative ole buddy (now deceased) who was very adept at soldering metal baits. He made a tiny willowleaf with a No 6 long ,straight hook (old English Partridge brand) and had the solder in the REAR of the willow blade -it seemed to want to swim backwards. So I helped it with this motion by inserting a small chartreuse tube tail over the blade, rigged BACKWARDS. It did indeed swim in reverse after a lift and allowing slack! I started tipping the back end (the normal front section of the tube) with a single kernal of corn and really mopped up on CARP, as it glided toward them!! It was almost surefire when carp locations were discovered, and because of the way I covered the little blades, we soon named them "carp condoms"!!

 

[slipbobber]

heres my version of it. i have about 20 different colors and patterns for them...this is my yellow charteruse

 

[ScottV]

I'm gonna have to look up" microspoons" and get some. I bed smaller ones would be killer on bluegill.

 

[slipbobber]

PM me what your looking for....i maybe able to help...and yes killer on bluegill with a waxworm tip