The Spoonpluggers Forum

Hi All,

I'm Joe, and a couple years back a friend in the rod building community and a spoonplugger, Bill Stevens, sent me a copy of the Home Study Course. Since then, I've made my way through, and started over. I'm on my second trip through the Mapping and Interpretation sections. In any case, I'm at a point in my life where fishing trips are becoming an increasingly more rare commodity balancing my graduate work in physics, adjunct teaching, and raising two young children leaves less and less time to be on the water. With fewer hours to spend on the water, I need to become more efficient and effective when I'm on the water, and Mr. Perry's material is helping me along in that regard, albeit at a slower pace than I would like. But, my issues will only be solved with time on the water following Mr. Perry's advice.

Though I spend most of my time chasing bass, and have an affinity for smallmouth in moving waters, I'm not your typical get there in a hurry and jump from spot to spot bass fisherman. Rather, I fish out of a 14' DuraCraft V-hull from the late 40's or early 50's with a 9.9hp. About 10 years ago I added a casting deck with bow mount trolling motor and simple depth finder. The latest revision a couple years ago added a small anchor pulley on the front for anchoring as needed, built-in tackle storage in the front of the boat to make me more efficient on the water and reduce clutter. All this was before reading the Home Study Course. What I didn't realize is that my fishing was pushing me in the direction of assembling a great spoonplugging boat and driving me toward a deeper thirst for knowledge. I feel this boat will serve me well as I develop the skill set of a spoonplugger, and has served me well thus far. Aside from having a second boat with a tunnel jet on the wish list for river fishing I want little more in a boat (which will likely have to wait some time).

I'm yet to buy my first spoonplug, but that hasn't stopped me from applying the techniques. If I check some areas that I know well as hot spots without much success, I will grab a crankbait rod, tie on a snap, and start checking the shallows by trolling and learning more about the lakes I fish, and fishing deeper as I go. This has turned some long grinding days into days where I learn something new and pick up a few fish in the process.

I look forward to learning much from you folks, and hope that time and resources allow me to spend some time training with a CSI in the future. I'm sure as I go along, many questions will arise, most of which I'm sure have answers in the material I already have.

Joe

Welcome aboard Joe.

I too am a resent subscriber to this site. I Spoonplugged years ago, but never became experienced, like many of the others on this site. I am giving it a serious try this time out and have already been rewarded with some great fish and a feeling of finally getting it.

Sounds like you have in fact put together a good Spoonpluggin' boat. I would review some of the other postings and start to get your other equipment together. Some of the guys have posted alternatives for rods and reels, and have I found e-bay a good source for some items.

Good luck.

Dennis

Welcome Joe, What part of the US do you fish? I have over 30yrs of SP and here to tell you using a casting rod/reel is not trolling, more like dragging a plug thru the water. The first time you walk a spoonplug on the bottom you will know. Good Fishing, Bob

Hi Dennis,

Thanks. I'm digging around and trying to determine what I need to acquire. I saw mention of Buck's Baits possible selling raw blanks. When I order some spoonplugs, I'll have to give them a call and see if I can my hands on a blank or two and wrap them up. I have an old Millionaire and Abu Garcia 5500 that may get some use as trolling reels. Before I added the trolling motor to the boat, I would drag various lures around and used the layer method for keeping track of line. I'm really liking the idea of line counter if I can find a model that I like and works well for me. I'll be checking them out the next time I'm in a tackle shop that sells them. In recent trips using my crankbait rod with a low profile casting reel has proven a pain for keeping track of line distance, and I usually find myself running across a flat for a bit to double check my running depth. Any serious trolling will certainly require something different.

Hi Bob,

I'm currently in Dover, OH, and fish the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District lakes. They were originally impounded in the 1930's on small creeks for flood control. With their age, the bottoms are now pretty clean, water color is yellow green with 1'-6' of visibility depending on the lake. The deepest water available in each lake is between ~30'-50'. Each lake has it's own personality with the species of fish available. I'm looking forward to getting to know them even better, and finding out what it is like to walk a spoonplug at half throttle. The only fish I've caught moving near that fast were schooling white bass on shad raps.

Joe