It's a sad tale, and one that many will have experienced, one way or another. Somewhere (could have been anywhere from Army Navy to Cabelas to Amazon), I picked up a trolling spoon. It was about 4" long, a pearl-gray-blue color, a little more rectangular than teardrop, and it had a subtle ripply waviness running its length. Last Monday, on West Coast Haida Gwaii, I put it down on the downrigger, and before we could get a hoochie down on the other side, we had a 20lb spring. Then we caught three more high-teeners in a half hour on that spoon to fill our limits, while the other boats in sight weren't doing much.
We went out again on Thursday, dropped the spoon, and in minutes we had a 16-pounder in the boat. We dropped it down again, had an instant take, and then the rod bent double to the mighty lunge of .... a damned seal stealing a salmon. Despite punching far into the kelp in pursuit, we wound up losing the magical spoon and a favorite flasher. It took us three more hours to limit out, a tribute to that spoon's effectiveness compared to a hoochie, two other spoons of similar size and color, and anchovies.
After Monday's success, I'd looked at the spoon for any identifying info, but there was none. I was going to take a picture to post to see if anyone could identify it, but then there was bait to brine just in case it was needed, the boat to fuel, etc., resulting in no photo to help me find a replacement spoon or three. So if my description of that spoon rings a bell for anyone....
We went out again on Thursday, dropped the spoon, and in minutes we had a 16-pounder in the boat. We dropped it down again, had an instant take, and then the rod bent double to the mighty lunge of .... a damned seal stealing a salmon. Despite punching far into the kelp in pursuit, we wound up losing the magical spoon and a favorite flasher. It took us three more hours to limit out, a tribute to that spoon's effectiveness compared to a hoochie, two other spoons of similar size and color, and anchovies.
After Monday's success, I'd looked at the spoon for any identifying info, but there was none. I was going to take a picture to post to see if anyone could identify it, but then there was bait to brine just in case it was needed, the boat to fuel, etc., resulting in no photo to help me find a replacement spoon or three. So if my description of that spoon rings a bell for anyone....
