lures

[monkeynuts]

ive been seeing a lot of posts the last couple weeks about silver streak lures...seems as though they are the way to go...ive heard a lot of bad things about stinger and ive had bad experiences with them...a lot of bending and paint coming off...then you call them and they want to charge you to fix it....but i have caught fish on them...what do you guys run?

[Nailer]

First off. Welcome to the site Greg. My personal favorites in the spring are the Silver Streak spoons(Smerf is #1). In the warmer summer water we still use a lot of the SS, but the Moonshines also see a lot of use. We do most of our fishing in the evening. I like the quality of the SS, and am still mystified why more shops don't carry them?

[monkeynuts]

that was my next thing....ive been using them a lot lately and they are hard to find....i catch what i consider a lot of fish on them...i just wish they were more readily available...internet is wonderful and i can get them there ...maybe we need to petition some bait shops:grin: i like the acid rain and screwball

[Nailer]

Where are you from Greg?

The bait shop at the Saugatuck exit off 196 has a nice selection of them.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Nailer

[2UNREEL]

Welcome to the site Monkeynuts. I love the name! The streaks are killer lures. Talk to some of the seasoned guys and they'll tell you how they outfish some of the other brands. I have used all the brands and streaks are a great choice!

[DIRTY DOG]

the shop in saugatuck is called lake shore out fitters.

personaly i use a lot of different spoons from stinger and dream weaver ,to silver streak and moonshine, also fishlanders, nails, and prokings.

i have no faverate brand, but have favorite spoons in certain brands. but streaks are a very good choise.

[spoonfed]

Welcome to the site! We run a variety of spoons, but i would say 95% are stinger. I have probably over 500 spoons on board, and a box of about 25 that get used all the time.

[jay d]

personaly i use a lot of different spoons from stinger and dream weaver ,to silver streak and moonshine, also fishlanders, nails, and prokings.

i have no faverate brand, but have favorite spoons in certain brands. but streaks are a very good choise.

[spoonfed]

my fireball with earings must be tainted, cause it didnt catch one fist this year ! It was run on every rod and gave me a big 0!

[Adam Bomb]

I agree, you cant go wrong with streaks, but as with many of the guys i have a variety of brands and sizes from each manufacturor. Silver Streak, Dreamweaver and Moonshine, Stinger and Yeck are what get used on our boat.

[jay d]

my fireball with earings must be tainted, cause it didnt catch one fist this year ! It was run on every rod and gave me a big 0!

must be i have 4 of them in my box with the tape about chewed off.send it to me i will give it a good testing:grin:the fish in my avatar was caught on a fireball with earings last fall.

[1mainiac]

One thing to keep in mind is matching the trolling speed to the lure some troll better fast some troll better slow. I run a lot of Moonshine lures cause they are heavy and troll well fast most every lure company has similar lure colors so getting the speed and action to match your fishing approach is a big factor. and when you find a presentation that works run lots of it. I have also found that some lures attract fish into the spread but don't trigger a bite. More than once we have changed a dead lure to have the rest of the spread go flat cause the dead lure was bringing them in so once we are getting steady hits I prefer to not change anything even if it means we are working 2 or 3 rods and the rest are washing cause a lot of times I think they come over to see what is going on but don't hit then the next lure goes by and they grab it.

[spoonfed]

Thats like we run a spinny/fly down the chute or on the wire. Sometimes you dont pull any fish on it but screw with it and it all goes dead

[jay d]

i agree, if i am taking fish steady i wont pull the dead rods.have seen it kill a spread more than one time

[mayvillemark]

When there used to be salmon in lake huron all we ever used was fly dodger combos on the dipsys and all the rest were streaks they are maderight in orchard lake, Mi very high quality spoon there mettalic spoons have real great paint to they seem to hold up nice than the stingers.

[tangled mess]

The nice thing about streaks is you can troll them at slow speed all the way up to 5 plus and catch fish on them.And when you catch a fish the paint stays on fish after fish.The main thing is to adjust the size spoon you run to the size of the bait that is out there.All brands have there time and place but i have found streaks to be the best all around spoon for all conditions.

[mayvillemark]

silver streaks are awesome we used to use them alot on the east side when there was salmon in lake huron alot. Now that we fish the west side we use them over there and they work over there too the mettalics hold up better than the competiters.

[GLF]

ive been seeing a lot of posts the last couple weeks about silver streak lures...seems as though they are the way to go...ive heard a lot of bad things about stinger and ive had bad experiences with them...a lot of bending and paint coming off...then you call them and they want to charge you to fix it....but i have caught fish on them...what do you guys run?

I do not know how every spoon manufacturer paints their spoons.

This is what I know about the painting process of most spoons.

We need to understand the painting process of spoons, to understand why the paint comes off. Spoon companies purchase most of their blanks already plated. This is usually a copper, gold, or silver plating. Paint does not adhere well to the blanks that are plated. Not all blanks are plated. Spoons that are not plated and will be fully painted will use a brass blank. Paint adheres better to brass. Usually they will use a self etching white primer before they paint the spoons. Etching helps the paint adhere to the metal. After the spoons are primered and dried, they are painted. NOTE: Not all spoons are primered. A spoon that is fully painted will keep its paint the longest. None of the dolphin colored, or translucent spoons are primered. This is why they have the worst problem with paint coming off. Paint adheres better to smooth finish spoons than it does to hammered finish spoons.

To my knowledge, Stinger is the ONLY company that will repaint their spoons. They charge $1.00 for the repaint.

Stinger spoons are the lightest spoons on the market. Because of the light weight of their spoons, you can troll them slower than any other spoon. You can still troll them at speeds of 4.5 and greater. I have had some of their spoons get bent while catching BIG fish. After the fish was unhooked, I straightend the spoon back out, put it back in the water, and caught more fish on it!

[1mainiac]

I agree with Mike on the Stinger spoons they like everyone else have a place in the box and in the spread. It don't matter if they are painted or stickered fish have teeth so if you catch fish they are gonna get beat up. If you don't catch fish it should not be a problem. Keep in mind even though our water clarity is getting better color only has a effect on the last few feet of a approaching fish. This is another reason I troll on the fast side all the time I can cover more water and the fish don't have a lot of time to ponder weather or not they want to bite. My goal is to find aggressive active fish and invite as many as I can to dinner.

[2UNREEL]

I use the paint missing on my lures to judge weather they catch fish or not. There are lures that don't lose paint and I try to remember witch ones work. To me a lure is like a worm on a hook, you'll loose it occasionally and part of it may come up missing from time to time. Just put a new one on and get er back in the water if its beyond repair.

[spoonfed]

I have 4 stinger monkey pukes, but i have one that catches fish! half the paint is missing and i cant tell you how many times its been bent back into shape. But its the only one that consistently catches fish!

[1mainiac]

Kinda reminds me of something my bass player used to add to our contract riders he wanted a bowl of Peanut M&M's but no green ones cause he said they were duds. His point at the time was to make sure the agent read and stuck to the rider on the contract. That had nothing to do with fishing but seemed to fit in I also have bought many dud lures over the years. I have no way of knowing how a fish can pick the same beat up lure out of spread and swim right past brand new ones to get it. My wife picked out a spoon this spring and the fish chrushed it repeatedly to the point we replaced it the replacement never got a hit so I dug out the beat up one replaced the bent up hooks and again it got pounded. I know I am not the only one who when buying a new lure will pick up at least a couple of them. I have a bunch of spoons I have ran for years and never got a fish on. Like a Glow tail copper spoon for instance I had it in my box for years never got a fish on it so this spring when I got the boat out for it's first trip I grabbed the dud lure box cause I figured if I was gonna lose any gear the first trip it might as well be stuff I did not like. So I tossed the Glow tail behind a rigger and never got the rest of the rods set before it had a fish on it. I think it took 3 or 4 fish that day and many more the rest of the summer. So I guess I have to remember to run my duds once in a while because sometimes they learn how to catch fish. Either that or eventually you run into fish dumb enough to even hit the duds.