How to make spoon harnesses?

[fischer]

I have never run a spoon harness and was interested in giving them a try here in the western ny region ( buffalo). What size spoon( ex. stinger or scorpion size) , wire or mono harness, color suggestions, and bead chain or swivel. Thanks for any suggestions.

[Priority1]

I have run both the regular Stinger and Scorpion spoons, ahead of harnesses. I use a bead chain swivel both sides of the spoon and a 3 hook harness with beads and sometimes a Colorado spinner. Colors I like are Chartreuse, Purple, Glows, and orange. I was lucky enough to have a good crew, and win the Huron Stinger Challenge with this set up. I have run these with in line weights, Bottom Bouncers, Dive Bombs, and Snap weights. The bottom bouncer is my favorite way to get them in the fish's face. Find out what they want and give em lots of it. Oh!! keep the harness short and close behind the spoon.

[cliftp]

Would those be the same as the Eyeliminators? (SP?) Or something like that. I bought some at the Grand Rapids show but forgot to bring them last time I went to Saginaw Bay.

Anyway there pre tied with the spoon in front. This is their web site:

http://www.eyeliminator.com/

Again, I have not used them but if it is what your looking for, maybe some hints on how these are put together.

Good luck!

I've got perch on the brain right now, we got 90 last Sunday afternoon, biggest was a little over 13 inches.

Hope it helps.

Paul C.

[shu9265]

I first found out about this set up from, from our own Capt. Dan "Walleye Express", he was good enough to show me how he made these things, and it's been easy ever since.

I have used the Standard and Scorpion size spoons, also others, with this set up and have worked very well for me.

I start with any spoon, color and size are your choice, remove the treble hook and add a piece of bead chain, then add a wire harness assembly about 4-6 inches long. I use one hook and then a treble on the end.

As for presentation, I fish them behind jet divers and dipsey's here in the central basin.

Have also had much success in the Buffalo area, fishing from the Small Boat Harbor.

[Walleye Express]

Heres a picture of my newest versions. Scorpion Spoon/20 pound test plastic coated wire/#2 20 pound tested bead swivels front and back/treble hook off the back end of the scorpion/#2 sleeve crimps for treble and harness versus tied/#2 Mustad beak hook tied versus crimped and #8 beads out of Stamina Catalog.

[Walleye Express]

Would those be the same as the Eyeliminators? (SP?) Or something like that. I bought some at the Grand Rapids show but forgot to bring them last time I went to Saginaw Bay.

Anyway there pre tied with the spoon in front. This is their web site:

http://www.eyeliminator.com/

Again, I have not used them but if it is what your looking for, maybe some hints on how these are put together.

Good luck!

I've got perch on the brain right now, we got 90 last Sunday afternoon, biggest was a little over 13 inches.

Hope it helps.

Paul C.

Paul.

Here are the 4 ways I use the Eyeliminator Rigs. All but the third one down is with my own replacment coated wire attached to the back of their larger flasher spoon. The third one down is the way the Eyeliminators originally comes, except I have rebuilt and added a treble on the end and a huge #8 Tommy Harris Blade versus the #5 it would have originally came with.

Edited July 14, 2008 by Walleye Express

[Adam Bomb]

Gotta love spoon harnesses. I remember way back at the PWT out of Linwood when Norb Wallock broke out the spoons and put them in front of the harness to win the tournament. It started out as hooking the spoon to the rear of a bead chain keel weight, then a leader to a harness. From what i understand he had just returned from salmon fishing with dogers and squid and decided to adapt a version to fit the walleyes niche...Man did that start a fire. Since then it amazes me how its morphed into so many different variations, none of which ive used that walleye dont like. IMO this idea also sparked the creation of the Bass Pro XPS weights as an attractor, as well as many of its predacessors since. Thanks Norb, and God bless your soul, you left behind some good stuff before you left us!

[cliftp]

Thank you Walleye Express. Hopefully I'll get back over there and try some of your techniques. Quite a fishery over there. Darn $4.00 gasoline!

Thank you again.

Paul C

[Walleye Express]

Thank you Walleye Express. Hopefully I'll get back over there and try some of your techniques. Quite a fishery over there. Darn $4.00 gasoline!

Thank you again.

Paul C

No problem Paul.

We started adding small spoons in conjunction with cranks and 3 way swivels back in 1987 with just limited success. Then that morfed into huge egg sinkers in front of full size salmon trolling spoons in front of crawler harnesses by the early 90's, which came very close to duplicating the Eyeliminator set up. I even wrote an article about those rigs and how I was modifying and using rubber band releases that was going to be printed in the old Fins and Feathers magazine untill it went bankrupt that spring. And it's still my deepest feelings (IMV) that the Saginaw Bay's ecosystem and the ever changing fishery itself is dictating how successfull spoons have been or will continue to be on the bay. Some new invasive type species, along with increased amounts of some other native forage (IE) emerald shiners, along with the sheer growing bio-mass of natural walleyes we now have swimming around in Saginaw Bay has everything to do with why spoons are looking and working better on our fish.

I wish I had as clear a view and maybe a solution to the $4.00 gas problem.

Edited July 18, 2008 by Walleye Express

[cliftp]

Thanks Walleye Express.........by the way....I used to subscribe to Fins and Feathers Magazine. Really enjoyed it. I read all of them cover to cover. Learned a lot of stuff. Have a great weekend. Catch lots of fish. Supposed to thunderstorm over here.

Paul C.

[Adam Bomb]

No problem Paul.

We started adding small spoons in conjunction with cranks and 3 way swivels back in 1987 with just limited success. Then that morfed into huge egg sinkers in front of full size salmon trolling spoons in front of crawler harnesses by the early 90's, which came very close to duplicating the Eyeliminator set up. I even wrote an article about those rigs and how I was modifying and using rubber band releases that was going to be printed in the old Fins and Feathers magazine untill it went bankrupt that spring. And it's still my deepest feelings (IMV) that the Saginaw Bay's ecosystem and the ever changing fishery itself is dictating how successfull spoons have been or will continue to be on the bay. Some new invasive type species, along with increased amounts of some other native forage (IE) emerald shiners, along with the sheer growing bio-mass of natural walleyes we now have swimming around in Saginaw Bay has everything to do with why spoons are looking and working better on our fish.

I wish I had as clear a view and maybe a solution to the $4.00 gas problem.

Yup, I remember experimenting with three ways w/rattle tots and standard salmon spoons as well. The succsess was definitely limited, and for us became more of a hassel than it was worth...which is why we quit doing it years ago. Since then there has definitely been big changes in the bay, as well as the refining of the spoon to moreso fit the tastes of a walleye, wouldnt you agree Dan? Do you think that if we had the little Stingers, Silver Streaks, Moonshine spoon etc, that we would have been more succsessful in the past with our presentations or do you still believe the succsess would still have been limited?

[Walleye Express]

Yup, I remember experimenting with three ways w/rattle tots and standard salmon spoons as well. The succsess was definitely limited, and for us became more of a hassel than it was worth...which is why we quit doing it years ago. Since then there has definitely been big changes in the bay, as well as the refining of the spoon to moreso fit the tastes of a walleye, wouldnt you agree Dan? Do you think that if we had the little Stingers, Silver Streaks, Moonshine spoon etc, that we would have been more succsessful in the past with our presentations or do you still believe the succsess would still have been limited?

I'm not sure Adam. The biggest hurdle for me and probably a lot of others has been the confidence factor to use them alone with Jets or Mini Discs. And I'm still sceptical enough about using them alone, and is why I started building and experimenting with spoon harnesses in the summer of 2000 or running them as sliders above cranks. The smaller spoons we used to have to use on three ways were a far cry from the nicer ones of today. Heck, they used to be more like thin tin then stamped stainless. But I'm not sure the success rate would have been any different. The 1/4 tot was king for a lot of years because it reflected that perfect alewife size and swimming motion our early walleyes keyed on during the summer. Bare Spoons were always popular on Erie, but were more a flasher or attractors to me until the last couple of years.

[Adam Bomb]

Ok, gotcha...The spoons have defiitely come a long way and running spoons alone sure wasnt in my vocabulary either. It was a three way or an attractor period. Im not sure why it took us so long up here to adopt a great presentation like that, but boy were we missing the boat. Although my primary weapon is inlines with harnesses, either bare or with a spoon as an attractor, i have experimented more with bare spoons. I was skeptic at first, but once i caught a few fish on them, i wasnt so affraid to put them down. Dad and I fished em not too long ago and bopped em pretty good. Kevorkian 60-70' back with the 1 3/4" mini disk was HOT!...only thing ive noticed is overall, the size of my catch has been smaller. Why, im not sure....Never the less, it was money and time well spent as its another tool in my bag. Sometimes it bails ya out.

[Walleye Express]

Your right about the size. And it seemed for a while that the smaller/undersize fish were either not around or after other forage, as I was catching 15 to 19 inch fish on my spoon sliders for 3 or 4 trips. Then all of a sudden I started catching 2 fish at a time on the same line, but the one on the spoon slider was 7 to 10 inches long and the other one was a decent keeper. Not wanting to hurt these little rascles, I took the sliders off.

[Adam Bomb]

I wonder if those smaller fish were keying in more on an insects to start with and have now shifted their sights to the maturing fry, whatever they may be...Perch, Shad, Shiners etc....Wonder if that could be the reasoning?

On the flip side I have a feeling that the larger Mini streak or even standard size spoons may be a better option for bigger fish right now as theyre bigger than the jr. streak and stinger scorpions. Reason i say that is because many of the bigger walleyes ive been catching have had good sized perch in them. Im talking perch of the 4-7" variety. I might have to send some of the bigger spoons down next trip and see what shakes out. Could have similar results to your little ernie experiment....But, its like working in reverse, going back to the old days again!

[Walleye Express]

I must admit I felt more then a little weird putting those little Ernie's on Saturday. And was pretty glad the clients I had aboard were not exactly old pro's to trolling techniques and crankbait experts in general. It wasn't the length so much, as they are only 6" long. But it's their real life size dimensions that kinda throws you.

[Adam Bomb]

Oh, i can imagine your nervousness when you dropped them over the gunnel for the first time....and with good reason. But, your results arent all that surprising to me judging by the forage ive been finding in the bigger fish. Makes me wonder about breaking out some #18's again. I did that a few years ago to try and get away from those little fish....The results were pretty mixed though...Bigger diameter may be the key here though.