pink/orange

[ctom]

Over the last couple years I have seen an up-tick in productivity of a gold blade bait with orange and hot pink stripes on one side when fishing on Lake Superior for Salmon and Lake Trout near the end of the regular Trout season. Gold and orange has been a go-to color for years for me but in more recent years the orange/pink seems to do much better. The problem lies in not many casting baits in this color scheme, so.....



The lure at the bottom of the picture is one that I have fished to death and the paint as all but gone so I air brushed new on so that it looks new again. The top to lures are some I have done on lure-blanks I order. They're 3" and 1/2 ounce. The orange is actually tape with the pink being a mix using Createx air brush paints that goes directly over the gold. The back sides are straight gold plate.

Late fall is hen we see an influx of migrating lakers and some random runs of  immature King and Coho salmon, usually in the 3 year old range, sometimes 4 year olds. Steelhead and Loopers follow the salmon. The lakers will pound anything in gold orange while the other fish all seem to like a little punk with the orange.

I did up 10 in this color pattern for the September trip along with gold/orange stripe, blue/purple stripe on silver, green on silver, blue on silver, and a couple other random colors to try so I think I am ready. This orange/pink is a super nice looking bait in the sun but the picture was taken under clouds in rain as that's all I have today.

[Do-it Rep]

Lake Winnipeg Walleyes would jump all over those in the winter too.

[ctom]

Jigging these then I presume?

[Do-it Rep]

Jigging these then I presume?

Indeed, through about 30" or more of ice.  Amazing the size of spoons those fish eat up there.

[WALLEYE WACKER]

Nice spoons Tom

[smalljaw]

That is really cool on how you have them dialed in to which color you need. The contrast between the two colors isn't as stark as you would think when you see them side by side, really nice job!!  What depth do you use those at and are they cast and retrieved straight back or vertical jigging or something else? I ask as the top spoons look similar to the Luhr-Jensen Krocodile spoons and I use to do well fishing them for smallmouth with a yo-yo type retrieve.

[ctom]

I cast and retrieve, nothing fancy. Since I'm casting into water about 80 feet deep in places along the wall [70 feet is very common on the lake side] and generally let the lure drop on a line with the bail open so the lure doesn't tether or swing in shallower, I get quite a few nice Lake Trout. However the salmons all go bonkers on this color combo and they are generally in the top 20 feet of water in the late fall when I'm up there so I use a few different depths. The water in that lake is so clear I can see the lure 60 feet away in this color pattern. Seeing the lure at 50 feet deep is no problem either if I am in a boat. And yes, as Kyle has alluded to the lures can be jigged productively.

These blanks are sort of a cross between the LuhrJensen Krokodile and their Coyote Spoon. At least I think its a Coyote Spoon. It sinks fast one the six pound line but will climb a bit faster than I like if I really crank in line. These are still super productive though. Salmon and Steelhead will hit like a freight train and the water the line has dragged in with it will fly off the spool on the runs, some of which can be 100 feet in a couple seconds. Fun fishing.

[Rex]

I wish the local up there still made those coho candy spoons up there. Found a box full at a garage sale and bought them. Half tempted to get them made into a mold to pour. I always loved the cold mornings at the breakwall in the winter casting into the dark and Home with a few before breakfast.

Funny story my first three fish I caught off the breakwall were walleyes.

I’ve always been partial to the gold and orange spoons or the orange/glow green up there.

For the life of me I could never catch a fish on the harbor side of the wall except through the ice.

[ctom]

I generally do better on salmon on the harbor side, 2/3 of the way out from the dogleg. Never much more than a 10 count either. My biggest king came from that area....18 pounds. September fish and full of smelt and small herring. The lake side gives up all of the fish. I've stood on the end of the breakwater looking down at schools of walleye swimming along the wall. I have dropped blades and spinners down and jigged them and sight fished those dumb walleyes. The walleyes will migrate towards Silver Bay each summer but when they run into the cold water found up that way they turn back towards Duluth.

When you lived up there did you ever eat the herring? Batter fried? The stuff is unreal. If we are at the cabin and local restaurants advertise fresh batter fried herring we go out of our way to get it.

Minnesota has stopped its Looper program now and word has it there will be clipped steelhead stocked and those can be kept. Take a few years but that should offer some great dinner fare.

[Rex]

I will miss the looper fishing for sure. I’ve caught a fair amount of loopers and steelhead up there, on was 36.5 inches. I couldn’t tell much difference between the fight of them. Was always a fun fight. I think one winter I caught the same tagged hen 5 times in mcquade.

Always kept the herring I caught but usually smoked them. Did the smelt thing every year, never a huge fan of them, but had plenty of relatives who would always take a pail or two.

Kinda funny, looper bugs is what got me back into tying and ultimately into pouring jigs. Tired of weak/junk hooks and just wanted to build something better. (Or atleast what I thought was better.) I always seemed to do better running a 1/64th or even a 1/80th bug for loopers. I did always keep a third rod rigged with a 1/8 oz to capitalize on the mornings you could see the coho running along the shore to get to them a bit faster sink rate.

[ctom]

Deep water jigging got my fancy. There was what we called the hole, a 175 foot depression straight out from the Steward River a mile or so that we tagged on the gps. Some mornings there'd be six or eight boats there, some anchored but we drifted with the electric. We'd drop two to three ounce banana head jigs dressed with bucktail and or glow tinsel down there on 15 pound braid. C5600 Ambassador reels on 7 foot medium heavy casting rods. Just lift and let drop on a tight line. Loved that "thunk" when the trout hit. A 20 pound Laker is something else on 175 feet of line.

A person could go broke buying tackle for all the different fish up there. In Two Harbors Ray's Baits, then Al's Bait Shop would ask me to cast a couple sizes of the crappie sized tube jig. I have no idea how many thousand of those I cast between the two businesses. They had someone tie them into Looper Bugs. I still make my own bugs. I bag my own spawn yet too....always just about beg for a hen looper in the spring so I can bag a mess, cure them then freeze half of them for fall fishing. Its amazing the number of Loopers that will nail a spawn bag suspended down ten feet under a float in the middle of that lake in the fall when the follow salmon in.

Fun stuff up there for sure. That walk to the end of the breakwater isn't getting any shorter though, especially if I do it two or three times in a day.