Entry 261-5

Mark Menendez Adapts a New, Fuel-Efficient Fishing Strategy”

Part 5: Hot Weather Spoonin’

Question: I understand you’ve fished with the Sexy Spoon quite a bit. What have you learned?

Menendez: What I like about the big Sexy Spoon that Strike King has come out with is that you never know what that bait will catch. You can try and catch largemouth, smallmouth or spotted bass, but you also may catch white bass, stripers, hybrid bass, catfish or big bluegills with the Sexy Spoon. For instance, in practice for the Elite Series tournament on Kentucky Lake in late June, I was jigging a spoon in 22 to 25 feet of water.

I moved to a big rock corner, expecting to catch a big largemouth or a big smallmouth. Instead, I caught some of the biggest bluegills I’d ever caught in my life on the Sexy Spoon. These fish were 1- to 1-1/4-pounds each, and they were so big I couldn’t get my hand around them. Now I didn’t understand why a bluegill would attack a big giant spoon like the Sexy Spoon. But I believe I could have stayed on that spot and caught as many of those big bluegills as I wanted to catch and clean.

The big advantage to Sexy Spoon is that if you find a school of bass that don’t want to bite, you can fire ‘em up and make them start biting with Strike King’s Sexy Spoon. The Sexy Spoon also works well as a mop-up lure to catch additional bass after they’ve quit taking your primary bait. For instance, if I’m catching bass on a Series 5 or Series 6 Strike King crankbait, and the bass have moved off the ledge and have begun suspending over that deeper water, I can cast the Sexy Spoon out and catch four or five more bass than I generally will catch if I haven’t used the big spoon.

Question: On what line are you fishing the Sexy Spoon?

Menendez: I’m fishing heavy line, 15- to 25-pound test, Berkley 100-percent Fluorocarbon line. I’m using a 7-foot medium-heavy Pflueger Trion rod with a Presidential reel, and I jump the spoon off the bottom with a snap of my wrist and the follow the spoon back to the bottom on a slack line.

Question: Tell us how you fish that big Sexy Spoon. There are a lot of folks who don’t know how to fish it. If you cast the spoon out, and it hits the water, what do you do next?

Menendez: I watch my line as the spoon falls toward the bottom. I want the spoon to freefall and flutter to the bottom. Most of the time, you’ll get a bite on the initial fall. So I try and maintain contact with the spoon as it falls on a slack line to the bottom. Then once it hits the bottom, I snap my rod up hard and fast to cause the spoon to jump 6 or 7 feet off the bottom. Then it flutters and flashes back to the bottom. That flutter and flash is a lot better for catching bass in hot water in July than a heavy lead jig and spoon are. I vary the distance I hop the spoon off the bottom.

Many times, the bass will take the spoon much better, if you only hop it 4 or 5 inches off the bottom, instead of hopping it 6 to 7 feet off the bottom. I vary the size of the hop of the spoon until the bass tell me whether they want the spoon to come high or only a few inches off the bottom. The real secret to consistently catching fish with the spoon is keeping eye contact with your line. Many times a spoon bite will be extremely light. You’ve got to watch your line and set your hook as soon as you see the bite.

Question: Okay, Mark, when you jump the bass up off the bottom, and you miss the fish, what do you do after you try to set the hook and don’t get it set?

Menendez: I let the spoon fall to the bottom. The next time I hop it off the bottom, it’ll be a very-short hop. If I’ve been hopping the bait 3 feet off the bottom, I may only hop it 18 inches off the bottom. I know where the strike zone of the fish is, and I don’t want to move the bait too far away from that strike zone.

Question: How are you setting the hook when the spoon is falling?

Menendez: I use a good, quick jerk over my head with my rod. The set doesn’t have to be terribly powerful; it just has to be quick. Speed is more important than power when you’re setting the hook on a spoon. If you get just a quick lift to that spoon, you’ll catch the fish much better than if you make a hard hook set.

Question: How quickly do the bass wise-up to the Sexy Spoon?

Menendez: I’ve learned when I pull up on a spot, if I’ll cast the spoon first, I can catch a high percentage of the bass at that place on the spoon before I have to change baits. If I catch the fish on a crankbait and then go back to that same spot with a spoon, I don’t catch as many. I believe that perhaps the school of bass is pulled with the fish that’s hooked the crankbait away from the spot. But, if I start fishing a particular spot with that spoon, because I can cast it out, and it will flutter down to the spot within a site, I can catch just about every fish that’s on that place. All the fish will stay at that same location, rather than being pulled away from that location when they follow the bass that I’ve hooked on a crankbait.

Question: Are you modifying the spoon in any way?

Menendez: Yes, I am. Often when you’re fishing the spoon, you’ll have a problem with line twists. So to eliminate this problem, I attach a small barrel swivel to the split ring on the front of the spoon. I’ve found that a small barrel swivel doesn’t inhibit the fall of the spoon, and it does prevent the line from twisting as the spoon falls and/or as you retrieve it. I think there’s a lot more to be learned about the Sexy Spoon. The spoon is a situation bait, and in the right situation it can be deadly effective.

Contents:

• Part 1: Fish More and Burn Less Gas
• Part 2: Crankbait Secrets I’ve Learned This Year
• Part 3: Bet on the Football on the Bottom
• Part 4: Bet on the Big Worms
• Part 5: Hot Weather Spoonin’