New 'voltage tuned' trolling spoons for 2016

Hello my US friends. Sorry to hear about the king salmon situation down there. I once again extend my invitation to come and share our fishery. There are some harvestable numbers of hatchery chinook/king salmon especially in Nootka Sound and Esperanza. All sheltered water fishery, if you want. Supposed to be good returns of 30lb tyees this year.
Here are some of my latest additions to the trolling spoon lineup. All with long lasting anode and stainless swivels and hook. Puts out over .6volts and will last 1 to 3 years, depending on usage.
I also have 4 patterns of larger 5/0 spoons if anyone is interested.
Good Fishin

I tried to mimmick as close to a 742 hoochie as I could. I know it is a Puget Sound favorite.
SEVEN FORTY TWO

GREEN BANANAS What more can I say.

AURORA (Northern Lights) with lots of light refraction.

Ever popular MOON JELLY Just like the flasher material.

MARILYN (diamonds are a girl's best friend). *GLOW*

MONKEY PUKE with vertical ghost stripes.

ICEBERG very refractive including the silver stripe.

I just ordered a couple and I will report results later this summer.

Good looking spoons

They do look rather nice. What length's are available?

I could see Green Bananas or Marilyn working well for me on summer / fall fish and Moon Jelly and Iceberg for winter BM.

I have the 7 new spoons in 4.0 (3 3/4"), Marilyn and Moon Jelly in 5.0. I can make up any of them in 3.5 (3 1/4") upon request. I just like to hold newly made spoons for at least a week to make sure the tape doesn't wrinkle on the edges. Heat treating helps to stress relieve the tape, but it is not a perfect science. Spoons and tape are good quality, US made. No bending when you catch a lunker.

Don't be sorry. LOL.
Actually, I use high voltage anodes on my fresh water lures. That is because the mineral content of fresh water is lower than salt water reducing the voltage. I did let the fish tell me what they wanted when selecting the anode alloys. For those interested, in most cases trout are as receptive as chinook are. I have a pro-staffer in Ontario who has waxed his buddies butts two years in a row on rainbows with different setups each year.
When dialing in my chinook voltage, once I found the low end that worked, I tried to find where they would be spooked away. I never found that level. I went over a full volt on my spoons and the fish still favored the voltage tuned spoon over a plain identical one when trolled 16 ft apart.
I do have a chap who likes to jig cod and halibut. He believes that the higher voltage anode is working better. He is local and I will check with him periodically.

Sure do look "tasty" Anything that looks like a small black cod? Late August last year we got into a huge area of small black cod and Coho were all over it!

Do these look like coho treats?



BLACK BART

BLACK FOREST CAKE

I like the looks of the "Black Bart" for the Hood Canal. Is that UV tape and a chrome belly? I lost some of my color vision in my service days.

Also, what speed is your lure designed to run? Do you recommend fishing the 3.5 spoons behind an eight or eleven inch flasher?

The tape according to the US manufacturer is not UV rated. It does have multi colored shards of refraction as opposed to a straight black scale. It also has a chrome (nickel) belly. What it does have is a voltage field that travels a long way in salt water. The nice thing about voltage is that it doesn't care how dark it is outside, how muddy the water, or how fast the current is flowing. It's just there. A 3.5 spoon tows nicely in the 2-3mph range for kings and livens up for coho at higher speeds. Lots of guys like flashers as an extra attraction. I only use spoons by themselves when testing. There again, the voltage is a fabulous attraction. In my original test trough, the voltage from a lure in sea water didn't drop 5% over the entire 30 ft. In fresh water with the same lure, it dropped 30% for every 10 ft of separation. It still works well in fresh water.

Thanks for the quick replies, and pm. Looking fore ward to try a couple of your designs once we get an opportunity come July.

The spoons look great!

Another question. Would a barbless 3/0 sickle siwash be an acceptable change out for the 3.5 spoons? They have a shorter shank, but I could hang them back off a small swivel for the Canal?

Thanks Slabhunter
I do exactly the same thing when I fish the 3.5s for trout. As an old commercial troller, I am not afraid to use larger hooks on salmon.
You can try the sickle hook as long as it is nickel or stainless. Black steel will still work, though most are clear coated and no voltage will come from the hook portion of the lure. Most black nickel are ok.
The swivel will probably have a brass body with nickel coating. They will reduce the voltage slightly at first. I have seen the nickel plating come off after a week or so of voltage reaction. Then more brass is exposed and voltage will reduce even further. This doesn't mean that the fish won't like a lower voltage there. I just want you to know that if the lure doesn't produce, that may be the culprit.
I just got a report from one Alaska commercial troller. He had a few sample anodes to try. After day one, he ordered 4 dozen more. He was just as happy after day two of fishing.

Canada's pending postal strike averted! Phew! Back to business.
In the meantime ......
I have had a pro-staffer working out of French Creek (inside of Vancouver Island). He had asked me to make up some special spoons for him as he had much luck with that combination with other lures. I did this for him, he tested, he outfishes everyone including local guides and I named the spoon after him. It is the Svensen Special. I have only made up a few in size 3.5 for now. They are only available in French Creek Store and on my website. Don't enter the derby without some 'juice'. Over .6 volts on all salt water lures.

Heading to Hippa in a month. What do you have for there?

Hey Jerry. I just went through my old log books as I used to troll commercially up there. I made notes on several lures. If I were going, I would have Marilyn 4.0 and 5.0 (glow white crush), and/or Mini Pearl 4.0 (white chameleon crush, like Tomic 602 plug), Army Tank 4.0 or 5.0, Moon Jelly 4.0 or 5.0 (chameleons between pale blue to pink to fuchsia purple). It covers 3 of my favorites - 500 (blue), pink, purple haze. In case there are too many salmon sharks, a voltage tuned hoochie pack (2 each cop car, army truck, glow white, bahama blue and Pistachio green). Knight Sky hoochies (I was thinking of that country when I chose that pattern).
Also an assortment of anodes to 'juice' your own hoochies, plugs, spoons.
I used a lot of OC39R and 0CW40R? Blue/green and medium blue with white or clear belly. Otherwise get a big net, seal bombs and Capt'n Morgan, aaaaar. If you order anything for up there, I will upsize the hooks for you. Let me know.

A bit off topic but:
How long leaders do we recommend for kings? I've heard 24" for spoons and 42" for hoochies. Had an old time commercial dude say even shorter than 16"

Those are beautiful! They remind me of coyote spoons.

What brand hooks do you use?

Fished off Esperanza Inlet this past week. Used the 6.5" Pilchard Tyee Candy and the glow white octopus. They out-fished my regular go-to choices. The Pilchard was run at 200' on the wire on highway. 3 nice Chinook in less than an hour. Never got around to trying the spoons. Will be running the gear some more in MA 6.

Thanks, Allan

Chasbo

I like to run my hootchies 18" to 22" behind the flasher on 50# flourocarbon. Spoons I'll run 3' to 4'. Rig a flasher with a long leader to a hootchie and one with a short leader. Run them beside the boat to see the difference in the action. When I went to the shorter leader, my hook-up ratio went up quite a bit. The fish have to be aggressive to take the hootchie on the shorter leader.

Hoochies are good from 38 to 50". Depends a lot on the flasher, speed and even the weight of line. Spoons are always about 5 or 6 ft back. They already have their own action. The flasher is simply an attractor.

The hooks that I have switched to this year are Qi (pronounced Chee). Yup, Chinese! I only went with them from reading the posts on a commercial trolling forum (Alaska). The guys are getting 2 years out of them. I have closed thousands of eyes with my trusty vice grips this year and never snapped one. The barbs usually roll over without snapping as well. So far zero complaints.

Thanks. I always appreciate a good report. If anybody likes trolling or casting for trout, I have had awesome reports on rainbows and brookies, just as convincing as bushbear's. My team is also working on pike, walleye and bass. Carp is the only definite 'no attract' so far.
The team is testing some 2 1/2" casting spoons as well as the trolling spoons except with fresh water anodes. I have 3 1/2" casting spoons as that will be tried on coho this fall. I will update later.

So, I constantly wipe my gear with distilled white vinegar to remove the lions mane jellies. Is this making my lures to hot? There are chinook jumping in the lower canal, Skokomish estuary.

I wouldn't think that would do much. Once it dries, the reaction stops. If you do this during fishing, any acid residue would dissolve very quickly. I have found that fish get very finicky when they are close to entering fresh water. One of my most convinced customers uses one of my portable black boxes attached to the front of his flasher as well as a 'tuned' spoon. Last year he used anchovy with no voltage but with the portable black box. He was extremely successful with both setups, but maybe more so this year with 'tuned' spoons. I just sold him more tackle and will get a later report.
Perhaps moving the voltage source further away from the lure may make a difference. This you would have to experiment with.
The last time I fished chinook at a river mouth, the most productive lure was a sockeye hoochie tuned with low voltage. Go Figure!

I might have missed it but do you have them at Pacific Net and Twine or Steveston Marine? Very Nice.

Got mine in the mail. lookin good.

No, only on Vancouver Island right now for my tackle, and the casting spoons are only online. My shipping is set up that you just pay a little over the postal charge. I don't add handling fees as such.

Good stuff. Now you have over 20 sleeps before you get to try them up there. Think of it like sex. The anticipation is half the fun.