Finesse-Fishing.com has closed and has nothing left to sell, other than a few used books. I have decided to leave the website up as a resource for people interested in fishing with light rods, light lines and light lures - true finesse fishing.

Smith Edge Diamond Spoons Give you the "Edge"

by Les Albjerg
(Caldwell, Idaho)

I never thought I would be enthused about Spin fishing. I have come "to the Dark Side" from the TenkaraBum site. It is "Walter's" fault that I bought the Tenryu Rayz Spectra RZS51LL. There is a pocket on Wilson Creek near my house where a 15 to 18 inch trout seems to always set up an ambush.

I have named that fish "Walter" even though I doubt it is the same fish in that ambush all of the time. Twice I have hooked and lost "Walter" on one of my short but powerful fixed line rods. At 3 meters, the rod is too long for a proper fight in the brush and trees, thus the "need" for spinning gear. I have not seen a fish in that pocket for the last two months, so maybe it is more of a summer - fall spot.

Last week, I was fishing a place in the Wilson Springs area where the springs dump into the creek. This is fairly fast water, and ended up spoon fishing with the .4 gram Daiwa Vega spoons with my fixed line rig. I caught one very nice trout and broke off an even nicer one. However, I could see that I just wasn't able to get the spoons as deep as I need. I could also see many fish following the spoon.

This morning I went over with the Tenryu Rayz Spectra and geared up with a Smith Diamond Edge Silver 3 gram spoon. Using an underhanded two hand casting technique that I discovered this week through Chris, I was dropping the spoon just where I wanted to.

Because this is only a 25 yard long area of "fishable current", I practiced the philosophy, "Don't walk over any fishable area." I actually began fishing well below the area I was itching to get to. It was a smart move on my part. As I worked my way from the bank to the far bank (This is a narrow creek) upstream, I caught and landed seven 10 - 14 inch trout. What I love about the Smith Edge Spoons is how well they sink! I pulled 3 trout out of the near seam, and 4 more trout out of the far seam in the "honey spot." These fish ranged from 8 inches to 15 inches. Since right now they are planting 8-10 inch trout at Wilson, I was happy with several holdovers. I could only fish for an hour before work. I was pleased with a 14 fish in an hour this morning! I am sure 4 of those fish were hold-over fish because they were more than 12 inches.

Spinning can become addictive! The underhand two hand cast is fairly simple. You simply hold the line loosely in your off hand, do an underhand cast and when the lure is at the distance you want, stop the line between your fore finger and thumb. Maybe everyone else knows the technique, but it was new to me until this week.

I do think the high quality spoons on this site make a difference. Sorry for no pictures. When I pulled my camera out of the backpack, I had left it on and the battery was dead. This has happened several times, and I am going to put some tape on the camera switch because I think it is getting jostled on as I move about.