FINDING A PATTERN

Each cast is part of an ongoing experiment. We're looking for a pattern that fish respond to best. But we can't control the experiment when we have no control over the variables. If we have three of this and one of that and two of those, all in different sizes and colors, and no known logic as to why we toss what we toss when we toss it, how can we know what fish are responding to when they finally bite? Was it size? Color? Vibration? A combination thereof?

Too many variables make the experiment an ongoing exercise in frustration -- just the way most anglers approach fishing. The key is not to worry too much about variables like finish and which scent product the bait's doused with. Even color's not in the first category of variables. The key is in controlling the most important variables -- depth, and then the combination of, or one or the other of speed and vibration.

See the reason for a spectrum of spoons of the same kind in different sizes? Switch bait sizes and most fishermen picture only a change in bait size. But as important or more important may be the change in the vibration part of the aura. First, the bait has to feel right. It's the first trigger to snap in a pike's brain. Once that first trigger trap door snaps open, the pike's conditioned to taking the bait as it nears, if it looks right.

With the sets (spectrums) of spoons suggested earlier, we already have many different combinations of variables to test. We begin with our best estimate of what pike will like and fine-tune from there. I'm not saying don't switch colors. Play that game, too, but experiment with only a limited number of colors. Don't get too many variables going. And we don't get so hung up on color that we forget the vibration part of the experiment. We prefer to keep color constant as we work through the spectrum of spoon sizes. Then we fine-tune by switching colors when we find a spoon size and design that seems to be producing.

Top Color Patterns

THE BEST SPOONS

So far we have a spectrum of Eppinger Dardevles. That's a good place to start. A spectrum or two of spoons of different makes, though, is part of the experiment, more so than changing color, because different spoon designs offer distinctive vibration patterns.

The 1-ounce Dardevle goes sort of wupwupwupwupwup in a kind of constant rolling predictable stutter as it wobbles along a pretty narrow path. A Huskie Devle, by comparison, goes more like woo-woo-wuppa, woo-woo-wuppa as in each wobble sequence it stutters left-right and then wuppas distinctively back left. If the path of the Dardevle is a consistent 6 inches in diameter, the path of the Huskie is a much more inconsistent foot and a half. The Dardevle feels smaller than the Huskie, which it is.

A Kotco Doctor Spoon in the 1-ounce category goes sort of whawhawhawhawha, running along in a pretty tight and more circular pattern. And the Eppinger Red Eye Wobbler in a muskie size, perhaps the world's most beautiful spoon, does a sort of woowoolabba woolabba woolabbawup.

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