Flutter Spoon at Anglers Inn Mexico El Salto

I am a firm believer that travelers to Lake El Salto and Lake Picachos need to cover all of the tackle basics before expanding their lure selections, but as an addicted angler I’m always looking for a “better mousetrap” and I tend to get high on retail therapy. That means I spend a lot on speculative acquisitions, most of which end up resigned to the dustbin of angling history.

Nevertheless, after 40-plus years of bass fishing and nearly 25 years of bass boat ownership, the desire to experience lure-based deflowerings remains strong. My first Texas Rig fish, my first topwater fish, and my first lipless crankbait fish are so far in the rearview mirror that I can hardly remember them. These days, the firsts and fewer and arrive more infrequently.

That’s why I was so jacked up to catch a bunch of fish on a flutter spoon during our recently-completed trip to El Salto. Not only was it one of my increasingly rare “firsts,” but it also unlocked a bite that I’d previously found confusing. The lake’s big schools of offshore bass are very mobile and fleeting. You can catch nothing on a spot one hour, then land 30 or 40 there the next, only to see them evaporate again as the day goes on. Often those movements are fueled by weather – in my opinion, mostly wind. There is a channel drop near Anglers Inn that tends to hold many better quality bass, and when the wind blows in the afternoon you can catch numbers of them on a deep-diving crankbait, a swimbait or even a slow-rolled spinnerbait, but in the morning when it’s flat out they can be tough to figure out. They’re still in the vicinity, and you can often catch a few on a Carolina Rig or football jig, but it’s tough to trigger the schools to bite consistently.

Enter the flutter spoon.

Not coincidentally, about a year ago Bassmaster Elite Series pros Brandon Palaniuk and Brandon Cobb caught some quality bass on a spoon while filming a show for Mossy Oak right on this same channel bend, in the boat run by my friend Chichi Rodriguez. Palaniuk later told me that his only regret was that they hadn’t brought bigger spoons with them. As I wrote before we left, it was something I thought I could add to my bag of tricks.

Midway through this recent trip we headed to Palaniuk/Cobb spot in the late morning, with the water like glass. I asked Chichi, “Spoon?” He nodded, so I tied one on.

On my second or third cast, the falling spoon got interrupted by an angry bass. I played it carefully, but halfway to the boat it pulled free. Much to Hanna’s dismay, I dropped a few four-letter words, mostly because I figured that it would be my last chance to get bit on this oddball lure. Fortunately, I was wrong. I ended up catching several more before Hanna decided to tie one on as well. Between the two of us, we caught a dozen “bonus” fish on flutter spoons in the hour before lunch. If we’d actually known what we were doing, we might have caught more.

We caught fish intermittently on the flutter spoons throughout the remainder of the trip. I only had five of them with me, and with El Salto’s forests of underwater timber I feared we’d be cannibalizing silverware by the end of the trip, but as a result of Chichi’s persistence and expertise we managed to get all of the snagged spoons back. We never fired up a school and caught 30 or 40 at a time, but I’m hopeful we’ll be able to do that when we return in June.

*A different kind of spoon — Anglers Inn’s incredible desserts.*

A few notes on spooning:

I exclusively used the 5.5” Strike King Sexy Spoon in Sexy Shad. It weighs 1.3 ounces and has a plain treble.
I fished it on a 7’ G. Loomis IMX844, a medium-heavy rod. I think I would’ve been better served with a 7’6” rod with a slightly slower action.
My reel was a Shimano Curado DC with a 7.4:1 gear ratio. I think the fast gear ratio was good for picking up line on fish that ate the lure on the fall, but the DC technology wasn’t necessary – the lure is heavy enough that it casts easily, even into the wind. I would have been better served by a reel with a larger line capacity, because when I cast with the wind, I could go almost to my spool knot.
I fished it on 16 lb. test Sugoi fluorocarbon. That seemed fine at the time, but since returning I’ve watched several videos that recommended braid, mono, or a braid-to-leader connection. I’m not sure what to think.
Hanna used a 4.75” Talon Custom Lures Lake Fork Flutter Spoon in Tilapia, a color that they no longer seem to sell. It weighs 1.25 ounces and has a feathered treble.
Several of the fish we landed (or lost) were hooked in the side or tail.
We did not experiment with any sort of “stinger” hooks but I intend to do so next time to cut down on the number of fish that pull free. We lost more on the “pull” than on the jump, even though you might expect the latter to be more prevalent.
Next time I will add a swivel to my line to cut down on the incredible amount of line twist this technique causes. If you don’t do that, be sure to change out your line regularly.

It goes almost without saying that as soon as I got back I made good use of the ongoing Tackle Warehouse Black Friday sale to stock up on more spoons, mostly in the 5- to 6-inch range but also some 8- and 9-inch behemoths. If you’re headed to Mexico and expect to fish offshore, it can’t hurt to pack a few of your own.

Magnum flutter spoon with assist stinger hooks for El Salto Mexico

Epilogue: Friend-of-a-friend Kyle McMillin was headed down on a combo trip just a few days after we came back from Mexico. He saw our postings on social media and decided to add some spoons to his basic tackle selection. Fishing with the same guide in similar spots, he enjoyed even better success than we did. The proof is below.