Why have many fishermen lost interest in them? Are they really that bad? Should we forget about them?
I have been collecting Soviet-made spinner spoons for a long time, and I test each one using a specially developed system, calculating the actual catchability. Why do this when my boxes are full of excellent wobblers and full of working rubber? Yes, because the Soviet spinner is a resurgent brand, implying very catchy and expensive baits.
However, the price does not matter much for connoisseurs of the classics. Auctions are held on the Internet, where original Soviet spoons sell like hot cakes at a price comparable to an excellent modern wobbler. And these baits are bought in the desire to pay tribute to the masters of the past, who proved that the price of a bait is not an indicator of its catchability.
Decreased interest in vibrations
After the collapse of the USSR, interest in oscillators began to decline. With the advent of rubber, many spinning anglers switched to it, considering it more catchy and better adapted to a wide variety of lake and river fishing conditions. And with the advent of fashion for wobblers, modern spinning rods turned away from spinners altogether. This was largely due to the dominance of low-quality spinners that appeared on sale. For many, the spinner has become some kind of crappy bait, which is more or less suitable only for catching autumn pike. The situation was slightly improved by the appearance of modern Scandinavian, American, Canadian, and Japanese spinners, raising the prestige of the spinner as such. But there were big problems with the purchase of these deceptions in small towns and villages, and they still remain. In general, there is nothing good in the modern assortment of spinners in many stores; you want to buy some kind of spoon, but everything is just “China”. But the Chinese somehow make the vibrators incorrectly, some “for children”, and they rust over time. I won’t say that all iron spoons are bad, and only brass is good, but it’s definitely not good for a spoon to rust.
In general, Soviet spinners remained the most popular bait for a long time; they served spinning rods well for several decades. And their authority was very high until the mid-90s, after which they were valued only by ardent fans of hardware.
The best spoons for pike
For lovers of fishing for large specimens of fish, gear from domestic and foreign manufacturers is produced. We present the rating of the top 10 best spinners for pike.
Kuusamo Professor 3
The Kuusamo Professor 3 spoon is equipped with a double hook located under the antennae. The latter help to avoid accidental snags on snags and other objects under water. Anglers prefer to use this model more often than others, due to its good catchability and maneuverability in hard-to-reach creeks. Also, the Kuusamo Professor 3 spinner is covered with high-quality paint that does not wear off after 4-5 seasons.
Rublex Orkla
French Rublex Orkla equipment is present on the Russian market, but in small quantities. If you wish, you can find decent vibrators. Despite their compact size, Rublex Orkla are equipped with a powerful treble hook. This design of equipment is justified, because not every bite of a predatory fish ends with the trophy being pulled ashore. The spoons of this model allow you to successfully fish at a depth of up to 4 meters.
Mepps Syclops
The oscillating spinner “Cyclops” is very attractive to predatory species. Mepps Syclops has an active game even in slow currents. The steel bait is made very realistically and always attracts the inhabitants of reservoirs with its shine. It has peculiar edges on its body that create vibrations like a turntable. While guiding and lowering the spoon in the water column, not a single fish will miss it.
Williams Wabler
The special feature of this brass fishing imitation is the structural feature of the structure. Williams Wabler differs from other models of similar purposes in its stiffening rib. It stabilizes the bait during retrieval. It also helps to fish in any speed of water flow, even in stormy mountain rivers. Williams has a light weight - 2.5 millimeters, it behaves confidently at the smallest depths. Suitable for fishing - both in autumn and spring.
Acme Little Cleo
American classic for pike, behavioral qualities are similar to the Atom bait. Externally they are slightly different, the Cleo has a wider front. Acme Little Cleo comes in a wide range of sizes and weights. This model behaves well in shallow water, also at depth, producing active play. The wiring is done as usual: evenly, evenly with stops, evenly with broaches. Fish like Cleo; it responds well to both summer and autumn spinners.
Abu Garcia Toby
Abu Garcia Toby is a legendary type of wobble that is popular all over the world. Lures are good at provoking any predatory fish to bite, including pike. The model is suitable for fishing in any body of water, with or without current. Experienced fishermen effectively use Garcia on rivers and lakes. It does not change the oscillatory pace when changing the wiring, it balances perfectly, attracting the spotted inhabitant of the reservoir. Spinner spoons of this brand are suitable for beginner fishing enthusiasts, because even incorrect wiring does not affect the balancing of the spoon.
Abu Garcia Atom
Abu Garcia Atom spoon with high efficiency for catching seasonal pike. It performs well at a depth of 4-4.5 meters. When retrieved, it shows good stability, plays actively, and does not create a corkscrew rotation. For beginners, this is the most acceptable spinner option. The peculiarity of the wiring is uniform pulling with frequent pauses. Atom has established itself as a leader in autumn fishing for pike and other large fish species. The fall of the spoon creates a characteristic game; often the predator grabs the bait at exactly this moment or during the subsequent renewed movement.
Smith Pure
Smith Poor is made of hard alloys, coated with gold, silver, and multi-colored inclusions. The bait has the properties of a chameleon - it changes color in water and in air. The design of the spoon is designed for use in weak currents and in seething mountain streams. The body of the Smith Pure shaker is wide, rounded in the shape of a spoon. This form works well in water with a layer depth of only 20-30 centimeters. The main thing is to correctly use the wiring technique and the structure of the spinning tackle.
Blue Fox Matrixx Spoon
Blue Fox Matrixx Spoons are considered universal equipment for fishing. They have excellent working qualities. Their shape is optimally thought out, which allows them to be used in trolling and in standard techniques. The spoon performs well on intense and slow retrieves and does not get lost in strong currents. Oscillating imitation is used for catching not only pike, but also perch and salmon species. The pronounced texture of the body surface and reflective eyes make the bait very realistic, and therefore desirable for toothy predators. A strong triple hook of bright red color reliably hooks and holds prey in the water and in weight.
Daiwa Silver Creek Spinner
The Daiwa Silver Creek Spinner is as close as possible to a fish with expressive eyes, which is necessary for catching a toothy beauty. The main advantage of the product is a kind of petal above the head of the bait, which attracts pike over long distances. An important element in the structure of the auxiliary blade is 5 holes, which cause rhythmic, increasing rotation of the spoon. Catching baits are produced in various colors.
The current return of interest in Soviet products is a natural phenomenon
All types of modern baits have been mastered. The advertisement sang one thing, but life puts everything in its place - all types of baits are equivalent in terms of catchability in the conditions where they are appropriate. If we compare the catchability of a spinner and a modern wobbler, I am convinced that the spinner catches no worse.
And if Soviet spinners were so bad, then modern manufacturers would not stick to them. Soviet spinners include all models produced before 1992. During this period and further, right up to the present day, the market was flooded with an incredible number of Chinese and Russian-made baits, with names from the legendary Soviet spinners. But for the most part they have nothing to do with them, differing significantly from the original, and mostly for the worse.
Soviet spinners are also not all of high quality
If the winding rings were often normal, then the poor quality of the tees was the order of the day. But this is a removable part of the spoon, and can be easily replaced with a higher-quality modern tee. Much more significant is that the spinners themselves varied greatly. Many models were made from cheap iron, which began to rust even under a protective coating, especially Ukrainian models - Zhytomyr, Kyiv.
Lures were made using the usual stamping method, and, apparently, this was not always normal equipment, they did not always work on it conscientiously, and one batch of lures often had defects - differences in weight, flaws in metal processing. As a result, there are two outwardly similar deceptions, but one successfully catches a predator, and the other is a useless piece of metal.
The spinners were also designed differently
Someone took world-famous spinners as a model and, with varying degrees of success, riveted replicas, giving them their own names. Someone created truly original spinners, without the usual 3D modeling for today's practice, but making the bait on a whim, often from tips from the experience of Soviet spinners. That is, even then the baits were created by different people who understood well what they were doing; and amateurs who are far from real fishing.
As a result, many models of Soviet spinners fell into oblivion due to their almost zero catchability. And I haven’t heard that even collectors are chasing them - why collect junk that is not able to catch fish? But the excellent lures remain, and interest in them is only growing. After all, this is both our glorious history of spinning and simply high efficiency. And I am not at all surprised by the excitement that has arisen in recent years around Soviet spinners when catching large perch and pike.
Techniques and tactics of fishing with spoons
The technique of fishing with a spoon is that the pike reacts to the slow, smooth movement of the bait in the water. The slowness of the victim provokes the toothy individual to attack. The wiring can be done so that the spoon barely touches the bottom, drags, and raises the mud. Such actions should be carried out only in clean places without snags and dense thickets. When retrieving, you should stop at the moment of reeling in the line so that the oscillator sways from side to side, luring the fish to attack.
Where it is deep, it is worth trying stepwise wiring, making three-second pauses. To catch pike, it is recommended to experiment more often: change the fishing location, use spinners with different weights and coating colors. Some option will definitely work, and the fish will be hooked.
Lure test according to the Olympic system
I have already collected a lot of working spinners from the times of the USSR. And I’m trying to catch everything, thoroughly testing, trying to be as objective as possible. Test according to the Olympic system - the weak one is eliminated. That is, I arrange competitions between baits and each other, the main arbiter is a predator, and I am, as it were, a demanding fan.
To exclude the possibility of chance, I test baits for quite a long time, about two years, and each spoon works in different bodies of water. Initially, I divided all the baits into groups, forming them in a random order - as the hand lays. On a particular fishing trip, each bait makes about 10-15 retrieves, then changes. On my next fishing trip on a different body of water, I again make a dozen casts each. And so in a circle, fishing after fishing, season after season. After a couple of years, favorites and outsiders are calculated. The latter are sent to the “archive”. And those who distinguished themselves gather in their own groups, where they begin to compete with each other. Typically, any bait works well only in certain conditions, and to understand this, you need to experiment a lot and record the results of each bait.
The weight range of my “iron” is from 4 to 55 g. The most universal ones are from 14 to 20 g, with which you can fish the entire water area on deep lakes and rivers. But what is universal is not the best thing, and that’s certainly true in vibrators. With a super-heavy spoon, you can really fish the pit dumps very thoroughly, no worse than with a jig. And lighter, wider spoons are very good for fishing in overgrown shallow waters, in no way inferior to twitching wobblers.
I don’t immediately reject any new bait that comes into my arsenal. Only after thoroughly testing do I come to a conclusion. At the same time, I cannot understand why lures that are largely similar, both in game and in size, selectively affect pike of different sizes. Let's say, one model perfectly collects fish up to 2-3 kg, and a large pike turns up its nose at it, no matter what kind of wiring you offer. And the other spoon catches small pike well, and clearly attracts specimens weighing 3-5 kg. There is also a small spoon (one side is copper, the other is steel), I don’t know how it is made, but the perch sits on it very actively, and the pike completely ignores it.
Rods for fishing with spoons
For heavy predatory fish, they usually take a spinning rod, the correct choice of which is based on the determination of: test, length, action. The characteristics of a rod for fishing pike with spoons must correspond to the conditions of use of the gear. The length of the reach of the rod on which the spoon is attached depends on the openness of the area. If there are no obstacles for casting, then use a fishing rod from 2.7 to 2.8 meters.
According to the test, a spinning rod is selected according to the weight of the equipment that is supposed to be installed for fishing. The main thing here is the sensitivity of the gear, since a mismatch in the ratios will disrupt the performance. It is ideal to use the M-medium (medium) test for pike - 10-30 grams. In order not to damage the tackle, it is recommended to choose a test that is 1/3 more than the weight of the oscillating spoon.
For predatory fish, you should choose medium action gear (indicates the rigidity of the fishing rod). It will allow you to easily cast the spoon over long distances. This is possible because the casting qualities are many times superior to fast action fishing rods. When casting, 1/2 of the fishing rod is used, and not 1/3 of the gear. When fishing for pike using spinners, it is worth installing spinning reels.
