Freshwater Fishing with Flutter Spoons

Bass can’t resist a dying shad and few freshwater fishing lures look more like such a tempting morsel than a sinking spoon. Many anglers fish with jigging spoons, also called slab spoons. A jigging spoon consists of a 1/8 to ¾ ounce chunk of chrome-plated and often facetted lead, dropped vertically and bounced off the bottom. These definitely catch fish, but sometimes, lunker largemouths want a bigger meal.

A casting or flutter spoon consists of a thin, oblong chunk of concave metal that may measure as much as seven or eight inches long. It looks more like something an angler might troll in the ocean for king mackerel than use to tempt largemouths. However, bass anglers also find many “offshore” applications for this lure.

“Anytime I’m offshore fishing in deep water around ledges, I keep a big flutter spoon handy,” said Dave Wolak, a professional bass angler who grew up in Pennsylvania, but now resides in Wake Forest, NC. “I often use flutter spoons to fish rocky ledges in deep, clear lakes. The fish might get off to one side of the ledge and suspend in deep water. I look for fish on the graph and let the spoon flutter through where the fish are, and jerk it as hard as possible.”

While freshwater fishing, anglers won’t discover many rocky ledges in some Southern areas but they might still find clear, deep water. Even in places like Florida or Louisiana, anglers may find some relatively deep water far from shore where they could use this technique. Look for hard bottoms, rock piles, sunken logs or submerged weed beds, to hold the fish. Deep bass often suspend in the water, as well. Suspended bass may not rise to strike topwaters or see Texas-rigged worms, jigs, or slabs spoons working beneath them. In this situation cast a flutter spoon to a good spot and let it sink. Drop the spoon through the school before popping it vigorously.

“A flutter spoon is not a bait that many fish typically see in the Deep South, so bass go for it,” Wolak said. “At Lake Fork, Texas, though, it’s a well-known technique for catching giant bass offshore. Frequently, those big fish suspend in water more than 30 feet deep and are nearly impossible to catch in any other way. Look for arches on the graph about halfway between the surface and the bottom. Keep throwing the flutter spoon out and let it fall through the school. Jerk it up and let it flutter down again. Eventually, it will fall in a certain way that looks like a big shad to a hungry lunker largemouth.”

Unlike vertically jigging a slab spoon, cast a flutter spoon away from the boat and let it drop. It sinks with a horizontal wobble or flutter, like a large dying shad. “It’s a big, wide bait with a long profile,” Wolak said. “A big flutter spoon really stands out in a school of shad. I use it when bass are feeding upon big shad like gizzard shad. Because it’s such a big bait, it also tends to attract bigger fish. I’ve caught some seven pounders on these types of lures.”

Since fish most often strike as the bait falls in the water column, try to fish it on a slack line. Throw it on 14 to 20 pound fluorocarbon and pay strict attention to the line as the bait falls. Anglers many not even feel the strike or just feel a slight thump. If the line stops prematurely before hitting bottom, set the hook!



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