Many weedless soft plastic and frog options can be pitched into wild rice, reeds, lily pads, and slop. However, weedless spoons can be tough to beat whenever stems or branches are sticking out of the water. Weedless spoons are typically going to be a little heavier than most weedless frogs or soft plastics rigged to work weedless over the tops of weeds, so they do have to be retrieved faster, but the shape and weight enable an angler to punch through the vegetation that is growing above the water much easier. For wild rice and pencil reeds, for example, where you want to cast with the seam of the stems and get back into the cover as far as possible, spoons shine.
There are a lot of good weedless spoons on the market. The Johnson Silver Minnow has been a classic catching fish for years. The Northland Tackle Jaw Breaker Spoon is a modified spoon with a heavier weed guard designed to penetrate thick wild rice and other hard-to-fish stems that collect on the hook and guard. What surprises many anglers new to weedless spoons is that there is some versatility with spoons depending on the retrieve and how the spoon is tipped. Spoons tipped with a craw, or beaver tail style body will typically ride high through the water where the spoon drags across the surface while the soft plastic ripples or flops behind. Spoons tipped with a straight curl tail worm, or ribbon tail worm will typically wobble and zig-zag just under the surface and can be rigged to flutter down into open pockets and edges.
The key to using these spoons in heavy cover to their utmost effectiveness starts with good casting and getting the lure moving through the water at the correct pitch or angle with the line to the rod tip. These fundamentals are essential because if the lure starts moving with the correct angle and speed, it will move or load up with fewer weeds as soon as it hits the water. Many weedless presentations go through weeds just fine, but if the stalks and stems are loading up and moving as the lure moves through the water, you will not catch as many fish. Likewise, if you can see weeds moving as they hang up on the lure, the lure will not catch as much, even if the weeds eventually slide past the weed guard and the lure comes clean.
To catch the most fish possible with weedless spoons, match up the right retrieve to the right tipping option to match up with the profile of the spot. Typically, we start on the edges of good cover like wild rice or pencil reeds and work our way in. Fish often push deep into the bed on hot sunny days during the middle of the day or with high winds. Often, experimenting with the soft plastic trailer regarding size, profile, and the color is more crucial than experimenting with the spoon. Spoons will catch plenty of fish without being tipped, and spoons like the Jaw Breaker have a killer skirt that looks good in the water, but in many cases, the spoon is just a vehicle to deliver a soft plastic craw or worm. The spoon's weight enables further casts and the presentation to slice through vegetation above the water more efficiently. For penetrating thick stands of wild rice and pencil reeds, weedless spoons are one of the most efficient ways to pull big bass off these locations. Use the spoon as a search lure in heavy cover, if nothing else. Spoons can be fished fast, and if a fish blows up and misses the spoon, an angler can always follow up with a traditional jig and pig or Texas-rigged soft plastic.
For many anglers, weedless spoons often get overlooked. Weedless scum frogs are popular right now, as are other soft plastic options, but these presentations shine when there is not much vegetation above the surface of the water, as these lures don’t have the weight to fall through stalks and stems. This is the perfect situation for weedless spoons when fishing ultra shallow cover that hangs up soft plastics and frogs above the water.
