Stan Fagerstrom
08-01-2005, 06:59 PM
“You Gotta Feed ‘Em Spoons!”
By Stan Fagerstrom
Part 2
In my last column I told about how a lure marketed here in the Pacific Northwest is among the best for catching the hell raising peacock bass of the Amazon jungle.
That lure is the Luhr-Jensen Tony Acetta Pet Spoon. It’s the bait I caught most of my fish on during my third trip into the Amazon. I made that last trip with Phil Jensen, the president of the company that bears his name
http://www.ifish.net/sftonyaccetta.jpg
These Tony Accetta Pet Spoons can be dynamite for the Amazon jungle's peacock bass.
The talented president of this Oregon company has sold more than a half million Pet Spoons for Amazon fishing over the past 20 years. That’s a whole bunch of baits. Most of them went into Brazil to be used by peacock bass anglers.
Listen to experienced peacock anglers tell about their jungle fishing and most often it’s surface lures that dominate the conversation. That’s as it should be. It is indeed surface lures, baits like the fabled Luhr-Jensen Woodchoppers that seem to catch the most as well as the largest peacock bass. Jensen himself caught a 26-pound, 12-ounce monster on one of his Woodchoppers. That fish was only 4-ounces shy of the recognized world record of an even 27-pounds. It might be the second largest ever caught.
Be that as it may, the angler who goes into the jungle without a pocketful of Pet Spoons is missing a bet. He’s also handicapping himself because there are times and places back there in that amazing part of the world where that wobbling lure with its single hook will do a better job than surface plugs.
Let’s say, for example, your wife or gal friend knows you’ve got an Amazon trip planned. She says she wants to go along. You’re happy to have her accompany you, but 10-minutes into her first trip on a jungle river she’s finding it next to impossible to handle the big 3-ounce surface lure you’ve tied on for her. The lure is just too darn heavy for her to throw up close to the cover along the river’s edge. That’s where it has to be to catch fish consistently.
That’s where the Pet Spoons come in. They come in a variety of sizes and weights. You’ll likely want to use one of the larger jobs for peacock bass fishing, but even the big ones are a lot easier to handle over long hours of casting.
If you read my first column, you’ll remember Jensen saying the Pet Spoon was the most versatile of the multitude of lures his company markets. He didn’t just say that to me---he proved it.
“Stan,” Phil said, laying his rod with its big surface lure aside as he spoke, “let’s take a break from casting. I want to show you another way to catch these peacocks.”
What we did next was cut the surface lures off our lines and tie on Pet Spoons. Phil had the guide take our boat in tight to the jungle river cover. We trolled our spoons at a fast clip, wiggling and wobbling right in next to the undergrowth. It wasn’t long before we had our first one. Over the next hour or so the first one was followed by a half-dozen others. The largest a dandy 13-pounder that Phil finally whipped.
Examine a Pet Spoon up close and careful and you’ll find it has one single hook. The hook rides upright as the lure swims. That in itself is an asset because it helps avoid hang-ups in the areas of cover where the jungle bass hang out. The head of the lure is also shaped in such a fashion that it tends to deflect off the cover with which it comes in contact. I’m not saying the lure is snag-free because it isn’t, but you can work it through some fairly heavy stuff if you watch what you’re doing.
“One of the things I like most about it,” Jensen says, “is that it’s a darn good fish locator.” That’s something else he proved to me while we were back there in the boonies.
Let’s face it. Get way back into a vast and unknown region like the Amazon and as often as not you’re uncertain as to where the fish are. The veteran Oregon lure maker sometimes trolls one of his Pet Spoons along the shoreline until he gets the fish pinpointed. Then he may switch to casting something like the Woodchopper or the Pet Spoon itself.
I wound up that jungle trip hooking more bass on a Pet Spoon than anything I tied on my line. I got them both trolling and casting. The fishing wasn’t red hot while we were there because of tropical downpours and rising rivers, but we did catch fish each day out. Again---most of mine were on the Luhr-Jensen Pet Spoon.
http://www.ifish.net/sfleapingpea.jpg
Here's what you'll witness when a peacock bass smashes into your lure.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out an American lure maker isn’t going to sell a half million copies of just one kind of lure unless it catches fish. The Pet Spoon will do that. That’s why Phil Jensen’s company has sold them in the numbers it has.
But remember what I said in the beginning. If you have a chance to try them in the Amazon yourself, and I hope you get that wondrous opportunity, don’t worry about cranking or trolling them too fast. You flat can’t do it.
You’ll discover that yourself the first time one of those jungle bait-busting bass smashes into it. Let me add one more thing: Set your drag properly before that happens and keep your thumb the hell off of your reel when it does!
By Stan Fagerstrom
Part 2
In my last column I told about how a lure marketed here in the Pacific Northwest is among the best for catching the hell raising peacock bass of the Amazon jungle.
That lure is the Luhr-Jensen Tony Acetta Pet Spoon. It’s the bait I caught most of my fish on during my third trip into the Amazon. I made that last trip with Phil Jensen, the president of the company that bears his name
http://www.ifish.net/sftonyaccetta.jpg
These Tony Accetta Pet Spoons can be dynamite for the Amazon jungle's peacock bass.
The talented president of this Oregon company has sold more than a half million Pet Spoons for Amazon fishing over the past 20 years. That’s a whole bunch of baits. Most of them went into Brazil to be used by peacock bass anglers.
Listen to experienced peacock anglers tell about their jungle fishing and most often it’s surface lures that dominate the conversation. That’s as it should be. It is indeed surface lures, baits like the fabled Luhr-Jensen Woodchoppers that seem to catch the most as well as the largest peacock bass. Jensen himself caught a 26-pound, 12-ounce monster on one of his Woodchoppers. That fish was only 4-ounces shy of the recognized world record of an even 27-pounds. It might be the second largest ever caught.
Be that as it may, the angler who goes into the jungle without a pocketful of Pet Spoons is missing a bet. He’s also handicapping himself because there are times and places back there in that amazing part of the world where that wobbling lure with its single hook will do a better job than surface plugs.
Let’s say, for example, your wife or gal friend knows you’ve got an Amazon trip planned. She says she wants to go along. You’re happy to have her accompany you, but 10-minutes into her first trip on a jungle river she’s finding it next to impossible to handle the big 3-ounce surface lure you’ve tied on for her. The lure is just too darn heavy for her to throw up close to the cover along the river’s edge. That’s where it has to be to catch fish consistently.
That’s where the Pet Spoons come in. They come in a variety of sizes and weights. You’ll likely want to use one of the larger jobs for peacock bass fishing, but even the big ones are a lot easier to handle over long hours of casting.
If you read my first column, you’ll remember Jensen saying the Pet Spoon was the most versatile of the multitude of lures his company markets. He didn’t just say that to me---he proved it.
“Stan,” Phil said, laying his rod with its big surface lure aside as he spoke, “let’s take a break from casting. I want to show you another way to catch these peacocks.”
What we did next was cut the surface lures off our lines and tie on Pet Spoons. Phil had the guide take our boat in tight to the jungle river cover. We trolled our spoons at a fast clip, wiggling and wobbling right in next to the undergrowth. It wasn’t long before we had our first one. Over the next hour or so the first one was followed by a half-dozen others. The largest a dandy 13-pounder that Phil finally whipped.
Examine a Pet Spoon up close and careful and you’ll find it has one single hook. The hook rides upright as the lure swims. That in itself is an asset because it helps avoid hang-ups in the areas of cover where the jungle bass hang out. The head of the lure is also shaped in such a fashion that it tends to deflect off the cover with which it comes in contact. I’m not saying the lure is snag-free because it isn’t, but you can work it through some fairly heavy stuff if you watch what you’re doing.
“One of the things I like most about it,” Jensen says, “is that it’s a darn good fish locator.” That’s something else he proved to me while we were back there in the boonies.
Let’s face it. Get way back into a vast and unknown region like the Amazon and as often as not you’re uncertain as to where the fish are. The veteran Oregon lure maker sometimes trolls one of his Pet Spoons along the shoreline until he gets the fish pinpointed. Then he may switch to casting something like the Woodchopper or the Pet Spoon itself.
I wound up that jungle trip hooking more bass on a Pet Spoon than anything I tied on my line. I got them both trolling and casting. The fishing wasn’t red hot while we were there because of tropical downpours and rising rivers, but we did catch fish each day out. Again---most of mine were on the Luhr-Jensen Pet Spoon.
http://www.ifish.net/sfleapingpea.jpg
Here's what you'll witness when a peacock bass smashes into your lure.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out an American lure maker isn’t going to sell a half million copies of just one kind of lure unless it catches fish. The Pet Spoon will do that. That’s why Phil Jensen’s company has sold them in the numbers it has.
But remember what I said in the beginning. If you have a chance to try them in the Amazon yourself, and I hope you get that wondrous opportunity, don’t worry about cranking or trolling them too fast. You flat can’t do it.
You’ll discover that yourself the first time one of those jungle bait-busting bass smashes into it. Let me add one more thing: Set your drag properly before that happens and keep your thumb the hell off of your reel when it does!