Springer on a Spinner - No Leader !

[Up-4-Air]

I tried a new technique trolling spinners on the Columbia yesterday. The technique seems to be working since I caught about a 20 lb springer. The fish was wild so we unhooked it and sent it on it's way. It was my first springer this year and the first springer for my new boat. A good day on the water! :smile:

Here's the technique. I trolled three Cascade blade spinners spaced about 2 1/2 feet apart. An 8 oz lead on a 12 inch dropper holds the line at about the angle I like. Treble hooks have been replaced with siwash hooks which makes it easier to release wild fish. I put a small piece of shrimp on each hook for extra scent. The shrimp is the kind you get buy at the fish counter in your local market. The new part of the technique is I eliminate the leaders and attach the spinners directly to the main line using a three way swivel. The way I figure it spinners just spins. They doesn't need long leaders to do that. By eliminating the leaders I can bring a fish to the net without having two spinners flying around in the air and tangling the line or tangling in the net. That's important since I fish alone much of the time and don't have someone to remove the extra leaders before netting a fish that's hooked on the bottom spread. When they are attached to the main line you still need to be aware of them but it's less of a problem than having them flying around on long leaders.

I should describe the three way swivel. It's a split ring with two barrel swivels for the main line and a bead chain swivel for the spinner. The spinner attaches to the bead chain swivel using a duo lock snap.

So far I've only caught one fish using the "no leader technique" but I'm encouraged to keep trying it. :smile:

[gottafish]

Thanks for the tip I'll try that two

[fishhog1]

up 4 air, how many pulls did you put out after the top spinner hit the water?

[Up-4-Air]

fh1, we were trolling in about 24 feet of water. I let out 20 feet of line after I had the rod in the holder and the top spinner at the water surface. Bought one of those Okuma line counting reels so I could keep track of things like that.

[The Overfishin Condition]

Just out of curiousity, which spinner did it hit, top, middle, bottom? I'm just curious. I've fish double riggings a pretty limited amount of time, but never had any real success with them (today did have a hit with a spin-glo kwikfish combo) but that was the first hit I've had on a double rigging, so I've never had much confidence, just curious, congrats on the fish! TOC.

[B-run]

8oz Btwn 6 & 10 on the willy.
Spreaders rock!!

[Navigator]

I do not have a boat, but great tip none-the-less. Love to see those who experiment rewarded.

[FishinTechnician]

Your concept for rigging the spinners sounds interesting and makes sense and eliminates dodging other rigs, or removing them prior to netting fish. Also it would eliminate leader tangles and get you back fishing quicker after a fish. Great idea for trolling the Willamette, but I would fish it with sliders so you could still work a greater vertical column of water with the three rigs. I too would be interested in knowing what spinner of the three caught the fish in the CR. We always fished one double outfit on the CR for years and I don't recall ever catching anything on the top rig.

[Wildgoose]

Great sounding rig.I'm not clear where you weight and dropper are though.Top above the string or down low?

[Blue Tip Spinner]

last year i caught alot of my springers on my top rig. i try to run a double setup on the columbia if the current will let me. i did good last year with the top rig at about 3 feet above my spreader with a 3 foot dropper. the key for me is to not go with a very long leader on the dropper and i use a corky or bead with a stick in it to hold the line off the spreader. i was fishing in 20-24 foot of water.

[Up-4-Air]

Let me answer a couple of your questions. In this case, the fish grabbed the bottom spinner. I would expect more bites on the bottom because I think a fish is more likely to be looking up at the three spinners rather than down. We have all heard that fish see better looking up better than they do looking down. If I were fishing deep water, like Swan Island, I would fish exactly the same rig at the same depth. Friends of mine have been very successful putting out no more than 20 feet of line.

I like the idea of three rigs because they probably look alot more like a school of bait than a single spinner would. Using sliders instead of three way swivels would allow you to spread the spinners out more and let you close them up if you got a fish on the bottom spread. Sounds like a good idea.

My next experiment will be to run three Coyote spoons directly off the main line. I'll use the smallest size bead chain swivels in order to give the spoon as much action as I can. I'm sure the action will be less than it would be if the spoons were on a leader. On the other hand, the action might just right for attracting a big fat salmon.

Sorry Slayer, I don't have a camera to show you a picture. How about I just hand you one?

[Slayer]

Come on! Draw us a pic so we can see [img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img]