Northwest Fishing Reports

We traded spinners for a bunch of components a tackle shop had accumulated in order to get into a new location in Denver. As a result, we're dabbling in a few more species markets. Here's a design that we hope to use for Musky.

Its a 2oz painted head, extended with a webbed tube covered with hand-stripped brown rabbit. #6 Gold willow and this one has a medium buzz blade.

Kind of looks like a small muskrat. Anybody fishing big zonker spinnerbaits for Musky with any success?

Custom slip stinger on 45# nylon cable. Tubing adds bouyancy and support.

Be interested in your opinions on it.

hey fishcreekspinners,
I just moved from washington back to colorado (Broomfield to be exact). I see you are in superior. Once I get settled in, I will give your spinners a try for some pike and muskie here in colorado!!

Sure, give me a call. Checkout Discount Fishing, down on Sante Fe Drive. Lots of Pike fishing, some Musky.

Love to give one a try for muskie here in WA........ I'll have to give you a call. Doug

Hey Doug. Still working the bugs out of that fur coat. Thinking of trying dual skirt bands on it vs tying it, or some other invention. I dont think it would survive a catch as it is.. Some are being fished in NM and CO now though.

I checked your site. I am looking for one in all black, maybe buck-tail, and with plain spinners, not brightly colored. Silver, or gold would be great. Also, being a muskie lure.... Hook-ups are far and few between, so an extra hook trailing (single) would be good insurance. It could be up, so it would still be semi-weedless....

We can build one, maybe Sunday and will post a picture for you to check out.

Don't have the stinger rigs though and I'm not sure I have the black bucktail either.. See what we got, it will be black, but might be brown zonker unless my son has some bucktail hidding somewhere.

Hey fish creek whats the price on the spinners? Doug and myself are on the board with chapter 60 Mountain Muskies and were always looking for potential sponsors or companies that can help us out with a discount since were a 501 (c)(3) non profit chapter of Muskies Inc. I'd be looking for something in red,brown,white. and anything you have thats 1oz or less. Seems like the Muskies and Pike here dont like the really big lures as much as the smaller ones. Do you have anything that matches those descriptions.

Well, they don't like Craig's big lures anyway! LOL!!! We are definitely both interested though.

Doug wants all his lures to be 24" or more LOL and Pink....

craig dowdy wrote:Doug wants all his lures to be 24" or more LOL and Pink....

Hey now, no fair. I was talking to fcs privately about my secrets!

We got your big pink ones all ready to mail, whats the address?

We have a lot of painted 1.5 oz and 2 oz lead head spinner baits I suppose we can coat to your colors. Using rat design with zonker and pvc and stinger - $7 each. They will be in browns and blacks (small muskrats) and thats the zonker colors we stocked.

We can put a stinger 4/0 stainless on it with 45# nylon coated cable to the baits hook.

We also have .5oz raw lead baits, that painting, adding a couple blades, beads and a stinger will bring them to the 3/4-1oz range. Just zonker on those, no PVC tubing - $5 each. Could also rubber skirt them, but might need to order some skirt.

Digging around I might be able to find some 1oz raw lead heads, but what I've found so far are .5oz.

Are you sold on the zonker over PVC on them or just zonker, or want rubber skirts or other. Not really wanting to go the bucktail route on these baits, they have a big nipple and tying bucktail would be a pain per the expert.

For prices on custom work, kind of depends on how many you are interested in and size. If you bought 50 plus, price could come down or get free postage to one address.

Want any skirted lead-head painted jigs? Variety of colors and weights up to 1oz - $2-$3 ea.

Take a look at these 6/10oz spinners too. There's a couple guys (named Matt) in NM that swear by them. I just got a testimonial and some pictures from one and his Muskie results sound pretty good to me.

Here's an assortment picture and a webstore link. They're big Armadillo's and there might be a hydrophone recording on the website somewhere. Noisy double blades, metal beads and discs and those are tied zonker tails. I think I showed them here before but was told they weren't heavy enough.

FCS Muskie Spinner Assortment

dougw wrote:I checked your site. I am looking for one in all black, maybe buck-tail, and with plain spinners, not brightly colored. Silver, or gold would be great. Also, being a muskie lure.... Hook-ups are far and few between, so an extra hook trailing (single) would be good insurance. It could be up, so it would still be semi-weedless....

Here's what we came up with.

2oz - Gold-plate Willows - Rat tied B&W Zonker, not bucktail. Custom 4x4 'match the hatch' slip stinger. Its in the webstore and there's a 30% End of August discount code.

Doug's BlackRat Muskie Spinnerbait

Are you using rabbit fur strips? I use them in my bucktails and have found it to work great on the Pike. I also tie flies with bunny fur bodies and they work just as well on the Pike. What you've got there looks great, would enjoy giving them a shot for the Tigers. I'm from Chapter 57 and those guys from 60 don't know how to fish spinnerbaits, don't let pull your leg.

Hi Doug. Yep those are hand-stripped rabbit hides. Also getting feedback that the reflective tubing is a hit with the fish.

wow doug that was a hit below the belt there lol. Ill remeber that when your stranded on the dock again lol....

Oops, once again, open mouth insert foot. Ok, so they know how to pitch spinnerbaits and catch fish. Just not bigger fish!

Finally got around to placing an order for one. If it works out, I may have to get you to build some more...... I'll let you know how it works.

sparky1doug wrote:Oops, once again, open mouth insert foot. Ok, so they know how to pitch spinnerbaits and catch fish. Just not bigger fish!

That's "pretty big bait" you are holding there in your sig sparky..... Maybe you will just have to show us how to catch some of those 'big' fish when you get over here. I hear the lakes over on the west side have loads of those type of bait fish.... Never really bothered with the bait, just the real fish..... Can't wait to get to Curlew.....