A wide variety of metallic concoctions have metamorphosed out of the original basic rig-jig format, broadening the scope of heavy-metal walleye lures. Some incorporate livebait or plastic tippers-trailers, while others are best fished unfettered by clutter or bait. Most, by their heavyweight nature, excel in deep cold-water jigging conditions. Others are year ‘round winners in inches of water to the depths.

Jigging Spoons—Unlike traditional wide wobbling spoons like Dardevles, which are designed for shallow swimming retrieves, most jigging spoons are narrow, thick, and heavy, designed primarily to sink quickly and be vertically jigged in deep water. A thin, wide spoon for vertical jigging will sink slowly, wobble dramatically, swing wide to the side as it descends, and offer much more water resistance. Traditional spoons are difficult to fish deep, as the slightest drift or current makes them begin to plane behind the boat and rise off the bottom.

Open-water jigging spoons for walleyes usually weigh between 1/2 and 1 ounce, with 3/4 ounce a popular choice. Lead bodies predominate, though slower-falling tin (Hildebrandt Bun-G-Blade) and zinc models are available. Silver, gold, and fluorescent are the most popular colors, though a wealth of shades and realistic finishes (Luhr-Jensen Crippled Minnow) are available. Adding colorful Witchcraft reflective tape also enhances attraction.

Drop speed and action, two of the most important characteristics of jigging spoons, are primarily determined by shape and weight. Flatter, wider spoons like the Hopkins, Bass Pro Shops Strata Spoon, Cordell C C Spoon, Acme Kastmaster, and Bullet Spoon (zinc, for a comparatively slower drop speed) provide the most wobble and descend the slowest. Narrower lures with a distinct bend, like the Bay de Noc Swedish Pimple, sink a bit quicker, vibrating more than wobbling. Bomber’s Slab Spoon and Bait Rigs’ Deep Willospoon are nearly oval in shape, but quite heavy, combining a quick drop with a flutter. Slender minnow-shaped spoons like the Luhr-Jensen Crippled Herring, Horizon Pirk Minnow, and Bull Dog Feather Jigging Spoon tend to drop quickly with less side-to-side action. Match these aspects to the aggressiveness of the fish—faster and prominent for active fish, slower and subtle for inactive fish.

Drop a spoon to the bottom, then engage the reel, taking up slack until the line is tight with the spoon touching the bottom. Beginning with your rod tip pointed down at an angle (about 8 o’clock) toward the water, lift your forearm slightly while modestly snapping your wrist upward to about 11 o’clock. The combination flexes the rod tip and pops it upward about 18 to 24 inches, transmitting a bit less lift to the spoon, due to line stretch. The lure scoots upward with little vibration, eventually coming to a momentary rest at the top of the arc.

As the lure begins to descend, follow it down with the rod tip. Maintain slight tension to feel strikes. You’ll simultaneously feel the wobble and vibration of the spoon as it flutters to the bottom. It’ll either hit bottom or be stopped by a fish. Any doubt, set the hook.

While the hook rattling against a spoon’s body and the natural throb of displaced water create sound, recent success with additional sound suggests new modifications in the near future. Bass ‘N Bait’s Rattle Snakie features enclosed rattles. Alron’s Fergie Special—a flat spoon with a rattling bead-and-brass combo on a wire leader at the head—produced phenomenal deep-water reservoir catches in the plains states last season.

Jigging spoons traditionally are used most during the cold-weather months for deep-water walleyes. Primary reservoir points, for example, are favorite vertical spooning areas during winter. Yet spoons also produce year ‘round, particularly where walleyes are near schools of open-water suspended baitfish like ciscoes, shad, smelt, or alewives. Apparently, a fluttering, shiny spoon imitates an injured easy meal.

Ice Spoons and Lures—Ice-anglers typically use lighter jigging spoons than do open-water anglers, to achieve a slower, more-subtle drop and less action in cold water. Spoons can be lighter because they’re fished from a stationary platform—no drift. The Swedish Pimple is a good example. It’s lighter than the average open-water jigging spoon, but heavy enough to fish through the ice.

Let’s divide ice jigging spoons into four categories: (1) swimming lures that move in wide circles beneath your ice hole, like a #5 Jigging Rapala, #3 Nils Master, System Tackle Walleye Flyer, or Northland Air-Plane Jig; (2) straight, wide spoons for slow descent and flutter action, like an Acme Kastmaster or small Hopkins; (3) narrow or bent spoons for intermediate drop speeds and moderate flutter action, like a Bay de Noc Swedish Pimple, Ivan’s Slammer, Northland Fire-eye Minnow or Rocker Minnow; and (4) thin, wide-bodied bent spoons like the Blue Fox Tingler or Reef Runner Slender Spoon for ultraslow descent and maximum flutter. Fluorescent orange, yellow, and chartreuse colors; silver and gold; and prism tape finishes in silver, chartreuse, blue, and green are popular. In general, tip the hook with a minnow head to add scent and taste.

Even a light wide spoon like the Reef Runner Slender Spoon can be vertically jigged beneath the ice, combining abundant action with a slow descent—perfect when fish are fussy and you have the patience to wait ‘em out. Narrow spoons display less inherent action, sink quicker, and typically are better choices for ice-fishing, however. An intermediate choice like a Luhr-Jensen Krocodile—a medium-width, medium-heavy curved spoon often used for open-water trolling—occasionally produces through the ice, particularly when fish are aggressive.

Trolling Spoons—Thin metal flutterspoons like Oak Tree Silver Leaf Spoons, Luhr-Jensen Diamond Kings, Sutton Spoons, Arbogast Thin Doctors, and others associated with Great Lakes trolling for salmon, trout, and steelhead often are excellent walleye lures. They lack sufficient weight for casting, but can be trolled with planer boards, downriggers, diving planers, or on weighted lines to achieve the proper combination of depth and speed. While not so popular as crankbaits in most walleye trolling fisheries, they do provide the added dimension of speed. Spoons trolled up to about 4 mph, and sometimes a bit faster, take walleyes under certain conditions, and water can be covered quickly. If you fish the Great Lakes or bodies of water with silver suspended baitfish like shad, alewives, ciscoes, smelt, or shiners, be prepared to experiment with spoons. Select sizes and shapes that match prevailing baitfish, typically in flashy silver, gold, or fluorescent colors. Multispecies spoon-catches of steelhead, salmon, lakers, and walleyes are common in various Great Lakes ports and on numerous reservoirs, too.

Tiny flutterspoons like walleye Willospoons also work with bouncers or three-ways, plain or tipped with livebait or plastic.

Casting-Swimming Spoons—Miniature standard spoons like the Acme Little Cleo, Eppinger Dardevle Midget, Northland Fire-eye Minnow, or #8 Len Thompson provide an additional casting option for shallow-water walleyes. Small spoons (1/8- to 2/5-ounce) cast well on 8- to 10-pound test, swim over weeds nearly reaching the surface, and flutter downward a few feet on the pause. Hold the rod tip high while reeling. If the treble hangs up, give a quick wrist snap to pop and flutter the lure free, potentially triggering strikes. Spoons can be surprisingly effective on fertile prairie lakes with dark water and patchy weed cover, where fishing is concentrated in less than 4 feet of water.

Narrower spoons like the Mepps Syclops (light) and Luhr-Jensen Krocodile (heavy) defy description, since they’re versatile enough to function as vertical jigging, trolling, and casting spoons.

For a heavier, faster-moving casting option, try some of the 1/2- to 3/4-ounce jigging spoons mentioned earlier. Cast, swim, pop, and retrieve ‘em across sand-rock-gravel flats, across weed tops and down into pockets, or down sloping shoreline points. They’re great when fish are spread across expansive areas—even suspended. On a long cast, pop the rod tip up, then reel up slack while dropping the rod tip, repeating all the way back to the boat. Spoons come through weeds somewhat easily if you jig and retrieve simultaneously, keeping the spoon just above the weed tops. If snags are abundant, try a small version of a more weedless Johnson Silver Minnow, Mepps Ultra Lite Timber Doodle, or Normark Rapala Minnow Spoon, using a slow swimming retrieve.

Straight-Shaft Spinners and Spinnerbaits—Spinners, like spoons, are considered more of a multispecies lure than a walleye lure, but they produce walleyes under the right conditions. Straight-shaft spinners like the Mepps Aglia, Panther Martin, Worden’s Roostertail, and Blue Fox Vibrax or Vibrax Minnow Spin excel at straight retrieves just beneath the surface, skirting over the tops of weeds, rocks, or submerged wood. Storm’s Pygmy Spin features a snap clevis with interchangeable blades. They’re ideal for shallow riffles in rivers and great for smallmouths and trout. They don’t flutter well, however, and treble versions snag easily when they contact cover. Stick to small to midsize models with #2 or #3 blades.

Safety-pin spinnerbaits are primarily bass-pike lures, but will, under the right conditions, produce walleyes in cover like reeds, cane, or flooded wood. Stick to smaller 1/8- and 1/4-ounce models, primarily tandems, for straight retrieves. Examples: Northland Reed Runner, Strike King Mirage, Hart Throb, or Horizon Ghost Minnow. Or try a spinner jig like a Johnson Beetle Spin, Blakemore Road Runner, or Bass Pro Shops Stump Jumper.

Bladebaits—Bladebaits like the straight-bodied Heddon Sonar, Bullet Blade, Cordell Gay Blade or Silver Buddy, and the curved-bodied Reef Runner Cicada or Rippletail are thrumming, vibrating metal baits that sink at rest. Work them similarly to spoons for casting or vertical jigging. The main difference is that they vibrate hardest on the upward surge, less on the fall. Spoons tend to exhibit less action on the rise, while they flutter and flash as they fall.

Avoid a slack-line drop to enhance sensitivity to strikes. Lower the lure with your rod tip to choose drop speeds anywhere from almost a free fall to a slow lowering. Touch or bounce bottom, but avoid laying the lure on bottom to minimize snags. About 7-foot medium-heavy spinning or casting gear spooled with 10-pound-test mono is best.

Bladebaits are available in colors similar to spoons. Half-ounce 3-inch versions in metallic colors from dull to chrome, often with prism tape, are popular. Most bladebaits have multiple line attachments (holes) along the back that require the use of a small snap, rather than tying directly to the metal body. Changing the attachment point varies wobbling action.

Seldom used for walleyes as a casting lure, bladebaits nevertheless have applications for swimming or lift-dropping retrieves to cover large areas. Mann’s Mann Dancer, a unique bladebait with the flat lure body turned horizontally rather than vertically, makes a great swimming as well as vertical jigging lure. Heddon Sonars are available with added rattles.

Tailspinners—Tailspinners like Mann’s Little George are an ignored walleye option deserving more attention. Their heavy lead bodies range from 1/4 to 1 ounce, with a belly-mounted treble hook teamed with a blade that spins on a clevis at the tail. The combo creates an aggressive, vibrating, flashing lure for casting and vertical jigging.

For vertical jigging, work them as you would spoons and bladebaits. Tailspinners vibrate hardest on the upward surge, though the blade flutters and flashes on the drop. For casting, let the lure drop to the bottom on a taut line, while holding the rod tip at about 10 o’clock. Once it touches bottom, sweep it toward you by raising the rod and retrieving line. Hold your rod tip high to skip the bait over bottom, to minimize frequent snags that are characteristic to this style of lure.

Weight-Forward Spinners and Variations—Weight-forward spinners are versatile lures good for long-distance casting, fishing over shallow weeds or rocks, or using a countdown method to strain the depths from subsurface to perhaps 40 feet. They incorporate a weight, leader, spinner, and large single hook onto which an entire nightcrawler is threaded. They originated on Lake Erie for casting. Count down to the desired depth, then retrieve for suspended fish. Strain different depths on consecutive casts without having to change lures. Once you find the approximate depth of active fish, it’s easy to zero in with the right combination of sinking time and lure size (from 1/4- to 11⁄2-ounce).

Storm’s Hot’N Tot Pygmy, the Erie Dearie, Fofrich’s Walleye Lure, and numerous generics abound around Lake Erie, though they’re often difficult to obtain in other areas. Silvers, chartreuses, and greens predominate, matching the colors of light-colored suspended baitfish.

Lindy-Little Joe’s Flippin’ Harness is a weight-far-forward spinner designed by Lake Erie charter skipper Jim Fofrich Sr. for use on spooky fish in clearer water following the filtering effect of zebra mussels. It looks like a trolling or drifting rig for use on bottom and could, of course, be fished that way. But its primary function is as a casting rig, much like a weight-forward spinner, except that the weight is separated from the spinner harness by about 20 inches of mono. The result often is a better reaction from fussy walleyes suspended high in the clear water column. They apparently strike the rig more aggressively or are able to inhale the harness easier without having to engulf the lead weight.

The Pa’s Lure is a lipped, heavy lead spinner rig somewhat similar to a weight-forward spinner, but commonly used as a trolling option for presenting crawlers to big suspended ‘eyes on Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron.