How do you fish a Daredevil?

[N.Y. Yankee]

I was given a big box of lures and in it was a box full of Daredevil lures. From the size of my thumbnail to the size of my whole hand. Black and white, red and white, camouflage, orange, copper colored etc.  I haven't a clue to the proper way to fish these and what species they are good for. Any help?

[Largies4Life]

You can straight retrieve them, or jerk/pull them up and then let them fall and repeat. They are Norther Pike/Pickerel killers. I strongly advise throwing a leader on to protect against these toothy critters!

[thinkingredneck]

Reel just fast enough to feel vibrations, and adjust speed to get the most vibration.  Works for me.

[MickD]

I find them best when retrieved at the speed that gives them a regular side to side rocking motion.  But individual lures will react differently, and especially the smaller sizes tend to spin easily if reeled too fast.   As mentioned above, feel them as you retrieve them at the speed which gives the desired motion, and you'll be able to get the right speed without actually seeing the lure. 

 

You may have a bunch of non-Daredevil spoons in there, and I would put them in a separate box and concentrate on the real ones.  They, unlike the cheapies, are forged which means the thickness  varies throughout the spoon.  I have never found the cheapies to have the good motion that the real Daredevils have.

 

I have no idea if they have some collector value, but you might want to check.

[WRB]

What size? 2/5 oz Imp in nickle I remove the hook and replace it with Owner #4 feathed treble and fish it verticle like a slow falling structure spoon or cast it like a flutter spoon.

Tom

[papajoe222]

The best retrieve that I've found is just fast enough to get the spoon wobbling from side to side, but not spinning. Depending on the size, normally the bigger you go, the slower you need to retrieve it.  A slow retrieve will also get the spoon deeper in the water column. As with most lures, varying your retrieve will get you bit more than just chuck and winding.  The big ones are great for trolling for pike and muskie.

[Dwight Hottle]

Lake trout love spoons as well as pike & musky. 

[WRB]

2 hours ago, Dwight Hottle said:

Lake trout love spoons as well as pike & musky. 

The big 5 of Diamonds (yellow with red diamonds pattern) was made for lake trout.

Tom

[jimmyjoe]

  I wrote this 3 weeks ago:

 

Without a doubt, my favorite and most-used lure. For pike, for walleye .... and for bass. Has to be a clear bottom, though. For bass, the 3/4 Dardevlet is favorite, in Pearl Clown, Grey Ghost and Purple Rain. Down the line come the Orange Crush, hammered nickel, hammered nickle/blue, Purple Haze and Potato Bug. The 2/5 size is good, but not like the 3/4. The 1/4 Trout Weight is good, too, just not like the others. I rarely retrieve these steady. If I wanted a steady retrieve, I use the 1/2 or 4/5 Cop-E-Cat.

   By far the most common spoon retrieve for me is the "dance".  It's basically like the twitch-bait retrieve, but the cadence has to be adjusted for the weight and surface area (resistance) of the spoon. On the 1/4 oz., the cadence is twotchtwitchtwitchtwitch, with short and light twitches. With the 2/5, it's twitch ..twitch..twitch, with short but smooth twitches, maybe four inches long.. On the 3/4, you have to apply slightly more authority to the twitch, and it becomes more of a jerk. One fairly smooth jerk per heartbeat will generally do it, but you have to increase the stroke from 4 to 8 inches.

   The reason behind all this "dance" stuff is to make the spoon more attractive to bass. They commit faster on a dancing spoon than they do on a wobble spoon. I've noticed over the years that my take on a dancing spoon is about double what it is on a wobble retrieve.

   I imagine I could catch bass on the 1 oz., too. I just never tried. The 1 oz. is my pike and musky size. The dance it has is slower and has greater latency.

   I had mentioned that this was "over a clear bottom". I don't use spoons over brushpi..... excuse me, over habitat, because it's a sure snag-up. There, I use soft plastic and spinnerbaits.  I use spoons around rip-rap, but parallel to shore, not perpendicular to shore  I can't stress enough using a pool, school or private, to really see clearly the effect of your retrieve.

  And as always ......good luck.    ?     jj

  

[zell_pop1]

Hammered Nickle is the one I always caught bass on. Crappies love the small sized one .

[gim]

Pike crush them. One of the very few lures out there that can with stand pike after pike after pike attack.

[AlTheFisherman313]

You can do a ton with spoons, Troll them, cast them.

 

If your fishing shallow cast and burn it. If you have depth pick the appropriate size and fish it fast enough to wobble it like others said, They actually have way more action and feedback than your probably expecting. I personally catch pike on the by just burning them to the boat over weeds or near structure. On your average pike, muskie trip my personal experience is if they want it they will catch it at insane speeds, always figure 8 at the end and use polarized glasses, Those fish dont give a **** about boats if you see a follow up tip in the water and whip 8s until it hits or looses interest. Watching some youtube videos will explain the figure 8 better than I can type it.

 

Also, they slam salmon in trout in smaller sizes, although the big salmon im pretty sure still use a pretty large spoon. I mainly target bass, pike, walleye, muskie and tuna 1 time a year when I go to san diego to visit relatives. Salt water fishing is...Special to say the least. A tuna pound for pound makes a muskie look like a 10 year old girl lol. Im not kidding on lightish tuna tackle I fought an 80 pound bluefin for an hour and my arms were jello after for about 20 minutes. I still havent managed a tuna over 100, but I cant imagine the fight. The guy on our charter had a 1 hour fight with a 170ish pound tuna it was awesome, he however was trolling at the time so he had a lot more stopping power. I still cant imagine catching a 500 pound bluefin or something. Hopefully this august!

 

Should mention tuna fishing changed what I thought was a lure. My first tuna was trolling with a cedar plug. I thought my uncle was trying to mess with me, but I caught a fish on a lure that was unpainted wood that looked like a...... pleasure device minus the hooks haha!