Mooselook Wobbler - A Darting & Dashing Spoon when Casted

I am a year-round spoon fisherman! Not for every species all year, but every month of the year there are fisheries where spoons just flat out produce. 

Every spoon has its own shape, materials, plating and sizes. If you looked at the different shapes and sizes of spoons I use throughout the year, you may be surprised. There is a good reason to have quite a few options at your disposal. 

With that in mind, this Mooselook Wobbler has a bit different look than my normal casting spoon.

So when I first got a few I thought "This looks dynamite for trolling!" I could see that right on the shelf, but I didn't think of it as a casting spoon at all. From the finish and look, they seemed to be well worth using out of the boat. Into the trout trolling box they go!

But, being endlessly curious about tackle, I noticed some notation about "Casting/Trolling" and gave the lure a second look.

I had a trip coming up to Washington Coast to fish for Dolly Varden in a river outlet to the surf and this seemed like an excellent baitfish profile. 

And what a baitfish profile it is! Dodging, darting, flashing...

I don't pay attention to color names as much as I should, but when I picked up the lure I thought "this a cool yellow spoon" and when I looked at it a second time it was chartreuse. What?

This spoon I chose had an amazing finish that transitioned between yellow and chartreuse (or something similar) as you moved it. So, underwater, one solid color became two flashing colors, not to mention the silver of the spoon. 

It didn't seem very heavy so I was cautious to cast it with my medium-heavy baitcaster. But I did. The spoon was aerodynamic and casted well into the windy surf. 

... 

WHAM. The takes were not light from what we expected to be Dolly Varden.

Instead there was a hoard of angry surf perch heading upriver. My friends were fishing spoons and catching fish, but because of their heavier spoons they had to retrieve way faster and straight forward. 

I was able to cast and let that spoon dart in 3 feet of water, giving it short reels and yanks - it did not foul up on my line, instead it just looked like a dying little minnow trying to swim away. WHAM. Another one.

Oh wow, moments ago I'd been feeling the spoons action through my graphite bass rod, the next moment I felt like I must have a Dolly on. Nope. 

The biggest Surf Perch I've ever caught. 3.02 lbs, 1lb shy of the state record. Absolutely smashed the Mooselook Wobbler and never looked back. 

After that experience with the spoon, I knew what to look for and where I could use this to my advantage. 

The Mooselook Wobbler presents a unique opportunity in fishing styles and spoon action.

Because of the design of the spoon, it does not drop to the bottom fast, but instead slowly darts and flashes on the way down. At the same time, you can reel it and get a gorgeous tight wobble, or give it a good yank and get a jerkbait-like back and forth-stop. 

The finish absolutely blasts light out into the water and its easy to see from shore.

Smallmouth Bass Fishing with Mooselook Wobbler

Cue a few weeks later - I'm in an inflatable kayak on a 96 degree day floating down an ultra slow meandering Oregon stream. I've got my tackle bag and some bass jigs, spinnerbaits and one specific Mooselook chosen to try.

Being a spoon, I'd need to make sure to fish it in water that wasn't too full of vegetation. Yet, as long as the vegation was near the bottom I could hover the spoon over it without picking up anything, all the while flashing like a beacon to every fish in the river. 

So the first open pool without too many sticks or branches? I chucked it out there. Gin clear water and polarized glasses made it easy to see the flash from far away.

As it would land, I would just start to reel and get hammered by bass subsurface. Every single cast that I made would bring in a school of baby bass, and a few juveniles following it - they just couldn't take their eyes off it. 

The adult bass however, did not follow it. They destroyed it.

As soon as the flash occured, that is the trigger. It's kind of like fishing a grubtail - the tail action is the bite trigger, a jig requires jigging motion for the trigger...

With this spoon? All it needs to do is move and flash. The nice thing is - as soon as it hits the water it does just that. If a spoon falls to the bottom like a plank, throw it out, these Wobblers just start working immediately. 

Two species now fished for with these spoons and having loads of fun. Although I know they'd make a great trolling spoon, they are in my tackle box now because they allow me to fish very slowly in shallow, slack water. It can be dead stop water and just one little tug on that spoon will give it an irresistable action. I'm not kidding. Tie one on and run it around your bathtub - you'll get the picture.

Check out the colors here: Mooselook Wobbler Spoon Colors

- written by Lucas Holmgren