I like the size 5 or the biggest. These spoons need to be washed with freshwater and lemon Joy after used or the polished back will go dull when you pull it out next time. I am assuming you are coating it with shrimp, herring, sardine, or some kind of oil. I like the same colors you use for coyotes. It is the same exact stamp out as the 6.0 Coyote but much lighter. I run the fluorescent green/glo or #0188. I like to sand an 1/8" off of the edge of the green and re coat it with white paint and then do a flame red over it for a stripe. They make a coyote spoon like this now called a red racer. but use your regular coyote colors you like. Cop Car (black and white) funky chicken, chrome with flash, green and nickel, blue and nickel, etc. The green glow is my all time favorite.
I did find a lighter hook, that is pretty big but lighter. I would like it to be lighter yet and will check the blue mustads out. Thanks for the info. In 2005, It was funny, I took two kids out fishing out about 15 miles out of Westport. My friend called me and told me to get out there where they were fishing as the bite was on. I punched it up on my GPS and still had 13 miles to go. The water was rough and I knew the bite would be over before I could get there so I decided to drop the DRs and fish where I was. I had caught two 40 pound kngs in this area in previous years. They radioed me in an hour and asked where I was. I told them I decided to stay as we were catching fish.
They said the bite died right after we talked. I told them it was not red hot but a fish every 20 minutes or so. They came over to fish by us and I think we had had three in the boat and had three to go. This was a year when they opened us to 2 kings per person towards the end. As soon as they pulled up we had another king hit. They set up and started trolling. We kept catching fish with this diamond king. We would do a big loop and either land or let go of the fish. Every time we did a big circle and would come back by them we would nail another. I finally told them that we were going to keep the last fish as my son's friend was seasick so we were heading in. They had not gotten one bite. They were screaming at me to buy that spoon. I blew up a Ziplock bag and put the spoon it for them to net. We soaked it in shrimp oil every time it came up. We did have a king bite one and bend it in half. They are great spoons and getting about impossible to find so go to the store and buy them. Luhr Jenson was bought out by Rapala or Normark and left Oregon to go oversea. I cannot get these with my colors anymore.
I recently went to a Baseball tournament over in Idaho for my son and they had them there at a tackle shop for the Lake Pende O'reille fishery. I bought them out.
I have been using a black owner siwash 5/0 that works OK but is still a little on the heavy side.
I don't think you can go wrong for the color as long as the action is good and you have a decent shine on the back. These kind of flutter a little. I usually fish big kings from 25-80 feet deep. My favorite depths down are 37' and 57'. I like to end in lucky seven. We have caught two 50 pound kings at 37' and many 30 and several 40s at that depth. I always pay attention to how deep the bait balls are. Early in the summer season those bait balls can be 150 feet deep or more. I will target where I see the most bait. Mid to late summer I come up to my favorite depths.
As for bottomfish hooks I like the stainless Mustad 9510XXXs. I have 9/0s I use for them. In the straits I tie them onto a 100 pound leader. I file the long point really sharp and make a squid/herring sandwich. I put a huge black label herring in a fresh squid right after I squirt a ton of squid or shrimp oil in it. Push the herring up tight in the top and take your top hook and put it through the top of the squid, through the herrings head, and back out the top of the squid. The next 9/0 hook on the leader I put through the body right where the squid body meets the mantle. I put it through and have it came back out like you do for a second hook on a herring for salmon.
This set up yields many halibut. It is deadly effective unless it rips the tentacles off. When this happens get a new squid. They really lose interest after they are gone. These hooks are so sharp I do not think the halibut feel it. I just let them eat it and when the rod loads up completely bent over I set the hook. This works great.
Out in the ocean I don't even use bait as these fish are not picky at all. I like the big hooks and use a monster 14" squid. I use the pearl white and not the glow. The glow is about 1 for 10 compared to white. Go to the B2 Squid website and you can see my picture of a big ling I caught about 25-30 miles off the coast, off the edge of one of the canyons, 550' deep. I used the same hook setup I described above only the hooks are at the base of the mantle and bottom of the 14" rubber squid.
Here is the link to cut and paste. I am on page 2 on the second line down on the right. My name is under Ron Garner.
http://www.b2squid.com/photo-gallery/1/soft-plastic-fishing-lures.htm
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