Spoons you can fish slower and deeper and they don't have to be spinning to work. That said I prefer spinners in summer and spoons in winter.
I also don't swing spoons I typically cast them up and across and reel them in just barely faster than the current to keep them deep plus I get a better feel for what the spoon is doing vs swinging.
Interested in what Evan has to say.
When I lived on the west side, and some over here, I fished spoons quite a bit as you both mention. Like a fly, a spoon can be fish in many nuanced ways, more so than a spinner. When that didn't work it was usually tie on a rooster tail and be in business.No that's about how I fish spoons, too. I've gotten WAY more spoon eats while doing almost a dead drift through a slot and just barely keeping the tension on it. Where the "swing" seems to work is in tailouts. But I seem to miss a lot of those fish. They hit and don't seem to convert as well.
I'm just not a spinner guy when it comes to steelhead. Too limiting. The spoon can fish so much different stuff and the spinner just seems to not be quite right in a number of spots. Love spinners for salmon though.
Yeah, I get you. I say it a lot, but I love fly fishing and I love steelhead fishing. I don't particularly love fly fishing for steelhead except for a few specific fisheries.Thanks for the quick spoon tutorial.
I'm honestly kinda tired of fly fishing for them.
My favorite way to fish OP steelhead is swinging a wet fly with a spey/switch late in the season when the weather and water are more pleasant.It's been a very long time since I caught a bobber steelhead. Just about all mine in the last 5-6yrs have been swinging a spey or spoon.
The guys at Meldrum Bar Park call them coffee cans.I am not a fan of spinning reels. The only application that i am content with using one is for twitching jigs