Spinner rig blades in rivers- which color or style is best?

[jigemup]

I was just wondering what you feel are the best spinner rig blades in large rivers. I fish the Mississippi and was wondering if there could be any modifications or tricks to get an edge. What are the benefits to hatchet blades- does size matter- are fishing rigs with just beads or with floats better- what are the benefits to Colorado, Willow leaf, Indiana, ect. blades -let me know what you have found. Thanks in advance.

[Todd_NE]

To be honest, I don't separate out river vs lakes for blades. I do base my decisions on a myriad of factors, predominately forage and water clarity.

Personally I use almost entirely colorado blades, with a few indiana's and hatchets. Colorado's have the most vibration and on down the line. I know a lot of anglers do very well on hatchets, but that has not proven true for me yet. I rarely if ever use willow's, although on some bodies of water they work fantastic. Remember each blade has a different side "profile" too as they spin.

I usually try to use at least one metallic (chrome, gold, etc) and at least one colored (flourescents, two color, etc) blade when I start - and they should be of different sizes. Most of the time I use 3,4, & 5's, but have used up to 7 with success, especially in nasty water. For example, one of the lakes I fish usually has a preference for Blue/Silver Blades (lots of emerald shiners present) with white beads in clear water and I either upsize my blades in dirty water or go to gaudy colors.

Make sure your spinner is well up from your lead hook (make sure there is enough beads) so your fish can easily hook themselves and I use metal clevises when fishing very slow, or otherwise stick to quick change clevises. I also use 95% two hook rigs with crawlers, leeches (no, I don't have much trouble with leeches), or minnows. I believe in experimenting with color and blade size until the fish tell you what they want. But it's pretty safe to start with a chrome base blade most of the time about anywhere.

Make sure you use a large enough bottom bouncer to maintain an approximate 45 degree angle when fishing. I also use flipping switch reels.

I think other keys to spinner fishing is hooking your bait "straight", don't let your rig just drag - lift it off the bottom in a pumping motion or set it to "tick" bottom, and I'm a big believer in superlines to detect when the spinner stops spinning easier. I rarely use minnows, but a good tip is to hook them thru the eyes on a spinner rig.

I'm not an exceptional open water troller with spinners, I know there are a myriad of more things to think of when doing that.

Hope this helps

Todd

[Jiggereye]

Dale,
We have found that a lot of lake crosses over to the river. Big beads work better than small ones, Blood red or salmon pink work best,we seem to have
a lot better luck with 1/2 to inch of beads above
and below spinner. If you look at it in a tank it looks like another critter swimming in front of the live bait. With too few beads it doesnt look
right. Hammered gold or silver Colorados have produced best in rivers with blades matching the above bead colors second. Some days the blood red blades are scary. We are just starting to experiment with laser and hologram blades and don't really seem to do well with them. I know this sounds dumb but we usually go the lindy route
rather than bottom bouncer route and just live with the snags. Ofcource we almost automatically
look for sand points ,small gravel, or muck to avoid the snags. I haven't seen any difference from small to medium blades, but on the river in particular the large blades draw to much water and
you loose the intended feel of the lindy. We picked up some great hints on running these rigs
in you artcle in UMR thanks for the good info. Until you mentioned it we hadn't realized the difference the depth of water going over the dam made. Thanks for the insights. I would have to say that these techniques have replaced about 75%
of the jigging we used to do.