So...a couple of weeks ago at the Chehalis Fish-In I slipped Dr. Francis a couple of my RvrfshrHootchieSpinners...you can see one stuck in the maw of his "coho or Chinook?" thread...
Anyway...I made a bunch more up this morning in anticipation of a weekend of coho fishing, so I thought I'd share with the crowd...here they are...
First, I start out with Sampo swivels...I take off the stock metal rings, and put on split rings...here's all the parts:
In the next pic you can see the spinners sans hooks, and the hooks on the Sampo swivels...
The next pic shows the hootchies on the hooks...I open up the nose of the hootchie just enough to get the head of the Sampo through it, then put on the other split ring...
Put the split ring on the tail of the spinner, and you're good to go...
Today's selection...
The Sampo swivel? Yeah...probably not required, but here's why I use it...
Rvrfshr spinners don't really have rotating shafts...all well-built spinners ought not, and since Joe designed 'em and I built 'em, well, they don't spin
The swivel actually allows the hootchie to flap around and twist around behind the spinner rather nicely.
It also helps with one other thing...I mostly fish with barbless hooks, and with no barb and the damn hootchie covering up part of the hook, I find that the swivel helps keep the hook jammed in the chops of a death-rolling silver better...
For steelhead in the summer I'm a big fan of the "toss it up, drag it down" type of spinner fishing...the exact opposite is employed for coho...
I'll typically toss it straight across, or downstream to about 45 degrees, and then reel it as it swings...but I only reel it just enough to keep the blade barely turning, which is an easy deal with a size 5 Rvrfshr...they spin nice and slowly.
Next steps include the fish hammering it, me setting the hook, and then playing the fish...hopefully resulting in a large two-tone hooknose in the box about five minutes later.
Fish on...
Todd