One of the things we find fascinating about fishing is how one man’s idea on fooling a fish spawns a whole new class of fishing lures. A lot of those ideas are just expansions of simple lead heads and plastic tails. Creations like the Chatterbait, the Alabama Rig, the Big O or the Senko spawned whole classes of lures and copy cats that sought to catch as many anglers and fish as the original.
One of those original ideas that seems to be a staple in clear-water anglers’ tackle boxes is the Fish Head Spin. This simple lead minnow head and hook with a small swivel and blade attached to it. Sought a better way to present minnow plastics to bass in deeper clear waters.
Similar to its smaller cousin the Road Runner, the Fish Head spin gives the angler a very life-like minnow head and subtle vibration and flash of a blade below a minnow shaped plastic, usually a soft plastic jerkbait or small swimbait. I’ve fished one for years, and a recent outing to Table Rock Lake reminded me how much I enjoyed fishing with these baits.
The Fish Head Spin is available at:
Here are some thoughts I had on the Sworming Hornet Fish Head Spin and why you might want to get a few for the tackle box.
- The specifications
- Better alternative
- Lifelike appeal
- Wide depth range
THE DETAILS
The Fish Head Spin comes in wide range of sizes and colors. From 1/8 ounce up to 1 ounce, the Fish Head Spin can cover the entire spectrum of depths and sizes of plastic baitfish profiles. the natural minnow colors of the heads can be suited to perfectly match the plastic and offer a very realistic profile to your offering.
A very sharp Mustad Ultrapoint hook and a quality swivel make sure this not only appeals to the fish and works properly on every cast, but will hook and land the fish it fools. It’s streamlined head and compact design make it great for long open water casts as well as fishing next to hard targets.
It’s not weedless though, so you do want to watch it around wood cover or cables on docks as it is a bit prone to hang up in cover. But it’s a great bait around docks, over submerged cover, in open water but especially for suspended fish in clear water. And because of it’s size it’s great for spotted bass and smallmouth which have much smaller mouths than their largemouth cousins.
BETTER OPTION
Sometimes a spinnerbait is can be too obtrusive to the bass, especially in gin clear waters. There are times when the bass get conditioned to bigger lures where I’ve seen the Fish Head Spin outshines other more common lures. You can put a small swimbait or jerkbait like a small Zoom Fluke or Keitech Swing Impact on there and have a very natural profile but with vibration and flash. So you have a similar appeal to a bulkier swimbait or spinnerbait, but in a more compact profile.
I also find it’s good when I’m getting short strikes on other baits to throw back in there with the Fish Head Spin and a small swimbait to actually hook and catch those fish.
LIFELIKE APPEAL
LIFELIKE APPEALSomething interesting about the Fish Head Spin is that it has a very natural appeal so it works in clear water but it also works in dingy water. When bass are really on the feed looking for shad in the late summer and fall, it can be a great bait for schooling fish. Similarly I really like it for suspending fish in mid-summer to early fall. And again in winter and prespawn when fish tend to suspend off deep structure and are real particular about how a bait looks.
I like to fish the Fish Head Spin with a slow steady retrieve and then implement small little flutters and snaps that will trigger a fish that has been following and inspecting for a bit. Sometimes that stop and stutter and jerk is all it takes to turn that fish from curious to hooked.
The nice thing is you can work the bait ultra slow or burn it fast and it performs as expected at any retrieve and any depth.
WIDE DEPTH RANGE
With the various sizes offered in the Fish Head Spin. I can fish it slow shallow or burn it deep and everything in between. I can fish small little 2 inch baits on it or big 6 and 7-inch baits on it. Most of the time I like a 3 to 4-inch swimbait or soft jerkbait on there. I will vary my retrieve to match what I think the bass are doing.
This summer on Table Rock Lake, I was targeting bass on points and also suspending around main lake docks with 80 or more feet of water out in front of them. The bass were suspending down 15-18 feet. They can be hard to fish vertically when they are less than 20 feet under the surface. So staying back off of them and casting and counting down a lure a fishing slowly through that strike zone is more effective.
So if I marked fish in an area I would back off and start fan casting around. I would count a 3/8 ounce Fish Head Spin down to about 12 and then start reeling. I felt like the fish were mostly looking up to eat so I wanted to swim right over the top of them.
I caught numerous fish on the Fish Head Spin in Arkansas Shiner and Albino matched with Keitech Swing Impact FAT swimbaits.
It’s definitely worth having a few in your tackle box if you fish clear deep waters or fish pressured waters or where fish like to suspend.
The Fish Head Spin is available at:
