One of my favorite ways to catch bass is on a big spoon. I’ve been catching them on one on Kentucky Lake for a decade now, and I had been looking forward to trying the new River2Sea James Watson Worldwide Spoon. Watson famously won a Major League Fishing event where he came back to win after finding a winning school of bass suspending under a single floating dock with a flutter spoon.
I had a couple of the Worldwide spoons sent to me before they went into production, and I was able to put them to the test about a week later on Table Rock chasing largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass suspending in deep water around trees and under floating docks.
UNIQUE DESIGN ASPECTS
The Worldwide Spoon has some unique design elements to it that give it some original characteristics in the water. The first is a deeper swept cup in the belly of the spoon with a thickness that tapers from the middle both directions to the belly and to the tip. This design gives the spoon a unique flutter and rear swimming fall unlike other spoons.
The Worldwide Spoon goes way up under docks on the fall as it fluttered off thanks to the directional force of the belly design as it falls and flutters. It’s key to pitch the spoon so it hits the water going away from you, belly first so it will continue to flutter away, way up under targets.
BELLY DEEP CUT AND THICKER
The Worldwide Spoon is wide at the belly and narrow at the tip giving it a more cone profile than some of the other large flutter spoons. The original spoon measures 4 inches long and weighs 1 ounce. There is now a 2-ounce version that is 5 inches and quite a bit wider. Both feature a 4X strong treble hook on the belly and No. 6 single stinger on the nose connected via a braid tag end.
AWESOME STINGER HOOK ON BRAID WITH HEAVY SWIVEL
This stinger hook attaches with a short braid leash that doesn’t tangle in your line or catch the other hook. I hooked and landed several bass on the single hook stinger alone. In fact it’s the hook you have to worry about catching on your carpet or other stuff because it is so sticky sharp.
I have had several doubles on the Worldwide spoon. I was very pumped about the fact you can double up on this spoon.
I often add a little bit of mylar to the stinger to give it more attraction to get those following fish to grab it more often when another bass is hooked. You can land them two at a time no problem on this spoon.
BOTH SIDES WITH BIG EYE
The spoon looks good no matter what angle the fish looks at it. Big eyes on both sides, features like scales, gills and such on several models.
I fish it on 15 to 25-pound fluorocarbon. The spoon flutters and moves well even on the heavier lines, so I don’t think you will have any issue with any of the line sizes you choose to fish it on. I know around and under docks and around cables I go as heavy as I can.
I also found I was able to get the spoon off most of the trees I hooked out in deep water. I just used the knocking trick where you get above the spoon and pop the slack so the spoon will bang against the tree. Just keep doing it and giving it slack until it works itself loose.
HEAVY DUTY HARDWARE AND TREBLE HOOK
Part of the reason the spoon is so good is it uses heavy duty hardware. You really lean on them when they bite and I don’t lose many fish I hook. That 4x treble hooks and holds them well.
I also think that bigger hooks helps you get it back. Light hooks can be hard to get out of soft wood if you can’t bend them out. Most of the time with the Worldwide Spoon, if I could get right over the spoon, I got it back by popping it with the rod tip until it worked loose. But it carries quite a ways because of that rear swimming action, so you can’t always get over top of it.
You can slow pull the spoon or rip it hard equally well. I played with both retrieves as well as just a sharp pop of the rod tip. I caught a lot of bass I saw on my graph just dropping the spoon on them, letting it go slightly past them and then just popping it a few inches with the rod several times in a row.
FISHES REALLY WELL
The spoon is not unwieldy. I fished it on a Lew’s Mark Rose Ledge Series Swimbait rod, but any heavy power rod 7-foot, 6-inch or longer will work. A shorter rod can work, but I think you can gain so much more leverage on a fish with the longer rod and this spoon.
The spoon carries a bit more than some of the other spoons, so it does take a bit to get used to how that feels and moves on semi-slack line on the drop. But once you get in a rhythm, it’s a fish catcher.
Catches numbers
I’ve caught a bunch of nice bass on the Worldwide Spoon the last three years. It works on ledge fish, fish on bridges, fish suspended in deep timber, fish under docks and a whole lot of other applications. I’ve even caught fish just casting it out and slow rolling it back to the boat.
Here are a couple of videos of this spoon in action:
Catches big ones
I have caught a bunch in the last few years on this spoon thanks to its unique ability to glide way back under docks. This one most recently on Table Rock Lake in July 2020.
You can find the WorldWide Spoon now in two sizes in most retailers that carry River2sea products including the following online retailers:
