Name: Spinners: The One Lure to Learn First
Brand: YKS

Spinners: The One Lure to Learn First

The lure that catches something almost everywhere, for almost anyone. What size to buy, what blade to buy, and the one retrieve mistake beginners make.

If you own one lure, own this one.

A spinner is a bent wire, a weight and a blade that turns. It sends out flash and vibration on a plain straight retrieve, which means it catches fish while you are still learning where they are and how the rod feels — the two things that actually take time.

Blade shape is the only decision

Colorado blades are round, spin wide, thump hard and run shallow. They are the choice in coloured water, over weed beds, and any time the fish need to find the lure by feel.

Willow blades are long and narrow, spin tight, flash more and run faster and deeper. Clear water, brighter days, more active fish.

Buy both, in silver and gold. That is four combinations and it covers nearly everything.

Buy several of the same one

You will lose lures. Specifically, you will lose them on the sunken log, the weed edge and the rocky point — which are exactly the places worth casting to. An angler with one expensive lure fishes timidly and catches nothing; an angler with six cheap ones fishes the structure and catches fish.

When this is the wrong lure

If the fish are holding deep — on a drop-off, in summer, in a deep pool — a spinner run over the top of them is not a subtle failure, it is a complete one. That is what a diving lure is for, and no amount of good technique substitutes for being at the right depth.

What you get

A size 2 or 3 inline spinner covers most fresh water and most species
Colorado blades thump and run shallow; willow blades flash and run faster
Buy a few of the same lure — you will lose them on exactly the structure worth fishing
The commonest mistake is retrieving too fast to feel the blade turning

Questions

Because it catches fish while you are still learning what you are doing. A spinner works on a straight retrieve, tells you it is working through the rod, and does not need to be twitched or paused correctly to be effective. Almost every other lure asks you to do something right before it will produce.

Slow enough to feel the blade thumping and no slower. If you cannot feel it, it is not turning and it is not catching. Most beginners wind far too fast, which raises the lure up out of the strike zone and turns it into a flashing distraction.

It is an affiliate link: if you buy after clicking through, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change the advice — and the advice is to buy the cheap six-pack of a proven size rather than one expensive lure you will be terrified to cast at a snag.