Ice Fishing Tackle VMC Tumbler Spoon ice fishing

Published on February 17th, 2018 | by The Iceman

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Review of VMC Tumbler Spoon

Review of VMC Tumbler Spoon The Iceman
Quality
Utility
Value

Summary: One of the most unique and effective ice fishing spoons available today. This lure catches fish on the drop and even dead sticked in front of finicky fish.

4.3

Recommended


There are a lot of spoons designed and sold for ice fishing. Some including the VMC Tumbler Spoon work a lot better than others. There is a reason that the Tumbler appears on my list of the best ice fishing spoons.

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The VMC Tumbler Spoon, which is not to be confused with the tumblr internet image sharing service, is an elongated spoon made by VMC. I think VMC started out as a mid range hook and general tackle company but today it is a part of the Rapala family that for the most part sells quality fishing equipment.

The spoon comes in the usual assortment of colors that you would expect of basically any fishing lure sold in the United States today. None of the finishes stand out especially. At he same time, there are no obviously gimmicky colors meant more to attract fisherman than fish either.

Experience with the Tumbler Spoon

I have been fishing with the Tumbler Spoon for at least four years and perhaps even longer than that. In my experience, the best or at least most consistent colors are Shiner and Glow Chartreuse Shiner. There is nothing especially surprising about that since the same colors work well on a lot of lures. The only surprise for me with the Tumbler Spoon has been that the Shiner finish seems to catch a lot more fish than the Gold Shiner finish. Quite often a gold spoon will out fish all others under the ice.

rainbow trout on VMC tumbler spoon

The VMC Tumbler Spoon sits vertically at rest. There is a split ring at the top of the spoon. Below that there is a painted eye on one side. At the bottom there is another split ring that holds a VMC treble hook and an Indiana shaped blade.

The Tumbler Spoon is aptly named. While the small bend in the spoon doesn’t look like it would create too much action, it actually puts a lot of back and forth on the spoon when it is dropped through the water column on a slack line.

In fact, the Tumbler Spoon is sometimes a little difficult to keep track of on the flasher since it tumbles left and right through the water on a lose line. The spoon has a habit of swinging wide either left or right of the hole on the way down, instead of just falling straight to the bottom like a hydrodynamic tungsten jig would do.

How to fish the Tumbler Spoon

To be clear, that is not a negative. You want a spoon to flip and flop in the water, swinging around and drawing in fish from near and far with the appearance of something like a dying minnow. I am just trying to give you an idea of how much the Tumbler Spoon actually tumbles.

While you sometimes have a hard time tracking the Tumbler Spoon on a flasher while it tumbles, the lure is large and bulky enough to easily see once the spoon is at rest at the desired depth. So most of the time you do actually have a pretty good idea of where it actually is.

I fish the Tumbler Spoon the same way most every time I use it. First I let the spoon drop down to the bottom. Then I do some very long lifts and drops so that it can cover most of the water column fairly quickly. After that I will drop it to whatever depth I want to keep it at and hold it still.

From there I do a combination of holding the spoon totally still, slightly wiggling the spoon, and occasionally repeating the more active pick up and drop process explained in the last paragraph.

The Tumbler Spoon is on the larger size for ice fishing in a lot of areas but the hook is small enough that all sorts of fish can be caught with it, especially when it is tipped with a wax worm. I have caught a lot of nice and not so nice fish on the Tumbler Spoon, but trout and crappie seem to like it most.

The VMC Tumbler Spoon isn’t that expensive considering what is offered. The lure is well made and it lasts long as long as you don’t lose it on an underwater snag or giant fish. Some of the Tumbler Spoons in my box have been with me for three or four years and they show no real sign of wear. Most importantly, it works well and catches fish!

The VMC Tumbler Spoon is available at Amazon.

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2 Responses to Review of VMC Tumbler Spoon

  1. Williams says:

    I also personally recommends VMC Tumbler Spoon. It really works great.

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