The best ice fishing spoons

Spoons have a long history in fishing. While they don’t seem to be as popular for open water as they once were, they continue to be used far and wide by people who fish through the ice. The best ice fishing spoons have just the right amount of flash and action to bring in fish from a distance without scaring any closer fish away.

There are lots of spoons on the market including quite a few that are designed specifically for ice fishing. While open water spoons can be used under the ice, the tailor made spoons are normally a lot more effective. Here’s a list of the best spoons for ice fishing today to help you separate the wheat from the chaff.

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Swedish Pimple

The Bay de Noc Swedish Pimple is a legendary ice fishing lure. The long slender metal spoon comes with a blood red plastic flasher attached near the treble hook at the tail.

Don’t ask me why Swedish Pimples catch so many fish under the ice. I really don’t know. I guess they look like somewhat like a small fish, but they are usually jigged vertically. I have never seen a fish swim in a vertical position in all of my years on the water, but maybe I am missing something.

What I do know is that Swedish Pimples continue to catch fish year after year. That’s why they have been around so long. That’s also why in certain parts of the world where people know how good they can be, the Swedish Pimples quickly fly off the shelves when the water starts to freeze.

VMC Tingler Spoon

There are tons of spoons on the market. Still the classics seem to get the most use. People can come up with all kinds of different shapes and bends, but there’s a reason certain spoons stay around for decades.

The VMC Tingler Spoon is an odd looking spoon in the shape of a wedge. I admit that when I first saw the thing a few years ago I feared it might be just another gimmick meant to stand out from the pack. In fact when I tried the Tingler Spoon the first time on a high elevation mountain lake I caught dozens of pickerel.

Now pickerel aren’t a popular fish and some people say they’ll hit anything, but that day the Tingler was a life saver. We were on the first ice fishing outing of the year. With no ice yet forming at home we took a long drive to take a chance on a lake we had never fished. Hours after being on the ice we hadn’t caught a single fish. After exhausting all

After that I tried the Tingler Spoon several more times and I almost always caught fish. I haven’t drummed up any huge panfish with the Tingler, but I have caught lots and lots of walleye on this spoon and a good number of big fat brown trout too! That’s why I am confident about including it on this list.

Buckshot Rattle Spoon

The Buckshot Rattle Spoon by Northland is basically a nose maker meant to draw in fish from afar. Even though the lure has really nice paint, it doesn’t have a lot of action. When it does have is a set of rattles that make sounds under the water that predator fish simply can’t resist.

The packaging of the Buckshot suggests that you can catch a lot of different species on the spoon, and I believe it. But in my experience it works best for walleye and pike. Glow Firetiger and Golden Perch are the best colors for those fish, but Pink seems to work really well for crappies.

Lindy Rattl’N Flyer

The Lindy Rattl’N Flyer is another rattling ice fishing spoon, but it isn’t hardly as noisy as the Buckshot. It does have a lot more action however. In fact it is one of the most active spoons you will ever use under the ice.

Because of the unique shape of the spoon, the Rattl’N Flyer does what it says: it rattles and “flies” all around the water under the hole. You’re not limited to jigging a spoon vertically under your hole. When you jig the Rattl’N Flyer then give it some slack to fall and flutter it zooms all around the hole, darting off to the right and the left just like a real dying fish.

It should be pretty easy to figure out why it works. Fish eat other fish, but they prefer to prey on the weak specimens that look like easy meals. There’s nothing weaker than a minnow struggling away in death agony just waiting to be eaten.

VMC Tumbler Spoon

If memory serves, the Tumbler Spoon came on the market around the same time as the Tingler. The Tumbler Spoon looks a lot more like a traditional spoon however, so at least early on I was more likely to give it a go.

The Tumbler Spoon basically looks like a more compact and modern version of the Swedish Pimple. It even has the flutter tag near the treble hook, though on the Tumbler they are silver rather than red. The Tumbler spoon also has an off center eye and a bleeding red throat that I think contributes to its effectiveness.

I don’t use the Tumbler Spoon in every situation. But when I need a thicker, heavier spoon, it has become my go to lure. I work these in deep water and when targeting bigger fish. They don’t have a ton of action which at times is exactly what you want. The more subtle presentation can help fool big fish.

It works especially well for walleye, pike and bass. I imagine it would also work well for slab crappie and lake trout. The next time I find some I will try it out and see.

Slender Spoon

The Slender Spoon by Custom Jigs and Tackle is probably the best ice fishing spoon to come on the market in decades. It might not look like much but this ultra slim spoon has an uncanny effect to bring in fish from all around and get them to bite the hook.

I have caught everything from panfish to trout to bass and even pike on the Slender Spoon in various sizes and colors. They almost always work even when I’m not finding fish on the flasher or otherwise hooking up. Once I dropped a Slender Spoon down a hole that had a live minnow on a tip up in it for hours and immediately caught a nice brown trout.

There are a few styles of Slender Spoon. The “Pro Series” in colors like Firetiger with a gold back seem to work best, but really they all catch fish. You can’t go wrong with a plain gold or silver spoon either in most conditions.

Tags: ice fishing lures, ice fishing spoons