Polishing Spoons

A forum for people who are new to commercial fishing and for talking about the fundamental rules and regulations.
akfisher1978
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Polishing Spoons

Post by akfisher1978 »

Curious if after using a Polish on spoons if you need to wash them really well before fishing. I was thinking that they might have an odor from the Flitz Polish?
fvsedna
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by fvsedna »

I have pondered that In the past myself...I have rinsed them In hot soapy water & dried them quickly before they oxidize. But, when they are used, you toss them In a spoon bucket with hydrotone or anti-freeze....so, I skipped that rinse step some time back.... just wrapped them In paper towels & stuff them In Ziplocs til' the faithful day.
Andrew
fveureka
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by fveureka »

One method that I have used is rinse with unclorinated water after use, polish, then wipe with food grade mineral or non-scented baby oil, the wrap in waxpaper sandwich bag individually(you can use a sharpie on the wax paper and write #8superior on the baggie) , then ziploc.
akfisher1978
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by akfisher1978 »

Good idea! I figured there has to be a scent left from polishing.
fveureka
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by fveureka »

Glad to help out. Spoons are expensive now a days and I am hoping that other trollers will clatter in here and discuss care and maintenence so that those new trollers do not wear their spoons out like I did before getting some good lessons on how to do a good job polishing thier money makers. When I was younger and did not pay attention so much to what was soaking into my skin and probably into my liver, I did not wear gloves. Now adays I use nitrail/latex gloves and start with a soft tooth brush and work the polish into the spoon in soft swirls. after a couple minutes of that I use a soft cotten cloth and still work in the polish, and finally finish off with a cleaning soft cloth. It's not uncommon to spend about 5-10 minutes on a spoon.

Flitz is a good produce, but there are some that may not have the chemical smell. Not sure if they make supercrome anymore. You diffently want to use a soft paste polish. Dan
akfisher1978
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by akfisher1978 »

I was given 6 dozen Silver/Chrome Manistees and 3 dozen Superiors that are very old and were not looking very good. Flitz cleaned them right up to nearly new looking! Ever use Manistees that are Chrome/Silver? Seems like most guys use a variety of Colors for Cohos and not the Silver/Chrome but I could be wrong
fveureka
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by fveureka »

Also try a tube of simicrome....you can find it on ebay. Cherish the old Superiors you'll need them west of spencer. Best fishes to you, akfisher
akfisher1978
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by akfisher1978 »

Simicrome. I will look for it! Thanks again
JYDPDX
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by JYDPDX »

Does the copper or brass really fish better than the gold plating? I've never understood why guys go to such extreme lengths with these other materials. I use the gold plated superiors, yes, the new cheaply made ones and I NEVER polish them. If its time for polish it goes in the trash. Ocaisionally some light buffing with soap and water. Polish will take the finish off and it is ruined. But they get worn out and bent up usually before they corrode anyway. I have some that I have been running for 2 or 3 + seasons and they are sparkly, shinny and free from tarnish. Sometimes there is a slight white buildup in a pock hole here or there but its not like they don't catch well. I sometimes use a spoonbucket with antifreeze and saltwater but only for stacking the gear overnight or for extended layups. I probably go through a dozen superiors a year and I put a lot of time in. What is the big deal? I go through 6 times that in coho spoons and have other gear that is WAY less durable.

On the other end of the spectrum, Its funny how some guys will swear by these ratty old beat up coho spoons that are tarnished to shit and have half a chip of paint left on them. I don't get this either. Is that spoon particularly magic or something?
gumpucky
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by gumpucky »

I chased the kings and coho more last year than any in recent memory due to the increase in greed and aggression that has taken over the cluster fox trot known as the chum troll fishery. My old spoons were in pretty bad shape for being neglected but I used em anyway and they produced. Seems the superiors will shine up a little with use and the manastees , especially the chrome based ones with the paint chips hanging on worked fine. In fact as they were broken off and replaced with new it was obvious the old beaters worked better. Last season was my worst on record so I wasn't able to keep my gear up to snuff as I would have liked but I was impressed how my old garbage preformed.
JYDPDX
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by JYDPDX »

Hmm, very interesting account. Thanks much for sharing. I have a manastee that I like a lot, its actually the silver horde variety "feisty" which I prefer to the manastees that holds paint really well and when it chips off reveals chrome with a little primer but I'll take that over the others that the paint just falls off. I also have a solid chrome spoon that works really well for me but that may be because I only had three of them one season and the fish were perhaps just going for the thing that was different. I ordered a couple doz for this season, we'll see what happens. Maybe they just wanted it that way (sparse in the gear) that year. But to digress, I really have never drawn a positive correlation on any painted spoon between dilapidation and success rate. I certainly have had lean years as well where the gear that's left is the gear im fishing but it has never seemed to fish better than new gear in terms of the painted spoon.

Not to sound contentious because lord knows I've been stirring the pot on here lately but I am wondering why you wouldnt surmise that your poor season was from the lack of quality gear. That immediately, all things equal, seems like the natural face value assumption. And if you did have so much dilapidated gear our, and it is known to give you an edge in catch rate, why was the season so lousy? I ask this out of curiosity, I appreciate you sharing your experience. If dilapidated spoons fish better, why don't guys destroy their new gear a bit to make it more enticing.

What I am getting at is that in order to make a scientifically valid determination about a hypothesis, variables must be isolated. This is near impossible in fishing because the number of variable is vast and isolating them is very difficult. You have to make guesses about margin of error and probably rely on tremendous amounts sampling experiments to draw guessed conclusions. I believe there are very few truly valid conclusions with regards to trolling, scientifically speaking and possibly many fallacies. I'm not saying no one knows anything, although mankind's minute remote existence in the universe suggests that. This is certainly not to suggest (well maybe I am suggesting it but I really cant possibly know anything that happens on your boat) that your conclusions are fallacies. I just think its an interesting concept concerning how we draw conclusions on the most productive decisions and techniques for catching fish.

If you flip a coin 10 times and get heads every time you are prone to draw the conclusion that the tails side is heavier or something when truly its a matter of random chance and the coin is in fact equally weighted. So say the coin IS heavier on the tails side and prone to land on heads more often, what if there is a draft affecting the coins landing or flipping. What if there is a magnet under that table that coin is landing on. We could go on and on with "what ifs" and we could do the same with the highly numerous factors (variables) and chance involved in catching fish. Sorting it all out is very complicated and I have a many hunches but I know that I don't know very much at all for certain.

A dock neighbor was walking by my stern a couple years ago and was looking at my gear, admittedly I had some funky shit out (bored winter fishing) he made a comment that he didn't like my gear. I kinda chuckled and smiled and said ok, what are you running. So we walked over to his boat and he lifted up some of the driest, greenest, rattiest burlap I have ever seen to reveal some of the ugliest, dirtiest, frayed, basically ruined gear I had ever seen, complete with superiors that looked like they we stored in a shaft alley or a tool box. At the end of the next weather window we arrived at the plant at that same time, he beat me to the hoist. When my turn came I offloaded my meager tally which I was happy with and climbed the ladder, took weights and signed off. Walking back to the boat I couldn't believe he was still unloading. We'd been fishing the same spot, for the same days and he had easily 5 times what I had.
Abundance
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by Abundance »

I have had some very good fishing with old tarnished spoons, and bad fishing as well. It seems to matter more what the water color is. The fact is, your tarnished spoon is just a dark colored lure. It is the same principle as what makes a black hootchie work some times, and white one work another, and a gold glittered one the next. One spring in Chatham, I had my best day for kings that year on some old, nasty looking superiors I found in storge down below and threw on the gear out of bordom. I tried that this last spring, and ended up having to spray paint all my old spoons white to get them catching. Cohos always took whatever nonesence I had laying around, some things more than others.
Garrett Hagen, F/V Abundance
Akdreamlures
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by Akdreamlures »

Good to see you back on here Howard. Likely to join you coho fishing next year. Two things that might be helpful when dealing with spoons and a story on ratty looking gear.

1. I just completed a big project of cleaning up my son's spoons for inventory and posting here and elsewhere for sale. On the gold and chrome we had great luck with a solution of 50% water and 50% vinegar that Sarah found recommended on the internet. After a couple of hour soak or more, I moved them to a fresh water rinse and then, with latex gloves on, removed them and wiped them off. They shined up really really well. On a few I used a piece of steel wool or a little plastic brush to carefully remove a bit of rust or otherwise clean up. I wish I had known this formula for chrome and gold years ago. It did not work so well for copper, brass, etc. as the copper would bleed onto the other metal. But it worked great for the copper and chrome, chrome, or chrome and gold.

2. Even though I confess to not being a good coho spoon fisherman, I have had a few "hot" spoons over the years. I have noticed that those darn coho will seem to pick the odd one out all the time.

3. When we were pioneering the chum fishery, which is ruined now, we were using bare blued hooks. I remember having a guy come by the boat during the August closure to ask me what we were doing. I took the cover off my gear to show him and he visibly recoiled at the kinked leaders, the beat up flashers, and a bunch of rusty bare hooks stuck into a piece of rotting rope. He was an older guy, younger than I am now though, and he said "I can't believe you would even try to catch a fish on that junk, Eric." The last time I had pulled that gear, a couple of days previously, I had 22 chums on 24 of those rusty hooks on the last line. You just never know.
Salty
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by Salty »

Oops,
Meant to post as Salty, forgot my handle while reading. Sorry.
gumpucky
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by gumpucky »

"Not to sound contentious because lord knows I've been stirring the pot on here lately but I am wondering why you wouldnt surmise that your poor season was from the lack of quality gear. That immediately, all things equal, seems like the natural face value assumption. And if you did have so much dilapidated gear our, and it is known to give you an edge in catch rate, why was the season so lousy? I ask this out of curiosity, I appreciate you sharing your experience. If dilapidated spoons fish better, why don't guys destroy their new gear a bit to make it more enticing"

I for one appreciate pot stirrers...I know it would follow that garbage gear would make for a bad season...My bad season was all about a screwy chum fishery last year...Wasted the whole month of june waiting for fish in Icy Straight. Then running down to Neats...Don't get me started on that...Then back to Jacobi which was the only decision that payed off and where I used the old gear. As I made a few landings I could upgrade the hardware with an eye towards fall coho. I was barely making wage back up at Homeshore.but I was tired of running and willing to stick it out til Oct. As it turned out they closed Icy on 20 Sept. So in retrospect everything I did was wrong basically. In the 14 years I've been at this I had never had my ass handed to me like that so I guess it was my turn. The time spent on the water is too valuable to just go at it with rotten gear and under most circumstances I wouldn't recommend it but this last season was just wierd in a lot of ways for me. Reminds me of a time I was off Shelikof and it was dead and I was bored so I took a plug that had no earthly buiness being on board...Painted half flat black and the other half a hideous yellow then covered in glitter. I guess I had it as a conversation piece most likely. Anyway , I put it on and threw it over. The next hour that spread produced 3 fish between 18 and 32 lbs. the 4th fish hit it hard enough to shake the boat then it was gone. The leader was probably nicked. I've had old pros come by and spoon bucket me and leave shaking their heads especially since they know I can produce with that gear. i'm probably not as anal as I should be about my gear but it works for me and seein as how I pretty much learned how to fish the old fashioned way, basically on my own and earning the trust of a few old timers that took me under their wing and taught me a few things, I've come to the conclusion just to keep an open mind and your hooks wet and the worm will turn.
gumpucky
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by gumpucky »

Thanks Eric...We must have been composing at the same time...I have to admit I really enjoyed coho fishing if for no other reason it was relatively uncrowded AND somewhat productive AND there were some nice kings off Jacobi. I'm not about to give up on chum just yet though. I'm thinking we'll get this figured out to everyone's benefit. I just hope the good things on the horizon isn't a mirage. That's another thing I learned early on is if you don't have overwhelming optimism don't be a commercial fisherman.
Abundance
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by Abundance »

I am pretty sure that last year will be considered the low point in the chum troll fishery. I wouldn't call it ruined yet, although the golden age might have passed. I appreciate your reflective attitude, Gumpucky. Last year actually turned out much better than the 2011 season for me, which would have been the end of my career path if I hadn't had shrimping to help out my permit payment at the end of the season. I used my chum gear after I left Neets and had several weeks of hot coho fishing just inside of the outside. I used old chum hootchies that had barely a single skirt strand left on them, and they worked better than my newer stuff. I actually took a bunch of ratty m85's out of my Dads trash and put them out. Next year I am probably going to be going to my bunk in tears because my stuff isn't working. That is the way of thing, I guess. I just acquired a number of small crates of old fishing gear, some in very good shape, some okay, some for working on as a project. I am going to keep this thread in mind while tinkering with them.
Garrett Hagen, F/V Abundance
gumpucky
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by gumpucky »

Garrett...there was considerable weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth at the end of season 2011 which I think played a big part in the population explosion at Neets. Whereas it was one of my best seasons which allowed me to weather my waterloo of 2012. It amazes me how the pendulum swings in this biz. I usually put the chum gear on in June and use it on through Sept. with amazing results on all three species in spite of being pretty worn out by the end of summer. I've even had a clatter of 5 kings on chum gear during our non existent nowadays Eastern channel chum troll fishery. If we ever have a hatchery king return to Sitka sound again I will definitly experiment with chum gear. As far as the end of a career path last year was as close as I've ever come to tieing up and running to the hardware store for a FOR SALE sign.
Salty
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by Salty »

Been there. Went ling codding most of one summer.

Quit king fishing one year when I had a 22 pound average trip and they only paid me $.60 per lb.

Fished chums for as low as $0.16.

Went to work as a therapist for Alcoholics in treatment one winter rather than fish. Turned out to be one of the most inspiring and enriching experiences of my life. You never know.
lone eagle
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Re: Polishing Spoons

Post by lone eagle »

I also only use gold spoons and clean them up with baking soda..tried vinegar but baking soda with a toothbrush and knife work good for me
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