Welcome to Fish Dinner Lures "The Lures Fish Want For Dinner"
All Fish Dinner Lures Hand Crafted In Iowa By Americans All Components Are Made in the USA
What makes Fish Dinner Lures Special
Why buy Fish Dinner Lures?
Well a Fish Dinner Lure is part of the "Fish Dinner System". The System is Comprised of the following 9 Benefits.
1. We have 4 lure groups in a variety of sizes, shapes, weights and colors. More will be added if we feel the system ever needs to expand.2. Any Fish Dinner Lure can be cast, trolled or jigged in a variety of presentations.3. Any Fish Dinner Lure can be presented at all levels of the water column, thereby able to be offered in all fish feeding zones.4. Any Fish Dinner Lure can be used as a Search Bait to find the fish when they are located in any of the feeding zones.5. Any Fish Dinner Lure can and does replace the need for so many of those expensive Specialty Lures.6. Any Fish Dinner Lure is a Multi Species Lure. All Bass, Largemouth-Smallmouth-Kentucky & Whites, Walleye, Stripers, Hybrid Stripers Crappie, trout or any other predator species.7. Fish Dinner Lures, overall, are Low Cost and Durable, unlike many plastics and other soft baits.8. Lures from the Fish Dinner System will for certain improve your fishing success and your budget bottom line.9. Fish Dinner Lures are 100% American Made using American Components by American Companies. All lures in the Fish Dinner System are powder coated for superior durability. They can be used in fresh water or salt water with no worries of corrosion.
How the FDL System Works
Tips to help you have a successful fishing trip without busting the BUDGET.
The "Fish Dinner System" & Just What is a Fish Dinner Lure
Let me be honest, with exception of the Glitter Spinner there is really nothing unique about the lures that we make. Many are know by various other names*. The only real difference is that the colors, shown in my collection with the single exception of white, are not available in stores. So why buy from me? I am selling lures that fit into a lure system that myself, my guide customers, and my many clients, have proven over and again will catch a lot of fish and save you lots of money over time. More will be explained about this later on in the "Fish Dinner System" part of this article.
Now to the question "What is a Fish Dinner Lure, and why is it special?" It is a lure that fits into the "Fish Dinner System" and will work under any situation you find your self in while on the water. One can cast it, jig it or troll it. It will take fish on the surface and all depth zones the fish will congregate in. The lure is simple, having only one set of treble hooks. It is made out of Lead or a combination of Brass and Lead and the colors are also simple. If you were to ask Guides, who key in on the Hybrid Stripers, Walleyes, White Bass and the Black Bass families, what color would they choose if they could have only one color in their tackle box, the answer would most likely be WHITE. Most of us have to make that choice or a similar choice based on our wallet size. So I have narrowed my color schemes down to 5 variations of white and chrome. Each variation has a purpose. There is plain white which to this day comprises about 30% of my sales and harvests about 60% of the fish I catch. Then comes white with a dark blue back. this color combo has the purpose of slimming the lure shape a bit along with a color similar to the bait fish. Then I add a Holographic tape with either a Scale pattern or a Prism pattern. The purpose of this variation is for the flash the tape gives off on bright days. The flash catches the eye of the fish when they are feeding heavily and seems to wake up those that appear to be sleepy and slow to bite. Also it has the effect of reflecting the ambient light available when fished deep giving it a more subtle appearance in deep water. I believe this triggers those finicky fish into biting.
All lures will work on one rod if that is all you have but if you can afford 4 rods here is what I would have. (All of the following can be purchased at most sporting goods stores, or in the sporting section of your local department stores.) None of these have to be specialty styles just standard stuff. A 6'6" Spinning Rod in Medium Heavy Action, a good Spinning Reel with a high retrieve ratio of 5.3:1 or higher and spooled with a good 12 lb line (I prefer Berkley Big Game). Rig this rod with the Glitter Spinner. 3 good casting rods all 6'6'' long have 2 in Medium Heavy action and 1 in medium action. all spooled with 12 or 15 lb of your favorite brand. Rig each rod with a Spoon of different size and shape. Buying rod and reel combos will save you money in all rod selections. Or just use what you have. Most importantly make sure your line is good and keep the reel full.
A bit about the "Fish Dinner System". I'll try to make this simple. The 2 main basic issues in a fish's life are good clean water and plenty of food. Seeing as we have little power over the living conditions let's move to the food. The forage that the fish have to live on varies from lake to lake. It is our duty as an avid angler to answer the time old question "What are they biting on?" Most reservoirs or impoundments and some natural lakes maintain a huge Threadfin or Gizzard Shad population. In these clear waters it pays to MATCH the HATCH. Izaak Walton made this point back in 1653 in his book The Complete Angler. Today that truth is still very important. The forage comes in all sizes and a host of colors. The most important item is size, then shape or profile then color.
No matter what body of water, or whether you are fishing fresh or salt water Shad are an important forage, and they are consumed in all sizes from 1/2 inch up to and approaching 5" in length. Examples of other bait fish throughout the country include Alewife, American Shad and Blue Back Herring and are primary forage for our favorite predators. To imitate these forage fish I like to key in on lures that range from 1 3/8" long all the way up to 3 1/2" long. The shapes I like to have are Long and Skinny to Short and Plump and on to Shad Shaped. Then of course there is the Glitter Spinner that has sound, shape and color. To see shapes and colors, please visit the pages found by clicking the appropriate buttons in the navigation bar. All of these lures can be fished in all feeding zones for surface all the way to the bottom.
Where does one start? I select the Glitter spinner as my key search tool when the fish are not showing themselves. It has noise, color and shape. It is the most productive lure in the collection for surface and just under the surface feeding fish. The Glitter Spinner is also a sleeper lure when fished in the deeper zones, even all the way to vertical jigging near the bottom. The Flutter Spoons come in a close second. I keep all 6 lures in my collection available and on 3 or 4 rods. Once I find fish I cast the spinner until it is no longer productive. When the fish descend, and they usually do, I cast and count down and try different depths until I find the fish. If this does not work I move around the area studying the graph until I find the fish, then I drop a 1 oz. Flutter Spoon into the fish. If they bite, I will keep using that lure. If not I change lengths and shapes until I find their preference. Sometimes there is no preference they will bite anything presented.
Color is another issue. My personal favorite color and also the favorite of many of my fellow fishermen is white. The use of the other colors are used primarily to vary what the fish see down there. A white lure is the most visible color down to 50' or so. Next comes the White with a Blue colored back which reduces the profile as those colors are less visible than white. Adding the Holographic scales to the white body make the lure a little less visible as the Scales reflect back the environment they are in, usually much darker than we realize and reflecting a much diminished amount of white. Next comes the prism color as it reflects just what the environment is, mostly dark, with only a border of White and Blue around the prism.
Let's discuss the System. Most usually the fish hide in or near some form of structure, weeds or trees or whatever and at various depths. In addition to the Rod and reels Described above the successful fisherman must have a reasonably priced and decent fish finder. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Learn to use it and always have it turned on when fishing.
Why a graph? The photo at the right shows why one is so necessary. The Graph shown is My older Humminbird 717 fishing system. In the picture you can see many lines that run sort of horizontal but not straight lines. These lines are a group of Hybrid Stripped Bass that I was on in mid October of 09. Had it not been for the graph I would not have found these fish. I would have gone right on by. As it was these, and other groups discovered that day, offered up over 30 fish into my boat. Note the depth the fish are at. Using a 1oz. Shad Spoon or Flutter Spoon in both 1oz. and 3/4oz. were all productive on these fish. Note the straight line coming from upper middle to lower right. This is my Flutter Spoon descending into the school of fish. The depth to the bottom is 60.1 feet. Most fish hit the lure before reaching the bottom.
The system I use is simply this. For instance, if you happen on a school of fish feeding on top and you start tossing your lure into them and nothing happens, you may have the wrong size lure on. If you are using a 1 oz. spoon, try tying on a 1/2 or 3/4 oz. spoon. I know most of you are saying "Why throw a spoon at them?", use a top-water bait. Well here is why, Most top waters are fairly large and they may work but so will the spoon. The question boils down to this; if the top-water is to big it is hard to down size because most don't have smaller versions. Those that do, the weight is so light they are hard to cast, especially on windy days. Another reason to use the spoon is that you can stay farther away from the school of fish without causing the school to go down because of your boat. But you say a spoon does not have the top-water features, oh but it does, if fished correctly. Just cast your spoon into the fish and start your retrieve just before or as soon as it hits the water. Reel it in quickly and you will be surprised how many fish you take it. Far more than you expect. If your reel has a high enough retrieve ratio 5.3 to 1 or higher you can even make the spoon swim across the water and it will look like a bait fish trying to escape. Just hang on and enjoy a perfect day on the water.
Now that the fish have stopped what next? Look at your graph and see if it shows fish. (See photo at the right.) Most likely it will, so drop that successful spoon down on them. Chances are very good that you will start catching more fish. Now if you had that top water lure on, you would have to take it off and go to the tackle box and hunt up a lure to use if you had one. That takes time and by the time you are back in business the fish may well have moved on. In the photo at the right you can see why the fish went down, all the way to 67.5 Feet deep. Note the big black area on the screen. That is a school of Gizzard Shad that the Hybrids were feeding on. Note the fish, horizontal lines below the school of shad, Note my lure dropping in on the shad from the left side of the screen under the "62" crossing the 42.5 foot mark in the graph. (I apologize for the picture quality but if you look carefully at the bottom under the shad you can see the faint lines of my lure moving up and down like saw teeth.)
Just after this picture was taken the fish pushed the group of Shad to the surface and held them there for about 15 minutes of chaos and fun then back down they went. I caught at least 3 times as many fish deep as I did at the top that day. I never changed lures I used the same 1oz. Flutter spoon (white with blue back) all day long.
Do You Get The Idea???
A quick example is when you are casting your favorite top water bait into a school of fish feeding on shad on top. The action slows to nothing, you go to your tackle box and dig out a crank bait, but your fish finder graph says the fish have descended to 30 feet, you don't have a bait that will get that deep so what now? Most of you will set back and wait for the action to pick up or move on to another spot. If you were throwing a 3/4 oz. Fish Dinner Flutter Spoon into the schooling fish you could now drop it straight down to the 30 foot depth where your trusty fish finder indicated the fish were now located. When the fish come back up on top, you are all ready for them. Just start casting. The key, to the Fish Dinner System and Lures, is that you are always ready for the next situation. All of the lures I have selected will work on or near the top and anywhere in between the top and the bottom. JUST CHANGE YOUR PRESENTATION OF THE LURE ON THE END OF YOUR LINE. Does this sound to simple? It is not! Try it, you will like it. My customers and myself are committed to this System, and have, for several years now, proven that simple is divine. Large catches of Kentucky Spotted Bass and Hybrid Stripers, sometimes as high as 60 catches per day are possible, but averages closer to 20 or more per fisherman per day are realistic. The 8 year old Boy and his father in the Gallery of Success caught nearly a dozen just like the one he is holding from the same area and along with the guide caught more than 60 fish that day on a Glitter Spinner ,see it in the fish's mouth. Another bit of advice is that small lures can catch Big Fish, take for instance the Man on the party Barge, a new customer and believer in the Fish Dinner System caught this fish on a 5/8 oz. 1 3/8" long Wiggle Spoon in Blue Back with Holographic Scales pattern, the lure being cast into a group of surface feeding fish.
Remember this, The only thing absolutely necessary to a successful fishing trip is to have the right lures at the right time. Using the lures described on this site will give you all you will ever need. There is SIZE, SHAPE and COLOR. Subtle Changes in Shape, profile and color are the only changes that really matter to fish. For instance look at the color chart and visualize what a difference each color might look like to a fish below. Each color changes the profile of the lure shape. The white is all visible but the dark backs make the lure look smaller and the tapes reflect differently with the conditions down deep and at the surface. They also subtly alter the profile of the lure to the fish.
So how can the Fish Dinner System save you money? Look into your tackle box, how many different lures do you have? If you have 4 empty trays in your box you can place 1 ea. of my lure selections in each tray and you can cover nearly every situation you will ever face on any lake that offers Hybrid Stripers, Wipers, White Bass, Walleyes or any of the Bass family. I know I have done it and more of my friends and fellow fishermen are doing it. You can throw away those top water baits, that multitude of crank baits, the tangle of spinner baits, pork baits, the endless supply of worms and other soft baits. Yes they all work very well and you may enjoy the constant changing of lures until you find the one that gets where the fish are at any given time. If you do not have a tackle box full of lures or are just getting started with fishing then you do not need to power buy all of the various lures available. For less than $40 you can have every shape and size necessary in 7 basic lures from my collection. That's right 5 all white spoons and 1 each of the Glitter Spinner and Cindy K Spinner dressed in white will catch you more than 60% of the fish you will probably ever catch no matter how many lures you have.
Now the recap. All you need to be successful is the following. 1 to 3 or 4 rods with reels loaded with Fresh line. 6 spoons of various sizes and spinners of 2 sizes. Additional colors for variable conditions are a plus but not absolutely necessary. Colors of white and variations thereof will suffice. And a good graph and trolling motor on your boat finish the picture. When all else fails Hire a Guide for a day with the idea that he teach you how to use and understand your graph.
* The Flutter Spoon is sometimes known as a Ghost Spoon, a Prism Spoon or a Minnow spoon. The Wiggle Spoon is sometimes called a Wobble Spoon, Slab Spoon, or Keel Spoon, The Shad Spoon is sometimes called a Shad Minnow Spoon or a Blade Spoon so please do not be fooled by a name. The Glitter Spinner is similar to a Rooster Tail or a Mepp's Spinner. The confusion is understandable but there is no mistaking the fish taking power of the Fish Dinner Lures.