An Aqua Dream Hot Pink spoon is an effective saltwater lure. (Photo by Mike Conner)
February 28, 2025
By Mike Conner
Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. We earn from qualifying purchases.
The farther you can cast, the more water you can cover. And sometimes that will lead to catching more fish. Sometimes. The fish have to be there in the first place.
Long casts are the Holy Grail when you are fishing afoot on Florida beaches—from jetties, piers and even when blind-fishing on shallow flats, when you need to cover water.
If you’ve ever fished the surf with standard heavy surf gear and bait, you know that those prized pompano can be a football field from the sand. Long casts are a must.
Advertisement
So that’s also the case when you are casting with lighter spinning gear and artificial lures. That school of Spanish mackerel, blues or migrating tarpon might be on bait schools farther than you can normally reach. And, if the wind is blowing ashore, that robs you of the distance you want.
The answer is to choose lures that are aerodynamic enough to cut through the air. Look no further than tins (generally classified as metals) and spoons. These lures generally travel farther than skirted jigs and plugs with treble hooks, of equal weight. It’s due to shape primarily, and their appreciable weight for their size.
A large redfish struck this Aqua Dream Live Bait Blue Crab spoon.(Photo by Mike Conner) Metals Metals come in various forms, are made of alloys primarily and in an array of finishes. Some have dull surfaces, some are polished and hammered, or painted for a holographic look.
Advertisement
Metals are typically heavy and perfect if you need to fish deep or move them fast at the surface, with a fast retrieve. They excel for long casts in a headwind, and are not blown off course in a strong side-wide, as some concave spoons are. Some styles, those that are hammered to create “dimples,” flutter and wobble nicely at a steady retrieve speed. Metals are ideal when schools of predatory fish are under a bait school that is dense from the surface down to an appreciable depth, such as a “ball” of bait. And they are good search lures when bait or feeding fish are not readily apparent.
Hot choices (left to right): Aqua Dream weedless Trophy spoons, Acme Little Cleo, Acme Kastmaster, Hopkins Shorty. (Photo by Mike Conner) Metals were referred to as tins in their heyday among striped bass surf anglers on the Northeast beaches of the U.S. called “Squid Tins” because the act of walking and casting the lures was known as squidding. The best of them were made from solid tin blocks. Some anglers today call them the lost lure. But they still have a following.
The Acme Kastmaster Spoon is actually a metal by virtue of its construction. Comes in three sizes, 1 to 3 ounces, and all have a single treble hook. Most have a split ring to which you tie your leader. I’ve long depended on this metal, and have caught Spanish mackerel, bluefish, jack crevalle, pompano and ladyfish on it on the same day, on foot from the beach. It casts a mile when you fish 6- to 10-pound-test line on a spinning outfit. And there are a number of knockoffs on the market. Similar Acme offerings include the Acme Little Cleo , available up to 1 ¼ ounce.
Other popular metals include: Deadly Dick , Point Jude Po-Jee Tin , Crippled Herring and the Hopkins Shorty . Most of these, as I’ve discovered, are around an ounce in weight, and you should choose a rod with a stout enough tip to not “collapse” when casting these heavy lures, to eke out max distance.
A large red drum caught on an Aqua Dream Classic gold/chartreuse. (Photo by Mike Conner) Spoons Spoons, unlike traditional tins, are concave or cupped. They are not flat, and their shape is like that of the eating utensil. The more pronounced the cupping, the more vibration and wobble the spoon creates on the retrieve, or when trolled. The wider the spoon, the wider the side-to-side wobble. And you’ll discover that extreme cupping causes the lure to rise to the surface, which is desired by anglers fishing shallow water, such as grassflats.
Some spoons’ bodies are relatively thin, so are lighter in weight. The venerable Reflecto Spoon has been in production for many years, but it falls far short of tins, and some spoons too, when it comes to casting distance. Or, accuracy, because its flared shape and the feather trailer it sometimes comes with, is buffeted by both headwinds and side winds. Actually, it came into favor among anglers who trolled mangrove shorelines and creeks and rivers from in the Ten Thousand Islands to Marco Island. They covered ground that way to locate gatherings of snook and redfish. Many of the spoons had a few yellow chicken hackles on the single built-in treble hook.
You’ll find that the popular Johnson’s Silver Minnow (in gold or silver) is a better bet, and legions of Florida flats anglers prefer it for both redfish and snook. It had its beginning with Florida bass anglers. It has a stiff wire weed guard welded in, and its teardrop shape and cupping produce a good fish-attaching wobble. Retrieved slowly, it rarely spins completely around, so line-twisting is minimal. But a quality snap-swivel is helpful (on other spoons too) to ensure minimal line twisting when time comes to retrieve it more quickly to recast. It comes in five sizes (from ⅛- to ¾-ounce) and some flats anglers discovered that a black version (I painted my gold ones black) worked great in waters where redfish see many gold versions. The hook is not terribly sharp out of the box, so should be sharpened before fishing. Johnson also offers its Sprite , a teardrop-shaped spoon fitted with a treble hook, suited more for deeper water, such as the surf and coastal bays. It comes in three sizes, and has long been a favorite of pier anglers.
Florida anglers fishing shallow flats also turn to the Aqua Dream line of spoons . Designed by long-time Florida flats guide Capt. Mike Hakala, the ADL Willow is weedless, sinks slowly, and has a light wire 2-prong design, in ¼- and ⅜-ounce sizes.
A nice red drum fell victim to an Aqua Dream Live Bait Blue Crab spoon. (Photo by Mike Conner) Ideal Tin/Spoon Tackle Nothing beats a 7- to 8-foot spinning rod matched to a 2000 to 3000 series spinning reel for casting distance, when desired. Spool up with monofilament in the 8- to 10-pound-test range, or gel-spun polyethylene (braid) in the 10- to 15-pound range. Again, your rodtip can’t be too “wimpy,” especially if you are casting with the heaviest of these lures, or you will lose distance. When toothy or rough-jawed fish are your target, attach either a heavy mono or fluorocarbon bite leader (1 to as much as 3 feet long) or a light wire leader (singlestrand or multi-strand). Depending on the design of your chosen tin or spoon, line twist can occur, so you might consider using a quality ball bearing snap swivel between the leader and lure.
