Inline spinner advice....

[Carpkiller]

Looking at making my own spinners; specifically, the Panther Martin style with the wire passing through the blade rather than using a clevis/blade.

Barlow's and Jann's Netcraft have lots of parts.

Thinking of stacking brass beads rather than buying brass lure bodies. Why? Because beads are cheap.

1. Does anyone have any tips in general...? Must-have tools, for instance.

2. I want to make spinners that are about 1/8 oz, with the size 1 blades and a single hook. Any recommendations on hook style...and should the hook be attached with a split ring or directly to the loop in the wire?

Thanks,

cheapsCKate.....

[Gotfish?]

In my experiments fishing for stocked trout in the Sierras, Panther Martin was the best spinner by far and for trout lures was only matched by a Thomas Buoyant spoon. I would copy that as much as possible, they have been making them for 65 years and have probably learned a thing or two, at least regards trout fishing. I have not seen any advantage to using 1/8 ounce vs. 1/4 or 3/8 ounce. My theory is that the trout bite the spinner out of territorial aggression, not because it matches any natural forage in the water. So there is no reason to use the small size spinners which are harder to cast. I generally flip the bail before the lure hits the water so the blades start turning right away. An advantage of the PM is that the blades start turning faster than other spinners like Mepps or Roostertails.

Gold blades and a black body with yellow dots is a classic that works as well as any other color.

[Carpkiller]

Yeah, as much as the trout and I love Rooster Tails, the PM style does rev up faster. I have hundreds of RTs bought for pennies on the dollar. Panther Martins cost four bucks a pop...and when I lose one to a snag I cry so hard the creek turns brackish and all the fish die.

They can be made for less than $.60 apiece. There's no guarantee they'll spin as well as a genuine panther martin, but I may give it a shot. And making my own means I can make a box full of single-hook spinners.

[William Ritchie]

I have used VMC 9171 open eye Siwash in various sizes replacing trebles where singles are required, Mustad 3407 Siwash for larger lures . Siwash seems to be universal among lures for Salmonoid shaped jaws With your skills painting and cooking jigs . I would think PM style bodies from bass casting sinker with the brass wire removed or bullet sinkers would be pretty economical purchased in bulk . I do like the quality of the blades I purchased for Chinook spinners from Lure Parts on line.com . Lots of spinner manikins on the site . Not sure about split rings for the hooks unless you really need to change hooks in the field . Good luck . WR

[Neuroshima]

Gotta agree here with @Gotfish?, the PMs are the best inline spinners I've used. With the others, the blades always seem to get stuck, but the PM spins no matter what, and I believe it causes more vibrations.

This made me think about what's special about the blade design, and if there are any patents on it. Not sure if you've seen this CK, but they got a patent in 1996 which expired in 2016. There's a wealth of info on the design that may help you build yours.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US5956887

[Gotfish?]

The patent you mention is for the addition of a translucent wing to prevent line twist. Interesting idea and useful if it works but I haven't seen any such spinners for sale. Didn't see where this patent was owned by Panther Martin.

Browsed thru the similar art patents around 65 years ago and did not find a Panther Martin style spinner.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US5956887

[Carpkiller]

I ordered up some parts and the popular siwash hook has an overly long shank, I think. This is a #6, gonna get some #8s and try again. I am also gonna make some with #4 mosquito hooks....about the same size bend, but shorter shank than the siwash in the pic.

Presenting the Patient Zero spinner.

Maybe with some hackle it'll look better. It's built on a store-bought shaft that had the top eye already made. If you look at the hook end, you can see that I can make an eye about half the size of the factory unit...ugly twists notwithstanding.

Here's the overall size, compared to a 1/16 oz rooster tail and 1/8 oz Panther Martin.

While Patient Zero's parts cost is about 50 cents, (edit: whoops, did the math...it's $0.72 per) I haven't yet wet tested it to see whether it spins as well as a Panther Martin. And I will not discuss how much has been spent buying parts in bulk. Like, when I went looking for more red and orange beads and found this:

No they don't have yellow/brown. But tell me that doesn't look like a bee's butt. The good folks at Beadtin.com musta $een me coming...

Also have some teeny tiny bullet weights as per WR's suggestion that are gonna be painted up. PZ's blade is a size 3...also have some 2's...so if I get my wire twisting skills on point I should be able to build some really tiny, single hook spinners, as heavy or as light as I want 'em. On the cheap (if you look at the cost of parts per unit...and ignore the $12 cool-but-totally-unnecessary wire-bending pliers). And gotfish has me looking at weedguards....hmm.

[Carpkiller]

Turns out a size 4 Owner mosquito hook is just about perfect to fit the brass bodies and #3 blades I have on hand.

The eye of that hook just barely fits on the wire (.029"). Wy skinnier wire gets here I can go down to a size 6 mosquito hook for some really petite spinners w #2 blades.

That sexy black/yellow body was salvaged from an old rooster tail with a rusty bronze hook. Gonna dredge the bottoms of the old tackle boxes for more salvage beads and bodies.....

[Carpkiller]

I went out to Creek X to test-drive a couple of my spinners.
The dink bass didn't seem to mind that there's no hackle on the hook, got smacked five times.
But none of them stuck. A couple of the fish were micros, no wonder they didn't get hooked. But two of the fish were legit dinks (9 or 10 inch fish) and put a pretty good bend in the rod...for less than a second.
Oh, well, the perils of a single hook.

Meanwhile, two dinks had no problem chomping on the old standby...

[Carpkiller]

Found the old stash of bucktails and synthetics. Will be adding fuzz to the spinners tonight

[Carpkiller]

Been making some spinners w a tiny swivel attached (left)....and found some blades that are stamped w a scale pattern, a la Rooster Tails.