How to tie on a spoon
the way it holds.

1. Use a snap-swivel — always

A hand-painted spoon spins on the troll. Tied directly to your main line, that spin twists the line into curls within an hour and weakens it within a day. A ball-bearing snap-swivel (size 10 for kokanee, size 7 for chinook) takes the spin so your line stays straight. It also lets you swap colors in 4 seconds without re-tying.

• Kokanee + trout: size 10 ball-bearing snap-swivel (cross-lock or Coastlock snap)
• Chinook + lake trout: size 7-5 ball-bearing snap-swivel
• Avoid Duo-Lock snaps — they pop open under bigger fish

2. The Palomar knot — main line to swivel

Strongest knot you can tie with cold hands at 5 AM. Tested at 95-100% line strength. The trick is wetting the line before you cinch it down.

• Double 6 inches of line and pass the loop through the swivel eye
• Tie a loose overhand knot with the doubled line — do not tighten yet
• Pass the swivel through the loop you just made
• Wet the knot with saliva, then pull both tag and main line evenly to cinch
• Trim the tag to 1/8" — no longer

3. Leader to spoon — Trilene knot or improved clinch

Your dodger-to-spoon leader (typically 12-30 inches of 10-20lb fluorocarbon) gets tied to the spoon's split ring or built-in eye. Trilene knot for fluorocarbon, improved clinch for mono. Both pass through the eye TWICE — that doubled wrap is what stops fluoro from cutting itself under load.

• Pass tag end through the eye twice — leaves a small loop at the eye
• Wrap tag 5 times around the standing line
• Pass tag back through both eye loops (not the wraps)
• Wet, cinch, trim

4. The mistake that loses fish at the net

Nine of ten lost-at-the-boat kokanee come from a leader-to-spoon knot that slipped 20% but didn't fail — until the head-shake at the net. Two protections: re-tie the spoon every 4 hours of fishing OR after any big fish. And inspect the knot every time you re-charge the glow finish (you're holding the spoon anyway).

5. Pre-tied stinger setups

For kokanee specifically, a stinger hook trailing 1-1.5 inches behind the rear split ring catches short-strikers. Tie it to a 4-inch piece of 8lb fluorocarbon, loop it through the split ring with the spoon, and let the loose hook ride past the spoon's tail. Half-throat hookups become net hookups.