I stopped at Ed Shirley's (on Dempster) this afternoon before heading to Beck Lake. It was my first time there, and I truly felt like a kid in a candy store. What a selection! I got there around 5pm, and still wanted to save some time for Beck, so had to shop fast.
Picked up a pack of copper-colored Colorado blades for my spinnerbaits (which currently all have silver blades), and a rooster tail spinnerbait. I read on Fishing with the Wakeman's (
www.kevinwakeman.com) that a gold/copper colored blade works better than the nickle/silver colored ones (at least for Kevin Wakeman in central IL).
Ed Shirley's didn't have the copper ones in willow style, but the staff there was really nice and helpful. So I exchanged one of the silver blades on my spinnerbait with one of the new copper-colored ones and headed for Beck. Caught a 17 in LM bass at around 6pm with the newly modified spinnerbait (and some poop... see Beck lake report for details). As I was finishing up for the day, I made one last cast ... the spinnerbait broke off the line as I was making the cast and sailed away into the middle of the lake. (Probably should have re-tied after catching the fish.) Oh well, at least I still have several more replacement blades now (as well as several $1 spinnerbaits from Walmart that I can attach them to).
Augy, I would definitely toss more spinnerbaits at Beck. At least I've had more luck with them (the $1 ones from Walmart) at Beck than anything other lures. I might be biased because I learned to fish as a kid using spinnerbaits, or maybe I'm just not patient enough to fish plastics
