Spinner or spoon: two different ways of making flash
Explainer · Last reviewed 2026-08-14
Both produce flash and vibration and they produce them by different mechanisms, with different depth behaviour and one of them putting a great deal more twist into your line.
A SPINNER HAS A BLADE THAT ROTATES AROUND A SHAFT. A SPOON IS A CURVED PIECE OF METAL THAT WOBBLES. That is the mechanical difference and everything else follows.
WHAT THE SPINNER DOES. The rotating blade produces a continuous, high-frequency vibration and a rapid strobing flash. The vibration is strong for the lure's size and is detectable by the lateral line at close range in any visibility, which is why spinners work in coloured water and in broken water where nothing can be seen. The rotation also generates lift, so a spinner runs shallow and rises as retrieve speed increases — controlling its depth means controlling speed and rod angle rather than choosing a lure.
WHAT THE SPOON DOES. The curved body wobbles from side to side as water flows past it, producing a slower, larger flash and a lower-frequency displacement. Because there is no rotating lift, a spoon sinks readily and can be fished deep, counted down, or worked vertically — which makes it far more versatile in the water column. It also casts better for its weight, being denser and more aerodynamic than a spinner of comparable size.
THE LINE TWIST PROBLEM IS THE SPINNER'S. A rotating blade transmits torque down the line, continuously, in one direction. Over a session that produces a line that coils on itself, casts badly and tangles. The mitigations are a good ball-bearing swivel, a leader, and periodically letting line out behind a moving boat or trailing it in current to unwind — and none of them eliminates it. A spoon wobbles rather than rotates and produces far less twist, though a spoon that has started spinning rather than wobbling — usually because it is being retrieved too fast — produces plenty.
WHEN EACH IS THE ANSWER. Shallow, coloured, broken or weedy water with fish close in, and a need for maximum vibration at low speed: spinner. Deeper water, a need to control depth, a need to cast a long way, or vertical work: spoon. Both are among the oldest artificial lures and both continue to work for the same reason — they are stimuli rather than imitations, and predators investigate stimuli.
AND FOR A BEGINNER, both are forgiving in the way that matters: they work when wound at a steady speed, so the action does not depend on skill.
The line twist that decides it, and how to stop it
This looks like the least consequential comparison in the catalogue and it contains a practical problem that ruins more sessions than the choice of lure ever will.
A SPINNER ROTATES A BLADE AROUND A SHAFT. The blade spins, the body does not, and the whole lure travels straight — which is the design working. What it also does is impart a small rotational force to the line on every turn of the blade, cast after cast, all day.
A SPOON ROLLS AND FLUTTERS RATHER THAN SPINNING, in a well-designed one. A spoon retrieved too fast, or one whose shape is not doing its job, stops fluttering and starts helicoptering — spinning end over end — and at that point it twists line far worse than any spinner.
SO THE PROBLEM IS SHARED AND ITS SYMPTOM IS UNMISTAKABLE. Line that corkscrews off the spool, forms loops in mid-air, tangles on the cast and eventually knots on itself. Anglers blame the reel, the line and the wind, and the cause is a lure that has been rotating for two hours.
WHAT ACTUALLY STOPS IT, in order of effectiveness. A good ball-bearing swivel immediately in front of the lure rather than up the line, because a swivel only works on what is between it and the rotation. A leader between swivel and lure, so the twisted section is short and replaceable. Retrieving at a speed the lure works at rather than the fastest it survives — a spoon fished too fast is the commonest cause. And, on a fixed spool, not reeling against a slipping drag, which adds its own twist on top.
AND THE CHOICE ITSELF, ONCE THAT IS SOLVED. A spinner produces a continuous, strong, regular vibration detectable on the lateral line at distance, which suits coloured water, moving water and searching. A spoon produces an irregular flash-and-flutter that suits clear water, deeper work and a slower presentation, and it casts considerably further for its weight because it is denser and less wind-resistant.
WHERE IT STOPS BEING PREFERENCE: at distance and in wind, where a spoon's casting advantage is decisive; and in very cold water, where a spoon can be fluttered down and a spinner has a minimum speed below which the blade stops turning entirely.
Practitioner consensus
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
- Angling Times — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK coarse, match, carp, predator and lure practice as reported by practitioners, including equipment convention and the reasoning behind it.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated descriptions of contemporary tackle and technique convention, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as scholarship.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- The Ecology of Vision — Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: How light behaves in water, refraction and absorption, and how fish vision is adapted to the light available.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Lateral line system of fish — Integrative Zoology 4:13–25, 2009 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: The lateral line system, the water displacement it detects, and the range and character of the signals fish use it on.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Where to go next
Gear this affects
- SpinnersA rotating blade produces continuous high-frequency vibration and lift, which is why a spinner runs shallow and rises with speed — and why it puts torque into the line all day.
- SpoonsA wobble rather than a rotation: slower flash, lower-frequency displacement, no lift, and therefore a lure that can be counted down and fished at any depth.
What these connections rest on (2)
Practitioner consensus — 2 connections
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Spinners
A mechanism edge from a record to the reasoning beneath it, resting on practice reported consistently across independent sources rather than on experiment.
- Angling Times — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK coarse, match and lure angling practice as reported by practitioners, including tackle convention.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK sea angling practice as reported by practitioners, including tackle, bait and lure convention.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Spoons
A mechanism edge from a record to the reasoning beneath it, resting on practice reported consistently across independent sources rather than on experiment.
- Angling Times — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK coarse, match and lure angling practice as reported by practitioners, including tackle convention.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK sea angling practice as reported by practitioners, including tackle, bait and lure convention.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Related reading
What these connections rest on (1)
Practitioner consensus — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Why line twists, and how to stop it
A mechanism edge from a record to the reasoning beneath it, resting on practice reported consistently across independent sources rather than on experiment.
- Angling Times — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK coarse, match and lure angling practice as reported by practitioners, including tackle convention.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK sea angling practice as reported by practitioners, including tackle, bait and lure convention.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
History and culture
What these connections rest on (1)
Practitioner consensus — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
The development of artificial lures
A comparison joined to the history that dissolves it. Written where the two things being compared arrived at different times for different reasons, so that 'which is better' turns out to be the wrong question — and refused where the comparison is genuinely contemporary.
- The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation — Richard Marriot, 1653 (Reference work)Relied on for: Seventeenth-century English angling practice including tackle, hooks, lines, baits and artificial flies.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages — University of Toronto Press, 1997 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: Medieval and early modern angling tracts and the development of tackle, technique and the literature describing them.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Freshwater Fishing — Macdonald & Jane's, 1975 (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Comprehensive angling practice across disciplines, including the development of tackle and the conventions attached to it.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Sources for this page
- Freshwater Fishing — Macdonald & Jane's, 1975 (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Comprehensive angling practice including tackle, terminal arrangements, bait and lure use and the reasoning behind the choices.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Angling Times — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK coarse, match and lure angling practice as reported by practitioners, including tackle convention.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Still-Water Angling — MacGibbon & Kee, 1953 (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Stillwater angling practice including tackle design reasoning, hooks, landing and the mechanics of playing fish.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.