The innovative new VMC® Spindrift™ Hook puts a fresh twist on an old tactic – rather, it takes the twist out of that technique. “There was a concept instituted 10 to 15 years ago in the Dakotas that was a way to hook a crawler so it would spin at slow speeds,” explains VMC pro Tom Neustrom, a Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame Legendary Guide. “The only problem was that without a swivel, before too long, you’d get line twist.”
The key was a bend in the hook shank that “made the worm go ‘lah-bunk! lah-bunk! lah-bunk!'” elaborates Ron Lindner, another Freshwater Hall of Fame Legendary Angler. “That slow roll – cah-lunk! cah-lunk! cah-lunk! Fish, particularly Walleye, seem to like it. Still, if you fished long enough that way, you’d get kinks in your line – bad ones, so you’d have to cut the line and retie.”
Pairing a built-in, free-spinning stainless steel swivel with a super-sharp black-nickel VMC hook featuring a unique Technical Bend, the Spindrift not only offers a new spin on the rolling crawler rig concept, but it also won’t twist your line.
“When you hook your bait on there – whether it’s a plastic worm or a live night crawler – it will twirl by itself and you don’t have to worry about it twisting your line,” Neustrom says.
The Spindrift Hook’s integrated swivel-to-hook system is designed to enable bait rotation at ultra-slow speeds – deathly slow speeds, some might say.
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“You don’t want to go too fast, because you want that thing to spin at a really slow rotation,” Neustrom says.
“Less than a mile an hour is good,” Lindner instructs. “The slow roll is what makes the attraction.”
To give fish a unique new look, Neustrom and Lindner recommend tying on a Spindrift Hook the next time you’re trolling, drifting, Carolina rigging or split-shot rigging. Both say it will be especially productive in the late spring to early summer pattern, depending on where in the country you fish.
Neustrom likes the Spindrift Hook especially for targeting shallow Walleyes hanging tight on weed lines. He rigs it with a live crawler or plastic worm, starting from the head and threading it down to the barb, which is about 1/16th of an inch from the swivel. “You want to get it down to the bend, because that gives it the twisting action,” he explains. Lindner prefers rigging the Spindrift with a piece of live crawler or a straight-tail plastic worm
Spindrift Hooks are available in three sizes: 2, 1 and 1/0.