When my father wasw teaching me to fish some 25 years ago this is the method that we would do 100% of the time until we could get them feeding on the surface. Through the years I have gone to the dark side into a Green Fish fisherman and my father has followed my footsteps along the way in that direction.

I am going to take him later this summer back to the lake we did this on for so many years. Those were fun times then, but now i realize those were GREAT times. Been doing a little research on it and seems the thing to do now is to add a weight to the front hook spot on the hellbender.

With this method what is the average depth it dives? 1 foot for every 8 feet of line out or so?

Yes I realize there is a ton of variables in this such as line diameter size, pet spoon size.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

With a 3/4 oz weight and about 40 yds of line i am bumping the bottom in 20 ft of water at 4mph.

I no longer employ Hellbenders. I use the 20-ft. Jet Divers with the #13 Pet Spoon. I also have a couple of 30-ft. Jet Divers. Love them better than weighted Hellbenders.

At about 3 MPH with 15LB line, 100' back, 3/4oz bell sinker and a 13# Pet you can get about 12' to 15'.

I don't use a weight. I bend the bill down on my hellbender and then just trial and error on depth. I do pretty good like that. I have better luck with the silver pet spoons over the gold ones.

Does Walmart carry those jet divers or do I need to head bass pro?

Academy or BPS

Thanks for all the replies..

redfin I almost bought some of those this weekend I had it in my hand and put it back at the last minute.

wylie.. Thats the way we used to do it. This weight thing is new to me. I did find a video on youtube from Cedar Creek, they used a weight going to have to give that a try.


Texas Five Guns and CNC Thanks for the depth info.

Picked up some Line Counters this weekend also... We used to just watch the hellbender float on top of the water and go ok well thats far enough and click it.