Head Scratching Time

     There was this song back in the early '60s out of Australia called "My Boomerang Won't Come Back." The best part was when an Aborigine asks to have his hide tanned when he dies. Of course it is and then nailed to a shed. Not necessarily words to grow up on. But it was an innocent time and us fourteen year olds didn't know any better. Took our humor where we could find it. Truthfully, I didn't much pick up on the racial connotations. The idea of death as humor has stuck with me ever since.
     I don't throw boomerangs but I do throw spinners. And have been making my own for fourteen years. Mostly they've been a success. Once in a while one has a glitch. Call it lack of quality control. But like I said, they usually do as they should.
     The batch I've been working on are tiny. Zeros and number one blades. Even though my rod of choice will be an ultra light I got to wondering if the little buggers could be pitched for any distance. So on this last trip up north I brought a couple along. One was double bladed - ooh, fancy - the other, single. For a new touch I used Colorado blades and didn't use folded clevises. In my mind they were elegant.
     Not so in the water. Oh, they could be flung a long way, but they wouldn't spin. Spinners that don't spin ain't spinners. About as useful as boomerangs that don't come back. And it's the vibration created by the blade churning the water that the fish pick up on. A dinner bell. Makes 'em look and sound alive.
     Tomorrow I head to a nearby lake with all thirty. Some have French blades and a few have folded clevises. One at a time they'll be cast and divided into the dos and the don'ts. Hopefully there'll be a pattern. Let you know in a couple of days.


     Coupla days later. Blades and clevises. Mostly blades. Why the colorado blades wouldn't spin is a mystery to me like plumbing and electricity. Musky spinners use them all the time. Why not tiny trout sized spinners? Maybe it's me. I don't think there is such a thing as electricity. Makes no sense at all. And it's truly a shocking experience each time the juice shoots through my body and lights up my life. Or like religion, based on faith alone. Stuff that you can't see sure is hard to accept even though it keeps coming at you.
     All things considered, I'll take it as a given that I need french blades. They work for me with no questions asked.