re: Hopedale Saturday

The black spoon is a Johnson Silver Minnow in "black"...really more of a platinum color. It's very weedless, unless you get into snot grass. My brother and I fished redfish tourneys and it was our favorite bait. I've more or less switched to preferring spinner baits, but I still use the black spoons a lot in certain situations, such as clear water over oyster bottoms. It's simple enough to use for kids, because it's simply cast and retrieve, slowly. It wobbles and IMO resembles a crab to the redfish, since they have a tendency to bring it straight back to the crushers if you're not quick enough with the hookset. I like em better than gold in shallow water on sunny days, because I find the gold is sometimes TOO flashy.
Once you go black, you never go back.