I’ll start off this week with a thank you to the folks at Acme Tackle for sending a Little Cleo to test. I personally love this fast-flashing little spoon and have used it a lot while trolling Duck Harbor in Pennsylvania.

The Little Cleo I’m testing is a short and squat, humpbacked spoon, measuring in at a mere one and a half inches and one quarter ounce. It can also come in sizes between one sixteenth and one and one quarter ounce. Coloring on this lure also varies, ranging from plain gold, silver or bronze, to combinations of yellows, purples, blues and many more. The paint scheme may be a straight fifty-fifty split of color or use classic spotted or fish stripe patterns. Some Little Cleo’s have a hammered scale-like look as well, but just as often the spoon is smooth.

When you take the lure out of the package you’ll notice the nose has a simple hole. I would suggest either adding a swivel directly to the nose or a few feet up your line to prevent twisted line. The aft sports a bare treble hook and completes this simple and clean lure.

While I said before that I like to troll with this lure, it is just as good for casting. The Little Cleo has the same heft as the phoebe (also made by Acme Tackle) and can be cast with a good deal of accuracy. It’s great for daytime fishing because it’s designed to catch the light and will waver erratically in the water as it is drawn in. The flighty swimming pattern that it has grabs the attention of fish and gets them to react out of curiosity even if they’re not hungry.

From what I’ve seen, the Little Cleo has had a lot of success with land-locked salmon and trout in deep lakes as well as trout in almost any other body of water. It can be used in the river, though in my opinion it works best in open water. The reason? Unless you have a firm grasp on how to fish spoons in shallow water, you are probably going to lose a handful learning how. But again I need to clarify, fishing in shallow rivers as opposed to deep slow eddies in the river are very different types of fishing, so the main takeaway is that spoons in general, not just the Little Cleo, are easier to use in deeper water. One might also expect to catch walleye, pike, or even panfish on the Little Cleo. I’m sure many other species out of the area can be caught as well, but as for the Upper Delaware and the surrounding region, that’s what we have, salmon excluded.

Try out this rockin’ little lure for yourself and let us know what you think. You can find it at www.acmetackle.com or by visiting most of your local bait & tackle shops.

*If you have any luck with the lure of the week, feel free to email your pictures to events@riverreporter.com for an opportunity to share them on our website. If you have a favorite kind of lure we haven’t reviewed yet, feel free to send that lure to our office at PO box 150 Narrowsburg, NY 12764. We will add it to our weekly reviews and share the results. Check back each week on Mondays to see the new lure of the week!