Terminator Spinnerbaits Review With Pics.

[prjavelin]

Hi. This will be my first product review. Hopefully It can help other people in making decisions and figuring out what exactly they will be getting. Spinnerbaits are divided into multiple parts. Here I will talk about the parts that matter the most to me. I paid around $7 each with shipping included.

1. Blade- in my opinion this is the most important part and this is what will lure a fish into checking the bait out and even biting on it.

2. swivel - helps or hinders the rotations of the blade.

3. skirt - seals the deal in my opinion and makes the fish bite into it instead of the blade.

4. Hook- self explanatory.

5. body, wire and extras.

I bought:

Terminator Special-T Titanium Series Spinnerbait 1/4oz. Chartreuse Shad

Terminator Custom Tungsten Single Oklahoma Spinnerbait 7/16oz Hot Tip Chartreuse

I will review both as a package, as a judgement towards the Terminator Spinnerbait series. Both of these are Jimmy Houston's design(supposedly)

1. The blade Looks awesome with Great details(oklahoma) and with an awesome color. It definitely is a high quality blade.

2 Swivel- The swivel is awful. It feels hard to move, does not continue to move with ease when I tested it and it looks like it may get rusty. It is worse than the booyah swivels and the strike king kvd series. Both of those that I am using as comparison are great. Sincerely the swivel feels like a walmart $1.50 spinnerbait. Its very LOW quality.

3. Skirt- the skirt on one of them came teared up. On a product that its supposed to be closed in the package it shows that the skirt material cannot support stress and will easily break. A BIG disappointment. i Thought I could use these but it looks like a lumaflex will be used even if they send me a new skirt.

4. Hook - One of the spinnerbaits came with and OK hook the other came with a Cheap hook. the Worst Booyah has a better hook than this and this is a stretch cause the booyah Spinnerbaits arent that good. The other Is the worst hook ive had on a spinnerbait. I prefer the walmart spinnerbait hooks than these.

5. Extras - the Wire is not stainless steel. they came rusted already. Bad Bad quality. the Body looks good though and it may help a little.

Conclussion:

Buy quality Spinnerbaits. If you buy these, in order to make them perform in the same way than a KVD you need to spend a whole lot more. Not Worth it. If you want a blade try to find it locally instead of buying the whole thing.

Later this week ill let you know about the official rating.

Check these pics out:

I havent fish them yet but I should do this tomorrow or tuesday. Who knows.

[unionman]

Ive got a bunch of Terminator Titanium and Stainless Steel spinners and they are high quality spinnerbaits. Ive never had ANY of the issues you mentioned above. I buy them because the swivel is very high quality. One little flick and the blade looks like it has a motor driving it. I think you got a rare defect. It happens...Return it for another.

[prjavelin]

Ok so Ive invested some time in this thing and Ive taken another spinnerbait apart just to make this one work. (the idea when i bought them was to have plenty more not make 1 out of two but **** happens and I did what I had to do.

I took a Hart night spinnerbait apart, took the swivel from it and the reds from its skirt. mounted on the other spinnerbait frame and added a lumaflex skirt from the bunch I bought a month or so ago. now I need the hook stopper and the trailer hook for it to be complete. A LOT of time and parts involved into making it close to equal quality to a kvd. If any of you guys know of equal or better quality than KVDs let me know cause I need to buy a bunch more spinnerbaits.

We'll see how the bass like it, maybe later today or tomorrow.

[plumworm]

I have 50-60 terminators and use nothing else, however all of mine are from before they were purchased by Rapala Co. Rapala may be downgrading their components because the swivels and all other components are top quality. The wire should be titanium (no rust) if not, then Rapala is not making a terminator any more, their just making a spinnerbait.

[Bass_Fanatic]

Try War Eagle spinnerbaits...they are the BOMB!

[prjavelin]

plumworm - go into BPS(they have some exclusive rights towards kvd) and buy one of each of the main KVD spinnerbaits. I had 3 of them(lost 1). I had the scorcher in willows, i had the tandem willow in bleeding shad(lost this one) and I had the double willows in the 3/4 ounce. The swivels are top of the line, the hooks feel like surgical tools(they claim these are surgically sharpened and I believe them) and the skirts and blades are VERY GOOD quality. these are top of the line. Try them and if you still find that the Terminators are better let me know of your favorite so I can try it again.

Thanks guys for the responses. Im looking into the war eagles right as we speak

[clayton86]

Im gonna have to agree with the other guys in that you just got a bad spinner. Terminators are all i throw because of the amount of pike in my waters i fish its to much of a hassle to always re tune a spinner after every pike and even most bass terminators always snap back. Iv never had a bad swivel or blades the never rust out and always spin with ease.

[Bluebasser86]

I've never owned a Terminator that the blade didn't fly off of when a fish jumped and shook. I think the titanium being more flexible it must just open up enough for the blad to slip off. Anymore it's all War Eagles and Booyah baits for me.

[jerzeeD]

Odd... I have had about a dozen or so of them in stainless steel 1/2 oz. size for about 3 or so seasons. No rust on any of mine and the swivels work like a charm. A few have taken a pretty good beating, too.

[smalljaw67]

I've never owned a Terminator that the blade didn't fly off of when a fish jumped and shook. I think the titanium being more flexible it must just open up enough for the blad to slip off. Anymore it's all War Eagles and Booyah baits for me.

I liked the titanium wire when it first came out but the blades flying off of an 8 dollar spinnerbait kind of makes you a little mad. The reason for that is titanium is light and brittle until it is tempered but once the wire is tempered it has the snap back quality. What happens with the blade and swivel coming off is a lot of the baits don't have the loop closed entirely and since it is tempered titanium there is no taking a pliers and bending the loop closed, it is junk. The one that had rust on it is a downgraded material, they were losing money as people stopped buying them at premium prices due to the blade issue so that is when Rapal bought them and introduced the stainless models and then the T-2 and other types and then reintroduce the titanium again after people got comfortable again. They aren't bad but they do have some problems like most mass produced baits. This is the reason I have been making my own for over 15 years, I know what I have with every bait I make and I use top of the line Worth swivels and blades so I know they will work every time.

[clayton86]

I always see them on sale I don't think iv paid full price in years there always 25,30,50% off depending when and where ya go I usually pay 3-5 bucks for them. Iv never had any issues mentioned other then the skirts dry rotting off after a year or two or the stick on eyes falling off nothing major skirts I usually put back on and I keep the twist ties from bread and roll bags in my box and just throw that on there to re attach the skirt.

[iceintheveins]

Terminators have always been my top producing spinnerbait, a notch ahead of pepperhawgs. Few problems ever.

[Mike Bursavich]

Have to jump in here... I see this post is years old but even today I still use the Terminator and still best of all spinnerbaits for me. As for losing blades?... If there is a gap in the loop of the wire that holds rear swivel and blade...Remove swivel from split ring and then remove split ring... Heat the loop of the titanium wire until it turns red (Does not require a lot of heat, can be done easily with a cigarette lighter). Once glowing red, squeeze the loop gently until the loop is completely closed. After it is completely cooled, replace the hardware and problem losing blades completely resolved.

Also, I quite often change the combo of blades by doing this and using a small round nose pair of pliers to straighten the wire, remove front spinner & clevis, replace with desired spinner combo and then reheat the wire and gently re-create the closed loop with the round nose pliers. I have 40 or 50 in my collection with all types of spinner combo's and many with single willow leaf too. I am in my 60's and have fished just about every spinnerbait on the market and made my own for years too... But the Terminator with titanium wire is the best I've ever fished and has been the most successful for me ever with regards to catching bass. IMO

[JediAmoeba]

2 hours ago, Mike Bursavich said:

Have to jump in here... I see this post is years old but even today I still use the Terminator and still best of all spinnerbaits for me. As for losing blades?... If there is a gap in the loop of the wire that holds rear swivel and blade...Remove swivel from split ring and then remove split ring... Heat the loop of the titanium wire until it turns red (Does not require a lot of heat, can be done easily with a cigarette lighter). Once glowing red, squeeze the loop gently until the loop is completely closed. After it is completely cooled, replace the hardware and problem losing blades completely resolved.

Also, I quite often change the combo of blades by doing this and using a small round nose pair of pliers to straighten the wire, remove front spinner & clevis, replace with desired spinner combo and then reheat the wire and gently re-create the closed loop with the round nose pliers. I have 40 or 50 in my collection with all types of spinner combo's and many with single willow leaf too. I am in my 60's and have fished just about every spinnerbait on the market and made my own for years too... But the Terminator with titanium wire is the best I've ever fished and has been the most successful for me ever with regards to catching bass. IMO

I too replace the combination of blades like you do but I also shorten the front arm a bit when I do this to increase my hookup ratio.