No Luck With Spinnerbaits

[robster80]

does anyone have a lot of luck with spinnerbaits? does it take some certain technique. i think ive caught one bass the past few months on a spinner. i picked up a megastrike strikeback spinnerbait and fished it today with no luck. reeled nice and slow. had great action in the water. gave up and started throwing a zoom lizard and caught 3 bass in maybe 10 minutes. one was a 5 pounder. i guess im just a plastics guy. any tips for spinnebaits?

[doyle8218]

Try bouncing off cover, yo-yo it and snap the rod tip. Works for me.

[Catch and Grease]

What clarity of water are you fishing?

[BadBassWV]

reeled nice and slow... Sometimes the bass won't hit it if its nice and slow vary your retrives and depths. I've found that burning one over the grass has been one of the best techniques.

[bigbill]

Where are the bass?  In deep cover?

 

What time of day?

 

A smaller Colorado blade with a blue glimmer or chartreuse skirt 1/4 oz should work for you.

 

It's matching the skirt color to the water conditions,  in the slightly stained I use the blue glimmer skirt with gold Colorado blades and for stained water I use a gold Colorado blade for more thump and a chartreuse skirt. I like more thump.

[robster80]

muddy water. my pond. hasmt rained lately so its kinda clear now. was using a chartreuse color. mid afternoon 3-4pm. shallow and deeper water

[BassinLou]

does anyone have a lot of luck with spinnerbaits? does it take some certain technique. i think ive caught one bass the past few months on a spinner. i picked up a megastrike strikeback spinnerbait and fished it today with no luck. reeled nice and slow. had great action in the water. gave up and started throwing a zoom lizard and caught 3 bass in maybe 10 minutes. one was a 5 pounder. i guess im just a plastics guy. any tips for spinnebaits?

 Your cue to switch baits was correct. Sometimes bass go crazy for spinnerbaits and sometimes bass just watch them pass by. It's not that you don't know how to use them, its that they were not on the menu to begin with. 

[F14A-B]

They work! Just not all the time...KVD his favorite bait is Spinnerbait.... Look at how many of his wins were just on a spinnerbait bite. Different baits work at different times, don't give up on them, learn more about when conditions favor a spinnerbait. Right now, generally at night and deep... In spring I do good on wind blown banks... If you study that bait, I believe you will do very well at the right times

[einscodek]

Even KVD knows when to put away his spinnerbait and tie on somethin else.. but..

Spinnerbaits flat out catch fish.. caught several this morning on spinnerbaits for this July contest when topwater didnt interest.. they hammered my spinnerbait.  Spinnerbaits aint just for spring and fall..

The big gal crushed it so hard it snapped in two.. good thing the half which remained had the line..

http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/140724-who-wants-in-july/

 

Start with a smaller 1/4oz single willow nothin else with natural bluegill colors and work it til you have confidence to branch out into others and bigger spinnerbaits

[MassBass]

I had good luck with a black and blue skirt double colorado silver and gold blades the other day. Black and blue isn't just a color for jigs. 

[papajoe222]

Spinnerbaits can be awesome fish catchers and I'm a recent convert to the one you mention.  Spinnerbaits get the nod from me on windy days or at night, basically when light penetration is broken up or limited. The one thing, as with any lure, you need to determine is the fish's location in the water column and try to keep your spinnerbait in that zone.  The other thing I'd recommend is varying your retrieve speed during the course of a cast until you determine how the fish want it (if they want it at all).  Sometimes it's a burning retrieve just under the surface, sometimes is a slow roll just off the bottom and often times, it's something inbetween.  If there isn't any cover to bounce it off of, give the rod tip an occasional  pop or stop reeling for a second. The interruption in blade revolution often is the thing that will trigger a strike.

[TNBassin']

I slow roll my spinnerbait then kill them for a second and repeat. Caught my pb small mouth on a chartreuse and white spinnerbait using that method.

[ClackerBuzz]

don't know ur location but the only thing i'll add is there is a time and place for everything. meaning July in Mississippi in a small farm pond is not a good time to learn spinnerbaits. it's very hot and the water has alot less oxygen. everything in the pond slows way down.  they will still work as mentioned or dusk/dawn/night fishing. 

[Bluebasser86]

I've all but quit fishing spinnerbaits in favor of bladed jigs. They just see so many spinnerbaits around here with our shallow lakes and stained water. 

[TNBassin']

I've all but quit fishing spinnerbaits in favor of bladed jigs. They just see so many spinnerbaits around here with our shallow lakes and stained water.

This is what I thought too out here on Douglas Lake, but I couldn't buy a bite on a chatterbait. Toss a spinnerbait especially at night and you'll hook up. That's my goal this year. To bag my first chatterbait fish.

[einscodek]

Yea theres a time and place for both.. different for different people but I love bladed jigs too but I dont throw those if theyre not called for

[Catt]

I fish a marsh here in southwest Louisiana & out of the last 25-30 trips I've caught 5 bass on a spinner bait, 0 on a chatter bait. I slay em on a weightless T-rig, so guess what I do...throw a T-rig.

The bass want plastic so I feed em plastic!

[Bluebasser86]

This is what I thought too out here on Douglas Lake, but I couldn't buy a bite on a chatterbait. Toss a spinnerbait especially at night and you'll hook up. That's my goal this year. To bag my first chatterbait fish.

They're a different animal than I expected when I started fishing them. At first I was the same way, couldn't buy a fish with one. I was trying to fish them like a spinnerbait though. They're similar but completely different. Once I started messing with them, forcing myself to fish them, and experimenting more, I started catching fish and understanding them much better. Now they're one of my go to baits that I can catch fish with in almost any situation. I love how hard they hit the things and almost always seem to have them choked instead of barely hooked like happens so often on a spinnerbait. This one was from the 4th of July, about jerked the rod out of my hand while I was winding the bait back super slow along the bottom.

The blade and snap were all you could see sticking out of her mouth still.

[georgeyew]

Nice looking fish that you hooked there!

[Fishes in trees]

For me, I catch fish on spinnerbaits, but for me, they are a "conditions" bait, by that I mean that conditions have to be right for me to consider throwing one.

 

For me, the conditions are:  Secchi disc reading of 3 or under (if the water is any clearer than that I think there are better options.

Water depth between 2 and 7 or 8 feet.  Enough cover where throwing a square bill would get problematic.  (in thinner cover, I think the square bill is a better option, for me anyway.)

 

I generally have 3 spinner bait/chatter bait rods rigged & ready, those would be a chatter bait, willow leaf and colorado blade bait.  Colors, I vary quite a bit, in clearer waters I favor bait fish colors and as the water gets more stained, I move more toward chartreuse & white.  One more oddball pattern I've gotten on several times in the last few years would be using a black spinner bait, single fairly large colorado bladein very clear water with a wiggly swimming type trailer.  When the fish are shallow and in a chasing mood I've had excellent results with the bait.

 

In this situation the bait is almost an alternative to a rattle trap type bait, but bottom grasses make fishing that bait a pain.

 

Hope this helps you get a handle on situation where spinner baits work for me.  I know guys that throw them all the time, it is their leadoff bait.  Not so much for me.  These buds tend to fish different lakes with murkier water.

 

I probably ought to address the issue of what kind of retrieve.  Most of the time I'm doing a plain jane, slow roll type of retrieve, pulling the bait just fast enough to keep it a foot or so off of the bottom and if it runs into anything I give it a little pop to clear the obstacle.  I've thrown enough spinnerbaits over the years that I don't think about it any more than that.  I use 5 to 1 reels because in the day when I started throwing spinnerbaits, that was considered a "high speed" reel.  Probably won't change until I wear out the reels and being as I use Calcutta 200 TEGT reels to throw spinnerbaits it is likely that I will die before the reel wears out.

[F14A-B]

Fishes in trees you are so very right about the reel..... I suspect mine (cte200gt) will outlive me too.... Awesome reels...

[hookset on 3]

Selecting The Proper Spinnerbait

Read this from the Fishing Articles section at the top left of this page. It's in the Bass Lure sub-category.