Chatterbait fishing?

[Bassmaster3616]

So I'm fairly new to chatterbait fishing and I was wondering if you guys could give me some tips. I have caught a few fish on chatterbait a before but not many. Maybe 6-7 fish. the best colors to use in muddy water and clear water? The best trailer for black and blue chatterbaits? The best trailer for white and chartreuse? Best colors in general and best trailers?

[Nathan Burton]

Best colors for the muddy water will be your darker colors. Black and blues and dark greens.  For clear water try to match the hatch. Go with a bluegill, perch, or shad pattern depending what baitfish resides where you're fishing.  As far as trailers go, if I want some kicking action on there I'll attach a Keitech swing impact fat. If I don't want the kicking action I'll attach a zoom super fluke or rage caffeine shade. Best of luck!

[MassYak85]

15 minutes ago, Nathan Burton said:

Best colors for the muddy water will be your darker colors. Black and blues and dark greens.  For clear water try to match the hatch. Go with a bluegill, perch, or shad pattern depending what baitfish resides where you're fishing.  As far as trailers go, if I want some kicking action on there I'll attach a Keitech swing impact fat. If I don't want the kicking action I'll attach a zoom super fluke or rage caffeine shade. Best of luck!

Exactly what I would have said

[Jon G]

reel them slow enough to just get the blade to thump. Colors are simple black and blue, green pumpkin, and some sort of white. For trailers I like sideways rigged Rage Bugs and Pit bosses and 3.8 keitechs. I use the Keitechs when i'm trying to get the bait to stay down in the water column or just trying to get a bigger profile. I use the Rage bugs and Pit bosses when I want a smaller profile and/or want to keep it up in the water column.

For what it's worth my favorite bladed jig is a Picasso Shock Blade and if I could only have 1 trailer it would be the 3.8 Keitech.

[Honkytonk]

I use a 3/8 phenix chatter in the "sexy bait" color. It's like a chartreuse sexy shad. I throw a 3.8 keitech in dingy water and its producing!!

[Kyhokie]

My color choice is pretty much the same as a spinnerbait. Just my .02

[Bluebasser86]

Bladed jigs are one of my favorite baits to fish, part of why I started making my own was so I could get the exact bait and color I wanted.  Some of my best muddy water colors;

and one that is quickly becoming a new muddy water favorite,

Clear water I like,

For trailers on a black and blue, I like the Havoc Pit Boss, Rage Menace, and just recently added the Havoc Devil's Spear to the list. Black, black and blue, and sapphire blue are my favorite colors for trailers. Rig them vertically instead of horizontally, like this;

It makes it swim more like a fish's tail and allows the trailer to work more with the natural movement of the bait instead of against it. 

For mostly white baits, I'll often fish a chartreuse trailer and with chartreuse and white baits, I'll usually go with a white trailer. Solid chartreuse is a hard color to find in much other than baits intended to be used as trailers, so I usually opt for a YUM split tail trailer. In the solid white, the Rage Menace is the first choice, followed closely by a solid white Devil's Spear. 

Fish the bait slowly, even bumping along the bottom. If anything feels different, set the hook. I think a lot of people miss a ton of strikes with bladed jigs because they expect a jarring strike, when a lot of the times you barely feel anything. I've watched fish eat my bait and didn't hardly feel anything, when in reality the bait was almost completely inside their mouths.  

[Airman4754]

6" Kalin's Mogambo grub as a trailer. You'll thank me later. 

[KCFinesse]

I've had a lot of success this year on green pumpkin with a boottail trailer with the tail dyed chartreuse.

I also had success with slow rolling bladed jigs with shad colored sluggos as trailers this spring.

[primetime]

 Bladed jigs have once again become my favorite lure (I go through my own seasons) and I have been experimenting with them for years, always use them at night as my first choice of any lure other than maybe a Hollow topwater Frog since a Black Bladed Jig, Black/Blue, Black/Gold, Black/Silver, and for night I almost always use a black blade, and I have been importing hammered chatter blades that come in a nice gold color and they are thick, so for trailers, I tend to use a 4-5" GYB single Tail grub the most since I like to wake them over weeds, Rod held high, try to get the lure to go as slowly as possible and just tick weeds, and like a Crankbait,If you hit weeds, kill it or rip it to get strikes.

In Tanic stained water I like a Black blade, Chart blade (Not Flashy more yellow) and My favorite color overall is Black, Blue with a few strands of Chart, I like a green pumpkin purple or GP blue, and I do well with a Metalic Silver Skirt, White, Silver, and some orange as a bluegill since that is the color in many lakes. I almost always use Black blades, Black/Purple scaled painted on, Gold and Copper. I never fish chatterbaits in clear water but If I do, I use the small 1/8 size with a small sassy shad on back. If using Z-Man Chatterbaits keep that hook sharp, You need to sharpen it out of the package and if you grind it down too much they split after time. The Strike King Poison is actually pretty good for $5, I don't like the New one they have since it rises too much, but you can fix a riser by bending the lip down, and adding some weight to the hook, if using a swing jig design, I add 1/8 to the shank.  White and Sexy Shad, Chart I use mostly when fishing them like a spinnerbait, I also like to swim them off the bottom or swim them 4 feet, kill it, let it sink 3 feet, rip it up and make it erratic, but when I do that I use a split tail trailer or spinnerbaits since I miss too many strikes if it is all over the place.

I have found I like the smaller blades, I used to get them here in America from all the compoent shops but now I make my own using the Imported blades and they also send the heads that open to connect direct (Ball head, my guess is savage) and they have 5 different sizes, I kind of like the smaller blades since the trailer is what gives the bait the most action, and they seem to look most natural. 

I use the Lake Fork Magic swimmer without the paddle tail, usually pull off the skirt but I always leave about 10 2" skirt strands of clear with red flake to give it the look of gills. I like the 1/4 for fishing over grass, and I will use a 4" Senko, Swim Senko, Twin Tail grubs, Rage Craws, Toads, I like Flukes when I want an erratic action, but the boot tail swimbaits are hard to beat for slow rolling. 

Just today my buddy asked me to tie him a smoke & green flake skirt with some smoke brown in it and a few strands of Gold in it for flash, and he called me and said the color matched the stained water color perfectly, he used a Green Pumpkin Purple Rage Menace grub, and was fishing the 3/8 Z-Man elite? Colors do matter, I have never done well with silver blades, I know some do, but I color most with a sharpie or buy paint. Making your own is much cheaper and you can add a blade to any jig, Hook, and get creative. Once I tried the Stanley Hale Raiser I had a light bulb go off since that Jig is totally different than all the rest, not nearly as much chatter, or vibration, or erratic, but it comes through weeds well and they smash it. 

I also found on smaller versions, 1/8,3/16,1/4, I do not use a Snap to connect the blade to ring or jig, I use an Oval split ring to attach the blade or reg split ring to attach. Seems to work as good and cleaner....hope that helps, i know I dumped out a ton , but Bluebasser (Pics Above) knows how to make a good bladed Jig. I purchased a lot after seeing his pics and the quality of hook is the most important part of a bladed jig at the end of the Day. I also like the swinging heads not the freedom, but the ones you can buy in a bullet shape and making a jig out of them, the rule is one ring horizontal eye, 2 rings vertical, but you can also use wire, and just google Eaker Shaker made by Eagle Claw. That is how the family from Rad created the Chatterbait by using that to experiment, You can buy huge lots on Ebay of those old blades for nothing, once Z-Man had the patent, they then made the Strike King version with the weighted bottom, and I think they have sold 2 other versions on the market to companies. Z-Man Elites are not much better than the Original, the 7.99 TW ones are the best of Z_man, Project Z? Most others are just their Arkie Jig or Swim Jig with a ring, wire form, with a blade...If you like Phenix, but the jigs or $2, attach a ring or two, blade and you save $5. It only costs $2 tops to buy painted parts and custom skirts per lure, making them yourself helps you get better at fishing  them. I learn something new everyday, Slow is almost always best, But waking can be awesome as well.

Good Luck, Didn't proof read, Just typed this out real quick. Maybe something helps you out.

[Oregon Native]

I really enjoy fishing a chatter bait also but seem to miss a ton of fish on them and have tried many combos.  From the homemade like the above to now I'm trying the original Z-man in the pro model to see if there's a difference.  I've tried a trailer hook but that seems to hamper the action of the trailer a bit so not sure if I like that.  I let them take it and I've tried swinging quicker...been frustrating for me!!

[Sam]

Bass, don't' forget to add a trailer hook to your Chatterbait main hook.

[An Outdoor Guy]

my favorite is this: Muddy/stained water black/blue with a swimin' dinger. & my favorite is bluegill color with a bluegill flash zoom paddle tail

clear water I like white or white/chartreuse with zoom white ice paddle tail. if its white and chartreuse I dip the tail in chartreuse die to match.

if its really muddy I have had great luck using black/blue with a black and blue Christy craw. all that water displacement is great in muddy dirty water.

 

[everythingthatswims]

The only time I like throwing a chatterbait is in stained water around grass, otherwise I'm a spinnerbait guy. But goodness when the chatterbait bite is on, it's ON. Just use a chatterbait color that would match the jig you would use in the conditions you're fishing.