Just a quick story after the reply I just gave you. One time my daughter in law went with me to my next door neighbors pond that is full of bass. She asked to use one of my rod and reels and it had a white chatterbait on it. She is not real experienced at fishing with a baitcaster so she would chunk the bait out and it would take her a while to reel in the slack and start reeling in the bait. I would tell her she needed to hurry just a little bit because the bait was going to the bottom and she was dragging it real slow and I could tell she was just pulling it along the bottom of the pond and I kept telling her she was going to get hung up and wouldn't catch any fish using it that way.
Long story short - over the next 30 minutes she caught 4 bass with that chatterbait dragging across the bottom one being a good 4 lber.
I shut my mouth and went back home to my Ranger game and left her there fishing.

try this with the chatterbaits.

rig the grub with the twist in the tail up, it keeps it more in the skirt area and more natural looking.

like said vary the retrieve, I sometimes rip it then let it drop just a little and seem to get some great bites when that method works (bigger fish slamming it on the drop).

great bait in timber, slow retrieve and I try to barely bump the stump, certain times of the yr. this is excellent on fork.

one other way I fish chatterbait is let it hit bottom, slow raise of the rod for about 3-5' and drop again. do this slowly but make the blade work when you pick it up. black and blue with blue fleck worm tail trailer has worked good for me.


it is one of those baits that they either want or won't even look at but you can fish them from the surface to the bottom.

almost all of mine are 3/8oz as well, they seem to have better action.