Chatter Bait

Question for you guys that use chatter baits in grassy lakes: do you use them primarily in the spring, or also in summer and fall?

I use them year round. Any time I see grass or pads, I'll throw a vibrating jig.

Thanks for the reply bigbass. Good to know.

I build mine to match all the TX. Crayfish colors. From now through November it is just going to get better and better. The young are being shed by the mothers. It will be a feast with these young Crayfish. The spawn starts in Nov.; but may be a little early this year. The colors will change from week to week. I expect the blade jig if fished properly to represent and mimic a fleeing Crayfish. Just gently hop it and let it fall from the grass-line down the slopes.

Let me know if I can help you with those colors.

Thank you very much Donald.

I definitely have better luck with them over grass in the winter/spring

Had my best day on a chatterbait mid summer in a very grassy lake just after a heavy rain. Water was heavily stained.

They were just annihilating it.

Pre spawn is best for sure around the grass but post spawn can be awesome as well when the bass start feeding ok bluegill

Biggest fish I caught was with chatter bait

I appreciate all the replies. Helps give me confidence in the bait, to fish it longer than five minutes before switching to something else.

Me too....I can think of at least 30-40'baits that are better this time of year on a grassy lake.

Don't be scared to run them down rocks they will choke It better than a squarebill sometimes

I fish a NON-grass lake in the DFW. Shallow cover is rocks and buck brush. Water clarity ranges from decent to muddy. I have caught fish on chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, squarebills, swim baits and swim jigs. But I havent figured out when to throw each of these. Fishing around brush the cranks get hung a lot so I usually avoid those, although they seem to get bit more than the others. I know windy and overcast is supposed to be good for spinner baits, but really everything seems to get bit more when it's windy and cloudy. One bait that I havent gotten bit much on is the swim jig. The swim bait gets bit some but only in the clear water by the dam. Can you guys give me some on advice on when to fish each of these?

The more time you spend on the water the more comfortable you will become with each of these. Somewhere on every lake you can take any one of those baits and have a great day. Finding those good spots is the fun of it all. You will find that you have more confidence in some baits than others. You want to be versatile and it sounds like you have a good start at this. There will come a time that you will just have to leave the confidence baits in the box and force yourself to find the spots that they will bite, let's say the Swim Jig. I believe many of us have trouble with this bait as they are either on it or they are not. That pretty much holds true for any bait. Also there are so many different ways to fish each of them. You will get many different answers of how and when to throw them. Summer time is just a difficult time for the faster moving baits unless you are on feeding fish. Early in the morning and late in the afternoon are my best times to throw the faster moving baits that you have mentioned. You will find that cloudy and windy days just makes fishing better for longer periods of time when you do find the fish. Wind helps you get up close and personal with them. Everything is moving, such as grass beds; so they feel much safer and not as responsive to your presents.

This is how I fish them this time of year.
- Chatterbait - It is a very multi-use bait for different presentations. I use them all until the fish tell me what they like. Early I will run it just under the surface keeping it in sight; but with rod tip high so it is moving as slow as possible. Then I will slow roll it letting it tick along the bottom. You can mimic almost all the pray that a Bass is looking for by changing up skirt colors along with scent changes. From now until the end of Nov. I would be matching the Crayfish colors, working along the outer edges of grass and hopping it down the slopes with a slow lift and fall presentation. The Crays are fixing to go wild. If you have taken the opportunity to watch a video of a fleeing Crayfish then that is how you want to fish it.

- Spinnerbait - I fish it mostly to imitate bait fish. Matching the hatch is important. Blades and skirt colors can be matched for your water conditions and weather conditions. I build them for clear water sunny days, clear water cloudy days, stained water sunny days and stained water cloudy days. It is also fished at different depths letting the fish tell you what they like.

Note: The problem is; with as few of bites that we get in our lakes each day, it is just hard to tell what works and what doesn't. Question is did we just find the fish or was it the bait that did the trick??

- Squarebills - I like to throw them both around heavy cover and deep humps. Yes, they are going to get hung up often if you are cranking on at any rate of speed. I keep most of my shallow water baits in sight as I am bring them through and around brush and grass. I like to use a line that I can see very well for pinpoint cast and placement. This really helps working your baits between bushes and when the wind is blowing.

- Swim Jig and Swim Bait - There are more times than not that a swim jig just doesn't work for me. Here again the spot on the lake makes all the difference in the world. The times when it shines is when they want a more quite presentation with no flash or vibration of a blade. Then there will be times that just your trailer which most of the time is a Swim Bait of some kind will catch more fish just by itself without the skirt being involved. Swim Baits do a very good job of mixing and matching the bait fish; but the hook up ratio is just a little off for me as I like that hook protected for heavy cover. I just have not found the swim bait in deeper water to beat the Crig. over all these years. Even in deep water I want the heaviest cover possible for each bait that I am fishing.

Now; add a jig, jirkbait, topwater, drop shot and Crig. to all these and you will be getting there. I can throw them all; but I still like to concentrate on just a couple of baits for the day. This helps me to tell if it is the spot or if it is the bait that is producing or not producing.

year round around grass! check out FinchNastyBaitco.com. They're chatterbaits are awesome!

Excellent reply, Donald.

Thanks for all that Don!

"Note: The problem is; with as few of bites that we get in our lakes each day, it is just hard to tell what works and what doesn't. Question is did we just find the fish or was it the bait that did the trick??"

This is so true. Especially this time of year. When you're getting 10 bites a day, and you have 10 rods on your deck....it's hard to know what conclusions to draw.

I hear this phrase kicked around all the time, but I have never heard how one can find out what "the hatch" is.

When I build a new bait; I take it to Mexico. There is a captive audience down there. It is very easy to boat 100 Bass per day every day. Half of those can be over 5 lbs.. It only takes a couple of hours each day distributing the different baits to all the fisherman to throw and keeping records on what they produced.

Take the spinnerbait for instance:
- 10 fisherman each throws a different bait; but all with the same skirt color.
- Each bait has different eyes or no eyes.
- Each bait has different bladed combinations and colors.
- Each bait has different trailers.

We do this every morning for the first 3 hours of fishing. Each day we exchange baits so you are fishing a different one each morning. Records are kept on which bait and its combination of blades, colors, wire size and etc.. There is no doubt in my mind that I have the best spinner baits that can be built.

I have done the same thing with the Chatter bait and it will produce.

This is one of the greatest learning curve reducers you can have when fishing our slow waters. There is no need to be changing baits. It is all about being in the right spot.

Edit:
These are the baits tested: Top waters - Spinner baits - Jigs - Rattle Traps - Soft Plastics - Scents

Evidence-based fishing, I like it. Website for your products?

I'm convinced that water and bass are the only ingredients you have to have for chatterbaits to be effective.

Chatterbaits are something I have had a ton of success with, but probably because I tend to favor other baits around grass. With all the rain we got I will probably have one tied on this weekend and see what I can do with it.

LOL! Chatterbait, what's that? Seriously, it is the most effective bass lure I've used when the water is muddy or very murky. I work it parallel to the shoreline and I've had mud cats in ponds hit it harder than the bass. I spray some garlic on the skirt when conditions are like this. The black and blue 1/4th oz is my favorite color/size.

Do yall find that the brand/model makes much of a difference? I fish various Z-mans and the SK Rage Blade, but haven't tried any others.

There are some differences between brands. I really only ever use 2 brands, Phenix and Revenge. I like the Phenix late Spring though Fall, but I use the Revenge during the Winter and early Spring because it has a more subtle vibration. I find that the more subtle vibration is best for pressured fish or colder water.