After all, the past few generations of bass have seldom seen a spinnerbait. In fact, they may be even better than before. The same basic spinnerbait designs that produced great catches of bass a century ago still produce today. Fishing is fashion, after all, at least among anglers, and bait types and colors go in and out of style (remember "motor oil" plastic worms?).īut, ultimately, you can’t keep a good bait down forever.
With square bills, swim jigs and bladed jigs now driving the bass tackle market, the spinnerbait got lost in the shuffle. It was new and sexy, and it captured the bass fishing zeitgeist. The ChatterBait (now owned by Z-Man) could go anywhere a spinnerbait could go and some places it couldn’t (for instance, you can skip a ChatterBait).
It might not have been the first "bladed jig" (the Whopper Stopper Dirtybird likely deserves that distinction), but it was a quantum leap forward and clearly the most impactful bait of the first decade of the 2000s. In 2004, Ron Davis and RAD Lures introduced the ChatterBait. But it was a third lure that really pushed the spinnerbait out of the spotlight. Plus, a swim jig was more subtle than a spinnerbait and appealed to bass that had grown weary of all that flash and vibration. You could also "swim" it, essentially giving it the same retrieve in the very same places that you’d fish a spinnerbait. At about the same time, anglers were learning that you didn’t have to crawl or hop a jig. No, square bills didn’t fare well in vegetation, but they were built to deflect off wood and rocks, and they felt new and trendy. They were winning tournaments and could be fished in many of the same places anglers were accustomed to tossing spinnerbaits. Square-billed crankbaits took some of the spotlight. In the early 2000s, events conspired to knock the spinnerbait off its pedestal. There was little reason to throw any other lure, but all that changed about 20 years ago. A spinnerbait was a big factor in the first six Bassmaster Classic wins (1971 to 1976), and expert after expert called it the most versatile bait in the bass world-a marvel that covered water, drew bass from great distances, appealed to bass senses that other lures ignored and came through cover like a beagle chasing a rabbit. The spinnerbait, or "blade" as it was often referred to, probably reached its greatest heights in the 1970s.
During that time, no self-respecting bass chaser would be caught dead without a few at his or her disposal. It was a success from the very beginning, and it stayed in the spotlight for many decades. The venerable spinnerbait has been around for a long, long time-more than a century, in fact.
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