Spinnerbaits, Buzzbaits, and Spinners |
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Spinnerbaits--1. Ledgebuster, 2. Nichols Baby Pulsater, 3. Terminator T-1, 4. Northland Reed Runner
Buzzbaits--5. Thunder Bullets Thunder Buzz, 6. Kay Key Kay's Buzzer, 7. Strictly Bass Cheeter Buzz, 8. Terminator Bill's Triple Buzz
Spinners--9. Terminator Snagless In-Line, 10. Terminator In-Line Bucktail, 11. EGB Swiss Blinker, 12. Mepps Black Fury Combo, 13. Blue Fox Super Vibrax |
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Buzzbait Savant
A buzzbait, Carl Zavorka's pet, is something I use in rivers when I want to cover water fast, looking for fish. Smallmouths will blow up on buzzbaits when they don't necessarily want to bite them. The famous Lindsay brothers, Dave and Norm, who have won most of the major smallmouth tournaments in North America at least once, taught me that a buzzbait can make smallmouths look up even when they want to look down. When they know bass are using a piece of structure, yet they can't get them to go on the usual techniques, the Lindsays pepper the structure with buzzbaits, then go over it again with plastics or small marabou jigs. The buzzbait is an attractor, and the catching comes later. Except for Carl.
Carl throws buzzbaits when the water temperature is anywhere from 33F to 90F. And, for some unfathomable reason, he catches smallmouths throughout that range. He's a one-trick pony, stuck in buzz mode. If you're a normal human being, don't try this at home. It won't work. It requires a savant's touch. But he who lives by the blade, dies by the blade. Carl dies out there sometimes, and he doesn't care because he's addicted to burbling blades and surface explosions.
But he has a point to make. He fishes rivers most of the time, and river smallmouths tend to react to buzzbaits differently. The optimal placement is to cast upstream or across the current. The retrieve and the current act together to constantly drag a buzzer downstream. When a buzzbait churns over a boulder or log, any smallmouths using that cover have to make a quick decision. It costs too many calories to chase, then work back upstream to the prime holding spot. Consequently, river smallmouths react to buzzbaits more often than smallmouths in still water.
Few people throw buzzbaits for smallmouths, it seems. That alone makes buzzing a viable option. I use buzzbaits to find active fish. Then, in most cases, I work them over with something else. The optimal bait is a 3/8-ounce delta-blade model, though triple blades tend to work better in murky water. Small twin props like the Terminator Tiny Twin (only 1/8 ounce) can be more effective in low, clear conditions. Buzzbaits can be effective when smallmouths reveal a tendency to hit almost any style of topwater bait. Check the buzzbait bite whenever bass are willing to come up top because it covers water faster and attracts bass from greater distances.
Straight Scoop
A straight-shafted spinner is another killer in current, but single-hook and weedless adaptations from Mepps and Terminator have created optimal presentations for woodcover in reservoirs and natural lakes.
Terminator's Snagless In-Line Spinner comes in 3/8- and 5/8-ounce sizes. It sports a single offset hook and a shad-style plastic trailer, which can be replaced with a worm, grub, or any other style of plastic. The Snagless In-Line is amazingly effective in wood, getting through tangles and logjams at least as well as a spinnerbait while offering a completely different look and feel to the bass. The Oklahoma-style blade also creates a different and unique combination of sound and vibration.
Mepps has several similar products, including the Weed Master and the Black Fury Combo. The Weed Master sports a weedguard skirt over a treble, and the Combo carries a single Mister Twister Keeper Hook for burying the point into plastic trailers to keep the hook from fouling. The Snagless In-Line and the Combo can be walked over and through serious woodcover and weedcover on a tight line, which elevates the portfolio of the straight-shafted spinner. Always classic river options, straight shafts now demand equal time in still water.
The classic situation for an in-line has always been, from my vantage, "push" areas in rivers where the bottom rises and pushes the water up. This happens in the tailout (downstream lip) of big holes and along the front face of a riffle or rapids, where sand or mud bottom over deeper water gives way to hard bottom in shallower water. Smallmouths cruise the upstream face of these push areas. The art is to match the size of the blade and weight of the spinner to the current so it doesn't drag on bottom (too heavy) or lift to the surface (too light, or the blade's too large). A #2 or #3 blade is optimal in most river situations, but drop down to a #0 in really small streams.
Smallmouths like hair on spinners, in many cases. Squirrel or deer hair adds a little buoyancy, which can be a plus in current. I've taken quite a few tournament fish with a dressed-out #3 Black Fury. Hair adds sinuous motion to the bait in still-water applications, too. A bucktail spinner can be deadly for smallmouths in natural lakes. Bulging a bucktail pulls bass up out of boulders and weededges in many of the same situations that call for a buzzbait. The difference is, bulging can take smallmouths when buzzbaits don't. And working bucktails slower in heavy wind is vastly underappreciated.
Blue Fox, Mepps, Worden's (Rooster Tail), and Terminator all make spinners with natural or synthetic hair, and these baits are notoriously absent from the boxes of smallmouth fishermen, which makes them even better baits because fish don't see them often. I can't count the number of smallmouths I've dislodged from big bucktails intended for muskies. But the number I've watched inhale smaller in-lines has to be 10 times greater.
But the bottom line is the blade. A spinning blade can hypnotize, mesmerize, and stupify smallmouths, which are curious creatures anyway. Flash and thump will bring them in for a closer look. Live by the blade to locate fish and roll with the good times. Whether or not to die by the blade, when the fish blow up and miss or turn away by the boat, is your call. Hypnotist, wake thyself!
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