15 Lunker-Landing Spinnerbaits
Story and Photos By Mark Hicks

The big thing in spinnerbaits this year is chatter-style lures inspired by the ChatterBait, which was introduced by Rad Lures in 2004. This bait is essentially a jig with a blade attached to its nose. It wiggles and vibrates harder than any bait you've ever fished, and it's catching bass across the country.

You can also choose from many new and improved traditional spinnerbaits, from downsized models to big-bladed monsters designed for big bass.

Bagley Crappie Spin
Don't let the name throw you. Bagley's 1/16-ounce Crappie Spin will come through when you're fishing ponds and streams and when bass key on small baitfish. This tiny spinnerbait features Bagley's unique Switch Blade system, which lets you quickly change both blades without tools. The Crappie Spin comes with a bonus blade attached to a swivel, as does the 1/8-ounce Baby Bee Spin. Bagley's Gem Spin also has the Switch Blade system. It's available in 1/4- and 3/8-ounce sizes. All three spinnerbaits sport red hooks.
Bagley Bait Company, 1-888-4BAGLEY; www.bagleybait.com

Bass Pro Shops XPS Professional Series Tungsten Spinnerbait
The Tungsten Spinnerbait is a new addition to Bass Pro Shops' premium XPS Professional Series line of tournament-level baits. Available in 3/8- and 1/2-ounce sizes, the Tungsten Spinnerbait features quality components throughout. Its small-profile head retrieves smoothly, while the hand-tied silicone skirt pulsates seductively. Switching blades is a breeze with the patented quick-change clevis. Choose from six realistic color schemes, including white, white/chartreuse, chartreuse, firetiger and alewife.
Bass Pro Shops, 1-800-227-7776; www.basspro.com

Gambler Swim Blade
Gambler's Swim Blade has several features not found on other chatter-style baits. One is called the J Hook. Gambler claims it hooks bass better and prevents them from throwing the bait, a common problem with this type of lure. The keeper on the bait's collar is designed to stop plastic trailers from sliding down the hook's shaft.

Gambler also offers this bait with a brushguard, which is called the Brush Blade. It's not as snag-resistant as a spinnerbait, but you can fish it in cover where a regular chatter-style bait would readily snag. Both models are available in 3/8- and 1/2-ounce sizes and come with two supple twin-tail trailers. Gambler, (954) 969-1772; www.gambler-bang.com

Blue Fox Bleeding Classic Vibrax
An inline spinner like the Classic Vibrax is a great bait for fishing streams and small rivers. It also fares well on Northern smallmouth waters. The Classic Vibrax is even more deadly with the addition of a red hook and a deep red spinner blade. It's available in five different body colors. The Vibrax runs 2 to 4 feet deep thanks to its 45-degree mid-depth blade. The patented two-part body emits low-frequency sound vibrations and virtually eliminates line twist. It comes in 7/64-, 1/8-, 3/16-, 1/4-, 3/8-, 7/16- and 5/8-ounce sizes.
Blue Fox, (952) 933-7060; www.bluefox.com

Booyah Boogee Bait & Wounded Bucktail Spinner
The Boogee Bait is Booyah's entry into the chatter-style bait category. It combines the big-fish-attracting profile of a jig with the flash of a spinnerbait. Throw in the lure's wild wiggling action and unmatched vibration, and you begin to understand why bass pounce on the Boogee Bait with vicious reaction strikes. The Boogee Bait comes in 3/8- and 1/2-ounce sizes and features one of the most realistic heads in this style of lure, complete with a scale finish and 3-D eyes. It also has a Tx3 Xcalibur hook attached with the Leverage patented flexible hook system, which prevents fish from throwing the bait. Choose from six hot color patterns, three with a silver blade and three with a gold blade. Each bait comes with two matching twin-tail trailers.

Booyah's 1/8-ounce Wounded Bucktail Spinner is especially tempting to smallmouth bass. These hand-tied baits feature jeweler's grade plated blades and red hooks. Six color patterns have blood-red highlights. Booyah Bait Co., 1-800-531-1201; www.booyahbaits.com

Lindy Big-Fin
The 3/4-ounce Lindy Big-Fin was built for big fish, including heavyweight bass, pike and muskie. It features big, Indiana-style blades with a fluted rear blade for an impressive show of color, flash and vibration. For 2007, this perfectly balanced spinnerbait is flashier, metallic-flaked and better dressed, including eight new colors such as red and white with a red-and-white blade and orange and yellow with an orange-and-yellow blade.
Lindy Little Joe, (218) 829-1714; www.lindylittlejoe.com

Mepps Aglia Marabou
The Mepps Aglia Marabou is available in a size to satisfy any freshwater game fish, including bass. It combines the vibration and flash of a classic Mepps Aglia blade with the lifelike movement of a hand-tied marabou tail. "We use the finest and softest marabou feathers available," says Mepps spokesperson Jim Martinsen. "This creates the maximum amount of pulsating action in the water." Like all other dressed Aglias, the Aglia Marabou also features a red turkey-quill strike attractor, which is a Mepps trademark. Marabous come in six sizes and 12 proven colors.
Mepps, (715) 623-2382; www.mepps.com

Nichols Pulsator Thin-Wire Spinnerbait & Chatterbox
The lively Pulsator Thin Wire Spinnerbait now features red eyes, a red throat and the new Hole in One skirt. The skirt has silicone strands glued between two rubber collar bands. It will not slip off or come apart. The bleeding skirt has five red strands at the bottom. It's available in six colors and 1/4-, 3/8- and 1/2-ounce sizes.

Nichols' Chatterbox, a chatter-style bait, is equipped with the Eaker Shaker blade, which was introduced in 1998. Add the Shaker blade to any jig and the lure wiggles and vibrates when retrieved. This cupped blade can be switched from a vertical (tight wiggle) or horizontal (wide wobble) posture on the Chatterbox for more versatility.
Nichols Lures, (210) 684-8811; www.nicholslures.com

Strictly Bass Fat Dink Spinnerbait
In response to today's heavy fishing pressure, the compact Fat Dink Spinnerbait is designed to catch limits of keeper-size bass quickly. The blades have been downsized and balanced to improve casting distance and accuracy and to make the bait sink faster to stay in contact with bass cover. The Fat Dink comes in 5/16-, 7/16- and 9/16-ounce sizes. It's built from extra-strong .032-gauge stainless-steel wire. Along with four color patterns, anglers also have the option of light rubber skirts or silicone skirts, and Colorado/turtleback, double-turtleback or Colorado/Indiana blades.
Strictly Bass, (513) 574-4082; www.strictlybasslures.com

Stanley Swimming Jig
Lure maker Lonnie Stanley relied on his decades of jig-designing experience when he developed the Stanley Swimming Jig, which is another chatter-style bait. "The new Stanley Swimming Jig is a jig with spinnerbait vibration and crankbait versatility," Stanley says. "A bait for all depths, people can run it 2 inches below the surface or along the bottom in deep water." A weedguard lets you fish this bait in heavy cover, while a rattle increases the lure's racket. It's available in 1/4-, 3/8- and 1/2-ounce sizes, in 10 fish-catching colors and with a nickel or gold blade. Stanley suggests that you dress this bait with a variety of trailers, such as twin tails, small crayfish, worms and curly tails.
Stanley Jigs, (936) 876-5713; www.fishstanley.com

Strike King 3/16-Ounce Premier Plus & Sandblaster
Strike King adds a downsized 3/16-ounce model to its lineup of Premier Plus spinnerbaits. This small-profile lure features a Colorado/willow-leaf blade combination. It's ideal for finicky bass and when bass feed on small baitfish. The Perfect Skirt has Magic Tails, which eliminates the need for a plastic trailer. The bait comes pre-rigged with a Sabre Point trailer hook. It's available in nine color combinations.

Strike King's Sandblaster tailspinner casts like a bullet and sinks fast to reach bass holding on underwater structure. It is especially effective in rivers and tailraces. The tail stem passes through one end of the inline French blade for better flash and to make the bait run true even at high speeds. An oversized eye tempts more strikes. Strike King, (901) 853-1455; www.strikeking.com

Picasso Marty Stone Spinnerbait
North Carolina bass pro Marty Stone designed this Picasso spinnerbait with a lead willow-leaf blade and a larger Indiana trailing blade. He claims that this novel tandem combination generates tremendous vibration, pull and flash and that it throws water down onto the silicone skirt, creating more movement and undulation. The hand-tied skirt is also unique because the long strands stretch forward. They billow back during the retrieve to present a larger profile and a livelier motion. Stone says it looks like a tube skirt put on backward. The light .032 wire also improves the lure's action. Choose from 1/4-, 3/8-, 1/2- and 3/4-ounce sizes and five colors.
Picasso, 1-800-928-4863; www.picassooutdoors.com

Team Supreme Peter T Classic Shad
Bass pro Peter Thliveros has let slip one of his winning spinnerbait configurations to Team Supreme, which recreated it for 2007. This heavy spinnerbait, dubbed the Peter T Classic Shad, is matched with one or two small willow-leaf blades to allow you to run it longer in the strike zone. It boasts Mustad's finest hook and is available in 1/2-, 5/8- and 7/8-ounce sizes. Color schemes include Chartreuse Crystal Shiner, Tennessee Shad, Blue Glimmer, Gray Ghost and White Shiner.
Team Supreme, 1-800-393-6667; www.teamsupremetackle.com

Venom Rattle Shake
The Rattle Shake is Venom's version of a chatter-style bait. The V-shaped cut in the True Track blade is designed to increase the lure's wiggle and vibration. A rattle is attached to the 3/0 black nickel laser-sharpened hook to increase the bait's commotion. The hook is protected by a two-prong wire weedguard. The Rattle Shake is available in 1/8-, 1/4-, 3/8- and 1/2-ounce sizes. It comes rigged with a soft-plastic twin tail. Included in the package is a piece of bright prism reflector tape cut to fit the blade. Venom Lures, 1-800-446-7510; www.venomlures.com

Terminator Hybrid Blade
Rob Kilby, an 11-time Bassmaster Classic Qualifier, calls Terminator's new 3/8-ounce Hybrid Blade, "the best-kept secret in bass fishing." Kilby has been secretly building the shoehorn-shaped blade out of scrap aluminum from lawn-chair arms and using it in place of a regular spinnerbait blade. This novel blade has a 90-degree bend, which makes the lure sputter on the surface. The Hybrid Blade generates tremendous subsurface vibrations at slow speeds and excels at waking across the surface. It's available in four proven colors and is built around Terminator's patented SnapBack nickel titanium frame.
Terminator, 1-800-944-4766; www.terminatorlures.com

Help BASSIN' Choose The Best Bass-Catching Lures
BASSIN' Magazine is offering readers the opportunity to help determine which lures are named the best bass-catchers of 2007. Whether you've had more success with a crankbait, spinnerbait, topwater or soft-plastic worm, now is the time to let your voice be heard. To vote for your favorite bass-catching lure, simply go to www.ebassin.com/bestbaits.html, enter the lure name, manufacturer and style, along with your story on how it worked for you, and then click submit. You can also mail your picks to: "Favorite Bass-Catching Lures," 7580 E. 151st Street, Bixby, OK 74008. Please include your name, city and state, along with the lure name, manufacturer and style. If your story is chosen, your name will appear in an upcoming issue of BASSIN' Magazine.