How To Fish A Chatterbait In The Spring with Michael Neal

Hey guys. Michael Neal, I'm here with BassResource.com. Wanna talk to you about springtime vibrating jig techniques, and where to throw it, how to throw it, colors, rods, line, all that good stuff. So vibrating jigs over the last few years, they just seem to be increasingly popular. You know, you've still got your spinnerbaits, you've got your lipless bites and things like that, but the vibrating jig bite is one of those that is not only good for big fish, but it's also good for numbers.

And in the springtime, what I'm talking about is more of your upper 50s through, you know, somewhere close to 70 degree range. So just pre-spawn on through the spawn and just the first part of the post-spawn. And when those fish are really pre-spawn, they're going to want to feed up on bigger bait. And I almost always throw a half-ounce bait that time of year. But I like a bulkier trailer.

I like something with a little bit of length to it, a little bit of flash, a little bit of size, a little bit of action. And other parts of the year, not so much. But for springtime, this is my go-to is the Kamikaze Swimon. This is a four-and-a-quarter-inch bait. And like I said, I throw it either on a half or sometimes a there eights. If you're throwing up real shallow, that's okay too. But I like to stick with the shad patterns in the early spring. And because those fish are keying in on that bigger bait, your gizzard shad and things like that. So something's shad colored to really match the hatch. Later in the year, we'll change up some colors, but for the spring, make sure you stick with your whites, your spot removers, just your typical shad patterns.

With the rod, I like something that I can cover water with, but I can also make really accurate casts. In the springtime, you might be out fishing a grass bed, and then you might have to move up and fish the bank, and skip some docks or skip under laydowns. And this Denali Kovert 7'2" medium heavy is a great all-around rod for that. And it's just one of those, like I said, you can do a little bit of everything. If you need to fish the bank, you got it. If you need to go out deeper, you still got plenty of length, but you're not too long to where you can't make those accurate casts.

And when you're throwing this, it doesn't have a weed guard. So it's not like a regular jig where you could put it just right up in the middle of the thickest cover you can find. So you have to find the lanes, the holes or whatever to throw in. And especially if you're in lily pads or some sort of vegetation that you can see, finding those lanes to be able to make as long a cast as you can but not get hung up, that's gonna be very key.

Line is another thing that I feel like is very important to it. This is 20-pound Sunline Sniper. That's my go-to for the majority of the year. You want something that's strong enough to where you're going to be fishing this bait around cover a lot, and you want it to where you're not gonna have to worry about it, and 20-pound Sunline Sniper will do just that. But, you know, those are really the basics. But the technique can be a little bit different.

You've got a way you can just throw it and reel it, just kind of a dummy bait, or you can throw it out there and a lot of times the fish wants something a little bit different with it. You want to maintain a steady retrieve and then, you know, give it a few snaps or even yo-yo the bait. There's a lot of different things you can do with it, depending on the mood, depending on what kind of conditions you've got. If you have just a normal day, you know, reeling it just straight is a great presentation. But if you've got a cold front that's come through or something like that, you may have to slow down that bait and even fish it really closely like a jig, really closely to the bottom.

But it's one of those baits that I have a ton of confidence in. And you can go any part of the country. If it's, you know, Texas or Florida that's got a lot of grass, a lot of visible vegetation, that's great around that, other parts of the country, if you've just got rock or lay downs or docks, it's just a bait that you could put in your hand and go from one end of the lake all the way to the other, whether you're fishing on the bank, offshore, around the spawning fish.

And that's another thing is with this, while they are spawning, they're not super aggressive, but if you've got a bigger profile bait like this one with this Kamikaze Swimon, they'll often show themselves or short strike your bait and then you could follow it up with something else as well. So that's a little bit different technique, but most of them will get the Chatterbait or the vibrating jig when they actually bite it. It's a pretty vicious strike, they're after it for one reason and one reason only, and that's because they think it's a big shad and they're wanting to eat it.

And the main thing I would say is try to match your trailers and your skirt colors to the type of shad that are in your lake. If it's gizzard shad, you know, just a white, if you got a little bit of dingier water, you might have to throw a little bit of chartreuse in it or something like that, but I would not under any circumstances, hardly go away from that on your typical lakes. Now, Florida is a little bit different story. they feed more on golden shiners, and bluegill, and things like that. And if it is cloudy, I will mix in a black and blue every once in a while, just if it's really super dark outside to give those fish something visible that they can see.

And it's a bait that I've won a ton of money on. And fishing grass with it is a little bit different too. You want to always try to maintain contact with the grass. You don't want to throw it out there and keep it above the grass, you wanna maintain contact with it, get that reaction. Just like fish in a lipless bait, you wanna be able to snap it out and make sure that you're staying somewhere around those fish to get that reaction bite. And a spinnerbait is a little bit harder to do that with, the grass wants to wrap around the swivels and things like that. But with this vibrating jig, you know, all you've got is just the one point of contact between the blade and the head. And if you've got a stiff enough rod like this, you can snap your bait free plenty easily enough and, you know, get a lot of reaction bites.

Springtime and vibrating jigs really go hand in hand whether they're pre-spawn, spawning, or as soon as they get off the bed, that's when the shad spawn starts to happen, and this bait is absolutely killer for that. You know, it's a perfect shad imitator. And when they start doing that, you can cover way more water way more efficiently with this than anything besides maybe, you know, a buzzbait or something that you can wind a little bit quicker.

But your retrieve is something that you have to maintain focus on from the first time you pick it up all the way through the day. And for me especially, I know that I have to focus on slowing myself down.

And gear ratio reel to me is very important with a vibrating jig. I always throw it on a 6.3:1 gear ratio. And it doesn't matter if I'm fishing at a foot deep or 8 foot deep or 10 foot deep, whatever it is, I always stick with that. That way I can always make sure that I'm maintaining the right cadence, keeping that bait in the right part of the water column that the fish are in. And that's one of the biggest keys that I think that I see a lot of guys do is they try and use too fast a speed of reel. And if you do that, you're just going to buzz it by the fish, they're not gonna get a long enough time to look at it and you're just not gonna catch near as many fish. I tried it for a while, I used 7.1:1 reels and I did not catch near as many fish as I did with a six, so I went back to that.

If you have a time where you need to get your bait a little bit deeper than typical, then you can go down on your line size. You might have to soften up your rod just a little bit. But this 7'2" medium heavy covert is great all around. You can go all the way down to 14 pound if you need to just to get that bait out there a little bit deeper.

But if you want to just go check it out, check out vibrating jigs, check out the Kamikaze Swimon and some 20-pound sniper, 7'2" medium-heavy covert, and go fish wherever you want to.

I mean, points are always a good place to start. In the springtime. You got fish going into spawn, fish coming outta spawning. Those are great highways, creek channels going in and out, steeper banks, the last channel bank before you get back to the spawning areas, the spawning areas as well. If you've got a day where you can't fish slowly, if you got a really windy day, this is a great application as well. So vibrating jigs are a great bait for the springtime. Make sure you check out more tips from BassResource.com.