Catch More Bass This Summer with Chatterbaits!

What's happening, BassResource? John Crews back to talk about chatterbaits. Chatterbaits, one of my favorite baits to fish absolutely all year long. Summertime, I am going to have a chatterbait on my deck every time I go fishing. I don't care if I'm going into a river, if I'm going into one of the Great Lakes up north, if I'm going to be fishing Sam Rayburn down south. I'm going to have a chatterbait on my deck. I can tell you that. And one of the best things to kind of look at and think about is when you put the boat in the water and you look around shallow, if you see those bream, the bluegill, the redears, whatever you want to call them, if you see them up around the bank, the chatterbait bite is going to be on. So the baits that I'm going to choose are going to be the ones that emulate those bluegill, those bream, those pumpkinseed, whatever you want to call them, whatever they are. If you see them up around the bank, you need to be throwing the chatterbaits.

And, like I said, probably my number one choice is going to be a 1/2-ounce Green Pumpkin Z-Man Jack Hammer Chatterbait with a Spunk Shad, 4-1/2-inch, on the back. This is probably, like, my default summertime chatterbait. Clear water, slightly stained water, this is going to be my call right here. You can skip this thing up under boat docks really well. You can skip it up under tree overhang limbs. You can just throw it wherever you think that a bluegill might live and be hanging around the bank. This is just a great combination. I've got a couple of variations. If you get a little more stain in the water, or if you have a heavy overcast condition day, that's when I like going to a black and blue chatterbait. And I'm going to have either a Black and Blue or Bruiser Flash Spunk Shad on the back. That's more of what I'm going to be going to. Like I said, a little more stain in the water, heavier overcast, that's about the only time I'm going to vary from the Green Pumpkin. I'm going to go to the Black and Blue. That's a good mix-up right there. This is definitely more for when you're fishing southern impoundments, middle part of the country, places like that. I've caught a lot on that Black and Blue in the summertime. Just an absolute killer.

In the summertime, your thought process for me on the chatterbaits is you want that bait to be erratic. You want to trigger those fish to be biting it. They're looking for a bream that's doing something a little bit wrong. You want to throw it by that boat dock, and then as you're reeling it...you throw it over there, and then as you're reeling it, you're not going to just make a steady. All of a sudden, you might just give it a little quick pump like that, and that chatterbait is going to kind of shoot off to the side. It's going to bounce off to the left. You don't have to rip it with your rod in the summertime. Just something where you get a little bit erratic with it. You throw it, you're kind of reeling it along, and then maybe you do a little quick variation like that. That triggers a ton of summertime chatterbait fish right there. That one little tip right there will trigger a bunch of them. Like I said, we're imitating bluegill. That's what those fish are feeding on up shallow most of the year.

Like I said, boat docks are a huge key, but there's another variation and another part that I want to mention when we're talking about chatterbaits in the summertime, and that's when we go up north and go this clear water. Chatterbait is one of my absolute favorite ways to catch a shallow smallmouth. If you get a day that's a little bit windy and you got a little bit of sun, that is the combination that puts a big smile on my face when I see the forecast. You got at least 5 or 10 mile an hour of wind, maybe even 15 mile an hour of wind, and you've got some sun. Amazing. I mean, I've caught them on just dead slick sunny days as well up north catching smallmouth, Great Lakes, Lake St. Clair, Finger Lakes in New York as well. Any place you got clear water and smallmouth, the same 1/2-ounce chatterbait works for smallmouth. You just throw it, burn it on the way back in. You don't have to really hardly do anything crazy with the smallmouth. You just have to get it in front of them, and when they bite it, they are going to absolutely crush it. Absolutely crush it. It is so much fun.

And there's one variation that I wanted to show you, and that's the little stealth chatterbait. I drop down to the 3-1/2-inch Spunk Shad in Green Pumpkin. I use a 1/2-ounce most of the time as well. This is also a really good alternative on the smallmouth. Don't sleep on the little stealth guy for the largemouth as well. Things get a little bit tough. You still want to be fishing something that you're covering a lot of water with. Maybe you're fishing tidal fishery that has a lot of bluegill in it, and you want to kind of downsize a little bit. That stealth, that little Stealth Blade, the little clear blade can be a really good way to do that as well. So don't sleep on that little variation of the chatterbait.

But my setup is going to be mostly the same as it is all year long. I'm going to have that Sunline Shooter 18-pound Fluorocarbon. I've really experimented a lot with the different line sizes. Settled in on that 18. It's just the perfect combination to be able to cast an absolute mile, but you can also cast into the heaviest cover, hook those 5 and 6-pounders, and get them out without any problem. That 18-pound Shooter is super, super strong, but it's also supple, and you can cast it a long ways.

Higher speed reel, 7 to 1 Daiwa Zillion SV TW, and then a 7' 4" Cashion Chattergrass Rod. This rod has got a moderate action as you can kind of see right here, which means it bends from the middle part of the rod all the way out once you put pressure on it. It is not a flipping stick. You do not want a fast taper. You want more of a moderate taper on your chatterbait rod. I have really seen this. You know, if you want to just have a fun fishing day and go up and catch some smallmouth, put a stiffer rod on and see how many of those smallmouth you lose because you're going to lose probably half of them or more that bite it. Get that slower-tapered rod, and you're going to bump that up to over 90% of the fish that bite it. You're going to get them in the boat. So that's just a word to the wise. Been doing this for a number of years, catching a lot of smallmouth on the chatterbaits, experimenting a lot, and the rod makes a huge, huge difference. So that rod with largemouth, it turns into almost 100% land ratio when you have that little bit more moderate, little slower taper. This just right works for me, but this is the style action that you want when you're fishing a chatterbait whenever you're fishing it.

The summertime, remember Green Pumpkin or Green Pumpkin and sometimes Black and Blue. In the summertime, speed. I'm probably fishing a 1/2-ounce almost exclusively. There will be times I may bump up to a three-quarters. If I really want to burn it and keep it down 3, 4, 5, 6 feet, that's going to be another alternative. Maybe I'm bumping up to a three-quarters. Speed, a little bit erratic on your retrieve. You will trigger a lot of strikes in the summertime. And then if you go up north and throw it for smallmouth, I promise you, you will have a blast catching smallmouth on that chatterbait. So smallmouth, summertime, largemouth, summertime, chatterbaits, that's the way to go.