How to Fish a Chatterbait (Tips and Tricks for Bigger Bass)

How to Fish a Chatterbait (Tips and Tricks for Bigger Bass)


best bass bait for fishing
Chatterbaits are a great technique to target bass in and around shallow cover. In this video, Captain Mikey teaches you the basics of Chatterbait fishing, but also covers how, where and when to fish this bait to catch more and bigger bass!

 





Video transcript:

Oh God, nice fish guys. Look how fatty is this Chatterbait, just smoked and beauty.

Can you feel it?  Shake and bake BABY!

You know, in the last 20-30 years in the world of bass fishing, there've been so many innovations, new technology, new lines, new techniques, even new lures. But with all that, there have only been a handful of lures that I would consider true game changers with thousands of lures to choose from. The competition is intense. That bait better darn near perform miracles for me to call it a game changer, and to me this bait absolutely lives up to that standard, one of the most versatile baits. It's definitely making some noise out there and it's been proven itself since day one. On behalf of MONSTERBASS, I'm captain Mike, we're talking about the one and only Chatterbait today on MONSTERBASS.

Chatterbaits - ever since they were first introduced, Chatterbaits had been top tournament winning lures. You'd be awfully hard pressed to find any pro that doesn't always have one tied on no matter where they're fishing.

It is one of the most versatile baits that can be fished in many different ways, in many different situations.  And probably the greatest aspect of a Chatterbait, anyone can fish it. It doesn't matter what your skill level is or how much knowledge or experience you have, anybody can fish a Chatterbait and find success. So today I'm going to go over a Chatterbait. What makes a Chatterbait so versatile and so successful? And whether you're a beginner or an experienced pro. I'm going to give you my tips and tricks on how I fish Chatterbaits and how you can help build confidence in Chatterbaits yourself. So let's do it. Let's break it down. Everything you need to know about fishing, a Chatterbait.

Why? There we go? First bass guys, we're on. Here we go. The lively one. He’s a nice healthy bass. He's not huge. Not huge, but he's nice and he just inhaled - he absolutely destroyed that chatter. All. Alright. Yeah, look at that. Five minutes in. We're on our first bass already. Let's go get another one.

What is a Chatterbait? Chatter beet is actually a brand name of a specific type of bladed jig. It's a jig with a skirt on it and attached to the front is some sort of a blade. There are hundreds of manufacturers and many different styles of bladed jigs out there, most commonly known as Chatterbaits, but no matter what manufacturer or what they call it, it's a jig with a blade attached to the front of it. That little blade vibrates like crazy side to side, creating a ton of vibration and moving a lot of water. It was proven to be a big time dinner bell for big all across this country. You can fish them fast, you can fish them slow, you can fish them in, cover open water across the bottom and even blazing fast across the top. They are a fantastic bait fish, imitator. There are also a great crawfish imitator. There are so many ways to effectively fish a Chatterbait. You're going to be hard pressed to find a situation where you can't fish a Chatterbait, which is what makes it a true game changer in the world of bass fishing. When's the best time to fish a Chatterbait? Anytime you got one tied on

Big bass. Nice bass, dude. Yeah, I'm barely hooked right on the bottom lip. It's a nice bass buddy. Where that fat look all fat up pig is, it's like a small mouth. They got swollen. His head is covered. His belly and tail. Woo. There it is on the chatter. Paid check dat. Oh guys, what a pig. What a beautiful fish. Gorgeous. It's just this beautiful girl. Go. Awesome. Awesome, awesome. She knows Ted. I got a bunch of Chatterbaits while borough. Yeah.

Now, as I said, there are many different ways to fish a Chatterbait. It's such a versatile lure that you can fish it just about anywhere you want. Slow moving or fast moving, top or bottom. There's going to be a great way to fish a Chatterbait for whatever those fish are wanting. Today. I'm going to go over my top three ways to fish a Chatterbait that covers most of the spectrum for me and generally will find me a good bite no matter where those bass are. Number one, keep it simple, cast and retrieve. It's as easy as that. Simply cast it out towards structure, towards cover, or even in the open water. Let it sink and do a nice steady retrieve. Though blade's going to vibrate though baits going to quiver and your trailer's gonna provide a little extra action too. This bait will provide all the action that you need by just doing that bass hunt in several different ways, but for the most part, they're an ambush predator.

They rely on certain senses to catch their prey - sight, smell and their lateral line. Their lateral line is where they feel vibrations and movements in the water and a Chatterbait calls them out and when it comes past the point where they're sitting waiting to ambush prey, it looks like the prey they want. They're going to feel it. They're going to know what's coming and they're more than likely going to come out and eat it. Your rod position on this method is pretty important though. You're going to want to keep your rod tip down and a way it forces the line against the guides. It's going to transfer the vibration from that bait down your line, which will transfer it through the blank of the rod to your hand on the reel so you can actually feel your bait vibrating the entire time. It's also going to put you in a great position for a perfect hook set. A lot of chatter bites can be very soft as that fish is chasing the bait Dow from behind. So feeling the vibration is very important. If it suddenly stops and you don't feel it anymore, drive home that hook cause it could very well be a fish that just grabbed it from behind.

Good fish. Good fish. Alright, here we go. Nice. Vass ah, he's a tank. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Baby woo!!! The CHATTER Baby!!! Ha yes. Look at that. Another one of my favorite transition lure, the Chatterbait got me a beautiful, beautiful bass here. What a beauty. He was right up in that grass. I just got it right on the edge and he smashed it. Awesome. Awesome. Let's let that go about a three pounder. Nice.

My number two method to fishing a Chatterbait burn baby burn. The biggest asset to a Chatterbait is the vibration of that blade, so why not maximize it? The faster you move the bait, the faster the blade vibrates and the more the bass are going to feel it. That dinner bell will ring loud to the bass in their lateral line. Burning a Chatterbait works especially well over submerged grasses and alongside of other cover like Lily pads, grasses, doc, and even lay downs. That vibration is going to call the bass out from wherever they're hiding. That quick vibrating blade is moving a ton of water and absolutely lighting up their lateral line. They feel it coming and any bass in that grass or in that cover is going to hear the call. It'll draw them out and force them to react. Creating dynamite reaction strikes, so when you're around some merge grasses, other heavy cover, even alongside a docs burning Chatterbaits, absolutely maximizes the action that a Chatterbait is best known for. And you may even call out the windiest of fish by burning them real quick. Let's see if the old Chatterbait can catch some!

There is some submerged eelgrass out here. Yes, man. It was weird. It was just like solid. All of a sudden. Decent, decent man. He didn't hit it. I didn't say it was just awesome. There was like, I thought it was like dragging a total weeds. He wasn't fighting at all. Huh? That's a stage and that's definitely a stage and bass right there.

My next favorite way to fish and Chatterbait, the finesse way to fish a tad bait slow and low. I'm going to literally drag it across the bottom just fast enough to get that blade moving side to side, dragging it across the bottom, knocking off any structure that's down there. This is imitating bait. Fish feeding off the bottom. It also greatly imitates a crawfish scooting across the bottom. I'm dragging it with my rod. One big sweep. Reel up the Slack. Just literally dragging it fast enough across the bottom, knocking off any rocks or structure that's down there, but keeping that blade move inside the side, creating the vibration, letting the bass know where that bait is, dragging with the rod, reel up the Slack. The only reeling I'm doing is really an up the Slack with this method. Every several drags, give it a great big quick pop, a quick jerk up that's going to make that bait. Bounce off the bottom, vibrate real quickly, and then flood her back down to the bottom. Drag it again, jerk it up, let it drop and drag it again. That little extra jerk every so often creates a quick burst of vibration and we'll get any of the weary bass that are kind of looking at it to react without even knowing it. They get out of the way or the Eden and most of the time they're going to eat it.

Oh God, nice fish guys. Big fish, big fish. The other beauty. This is a good fish. Oh man. Good fish called Joe. Lose this one. Oh yeah, Tank. Another tank.  This Chatterbait just smoked a huge fatty, a big fatty liver. This monster. Oh he is so fat. Oh my gosh guys. This is a tank.

Look, check this out. He just finished eating something decent size and he just hammered my bait!  That's why you so fat, buddy. Look how fatty is. Wow. What a fish. What a fish. Oh man. Oh, this Chatterbait. Just smoked and beauty.  He's so fat cause that's a, that's a fish. That's the rest of that fish in his mouth. Is it that belly stuff? Wow. What a gorgeous fish. Going to be about four, four and a half pounds. Wow. Beauty. Go back and finish your food. Whew. We find the pattern with this Chatterbait.

Now there are a multitude of trailers that you can put on Chatterbaits. That's again, another thing that makes them so versatile because of the action of the Chatterbait itself. Nearly any soft plastic you choose to put on as a trailer is going to get a little extra action so you don't need to choose your trailers based on the action they have themselves. I try to match up my trailers to how I'm fishing the Chatterbait at the moment. If I'm doing a steady retrieve and covering a lot of water, I'm mostly using the Chatterbait to imitate fish or bait fish. So with that I choose trailers that best imitate bait fish a three or four inch boot tail or paddle tail swim bait best imitates a shad where smaller body bait fish, in my opinion, they give a good steady action and enhance the overall appearance greatly.

If I'm burning a Chatterbait, I also go with fish imitating soft plastics for my trailers, but I always select ones that don't have as much action as a boot tail or a paddle tail swim bait. Moving that Chatterbait along that quickly creates a lot of vibration and it's going to add a bunch of action to the trailer anyway. In fact, when you're moving Chatterbaits really quickly, any trailer that creates too much action on its own, it's going to create a lot of extra resistance and drag in the water, which is going to force it to go up to the surface a lot quicker and overall impede the action you're trying to get. So I like to go with fish imitating soft plastic trailers that don't have a lot of action on their own, something like a fluke or even trailers like this Gamakatsu - allowing it to move nice and quick, have lots of action and still keep it down in a good strike zone.

When I'm slow rolling or dragging a Chatterbait, I'll typically go with more of a cross imitating style trailer, something with two appendages that doesn't require much speed to create action. Something like a speed CRA or a twin curly tail grub. Now when I'm slow rolling, but I know they're actually feeding on baitfish or preferring Bay fish, I've got a great trick for that. I'll take my typical flipping baits like a Beaver style bait rather than rigging it on the hook flat ways. I'll rig it sideways as it goes through water. That big Beaver tail is going to be flapping much like the tail of a fish and makes a great imitation of panfish like bluegill or other bream. Now, as far as colors, it's no different than most any other baits out there.

I try to stick with the lighter colors like white and white and shirt truce when I'm in the clear water situations that heavily pressured lakes and the dark of the water, the darker baits I go, I also try to keep in mind what forge is in that Lake. They feed heavily on bluegill in that lake.  I like bluegill style beets, but typically I'll go white or white and chartreuse for the most part, and then I'll do the more natural colors in darker water. If you don't want to buy a bunch of them, make sure you got some white ones and make sure you've got some black and blue or even green pumpkin ones. You'll cover just about every aspect. To me. The color isn't as important as the action of the Chatterbait. And of course when it comes to the gear, casking does make a very fantastic rod just for a Chatterbaits designed by the pros for what they believe is best.

The speed demon pro Chatterbait rod. It's seven foot three medium action, moderate fast tip. It's got a good strong backbone cause Chatterbaits have a strong hook. It has a very sensitive tip. Feeling that vibration is key, especially on those soft strikes. I personally really enjoy working with Chatterbaits fast and I want to be able to moving fast when I can. So I use a fast reel, something in the seven to one eight to one, even nine to one so I can move it fast when I really want to and if I have to slow it down I can just slow down myself. But I can't make a slow real go fast. So stick with a faster real. And as far as line, nothing has more sensitivity than braid. So I love to throw braid anywhere from a 30, 40, even 50 pound braid.

If I'm going to be efficient around cover, it has very little stretch hit, has incredible sensitivity. I can feel everything that that Chatterbait is doing. If I'm in situations where it's ultra clear water or really heavily pressured legs, I'll put on a fluorocarbon leader, but my main line is almost always breed when efficient Chatterbait and you need good power and your rod, you need great sensitivity in the tip and you need great sensitivity and strength in the line. Boom. There it is guys. Everything I know about Chatterbaits fish at fast Fisher, slow fishing on the bottom or fishing on the top, make it look like a beef fish or make it look like a crop. No matter how you boil it down. Chatter, baits ring the dinner. Bell and bass will hear the call and they're going to come out and eat. Guys, I hope you enjoy this and I hope you learned a little something. If you did, make sure you smash the heck out of that like button and leave a comment on anything else you'd like to see us film. We'll do our best to make a video to each and every one of those. But most importantly, subscribe to the channel and stay subscribed cause there's plenty more common right here on MONSTERBASS.

Older Post Newer Post


Leave a comment


0 comments

April Breakdown | Platinum Series

April Breakdown | Platinum Series

Posted by Rick Patri

6:07