A spinnerbait is a lead-head jig moulded onto one arm of a bent wire, with one or two spinning blades on the other arm, so that the blades turn above and ahead of the skirted hook as the lure is reeled. The bent wire is what makes it nearly weedless and what lets it be fished through grass, wood and docks where a treble-hooked lure would snag. The whole wire-and-blade family is here: the spinnerbait and its blade choices, the buzzbait that runs the same frame on the surface, and the inline spinner, a blade on a straight shaft that is the standard lure for trout and small streams. The spinnerbait is written up here as a bass lure, which it was designed as; the same blades in bigger sizes are pike and muskie lures, and the species pages cover those.
Colorado blade for thump in dirty water, willow leaf for flash in clear water, Indiana in between. Choose the blade before the colour.
Start here
- Fishing lures — the section hub.
- Chatterbaits — the bladed jig that answers the spinnerbait-or-chatterbait question.
- Topwater lures — where the buzzbait also belongs.
- Bass fishing — VanDam’s seasons put spinnerbaits in pre-spawn, post-spawn and fall.
The three blades
| Blade | Shape | Vibration | Flash | Retrieve | Water |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | Round, deep cup | Most; a heavy thump | Least | Slow; slow-rolled on the bottom | Dirty, stained, cold; night |
| Indiana | Teardrop | Medium | Medium | Medium | Stained; changing weather |
| Willow leaf | Long, pointed | Least | Most | Fast; burned over grass | Clear water; comes through vegetation |
The combination most spinnerbaits ship with, a small Colorado in front and a willow behind, is the all-rounder. Weights run 1/4 to 1 oz, with 3/8 and 1/2 oz the standards for bass. The retrieves are named: slow-rolling keeps a Colorado-bladed bait ticking along the bottom in cold water; burning runs willow blades just under the surface in summer; waking holds the bait so the blades bulge the surface. A trailer hook behind the main hook catches short strikers.
Buzzbaits
A buzzbait is built on the same J-shaped wire, but the blade up top is a propeller with cupped wings that lifts the lure and holds it on the surface as long as it is reeled, throwing a bubble trail and a squeal from blade rubbing on wire. It does not float, so the retrieve starts the instant it lands and stays fast enough to keep it up. It is fished over shallow grass, along docks and wood, and in the low light that suits every topwater. Buzzbaits arrived with tournament fishing in the 1970s and the first, and by most accounts still the most popular, was the Lunker Lure. A trailer hook is fitted to hang straight behind the main hook, its eye squeezed with pliers so it cannot slide.
Inline spinners
An inline spinner is a blade turning on a clevis around a straight wire shaft, with a weighted body behind it and a treble hook at the back. André Meulnart, a French engineer, invented the Mepps Aglia in 1938, naming it for the Latin word for butterfly after the blade’s flutter; Todd Sheldon, a Wisconsin tackle-shop owner, brought Mepps to the United States in 1951 after a day on the Wolf River. The other names in the family each have a signature: the Rooster Tail from Yakima Bait carries a feathered hackle tail; the Panther Martin blade spins directly on the shaft; the Blue Fox Vibrax has a two-part bell body that rings and a gear that cuts line twist. Trout sizes are 1/16 to 1/4 oz, bass and pike 1/4 to 1/2 oz. The one problem every inline spinner has is line twist from the blade’s torque, and the fix is a small barrel swivel 18 to 24 inches above the lure.
Tackle
Spinnerbaits and buzzbaits are baitcaster lures: a 7 ft to 7 ft 3 in medium-heavy rod with a moderate-fast action, 15–17 lb fluorocarbon or 30–40 lb braid, and a 6.2:1 to 7.1:1 reel, faster for buzzbaits. Inline spinners go on light spinning tackle, a 6 to 7 ft light or medium-light rod and 4–8 lb line, cast upstream and across in current and retrieved just fast enough to feel the blade turn.
Where to go next
The chatterbait hub explains the bladed jig that took the spinnerbait’s place on many tournament boats; the jigs hub covers the skirted jig the spinnerbait grew from; the reels hub explains the gear ratios that burning and slow-rolling call for.