blade bait

[DanMarino]

Yak,

I read your article about fishing home made blade baits in reservoirs in December.  Were you able to test them out in warmer months to see if they worked then?  Or are the blade baits a cold weather lure for you?

Thanks,

13

[Yakfish]

I don't have anything conclusive for you.  I did a lot of messing around with weighted deep diving cranks this year on the reservoir.  I don't see the blade bait as much of a river lure, unless you are fishing a deep smallmouth river like the New or Delaware.  I did get a sample pack of lures today that are a wider profile blade bait. I'll do a review later this year and let you all know how they did.

[Knot Right]

Here is a blade bait trick that I use and I plan to use it this year during the dog days of summer this year for fishing deep.

Jingle Blades
I reserve this technique for peak activity periods or when I know fish are there and I am trying to agitate them into biting. Blade baits are a simple and very effective technique for deep-water jigging. They are deadly when you can find hard bottom to bang them on such as rock or shell. Since most of the places I fish do not have a great deal of rock in the deep water or the areas that bass hold during winter have soft bottom, I figured out a way to make my blade baits scream to be eaten.
Blade baits are nothing more than a flat piece of baitfish-shaped metal with a molded lead weight and holes for attaching hooks and a split ring for tying. Most come with three or more holes in the top that serve as multiple tie points for changing the action by changing the retrieval angle. Because of the molded weight, blade baits flutter or vibrate like lipless crankbaits when pulled through the water. The problem is that bass will not chase a lure very far in extremely cold water and the strike zones shrinks dramatically. The hooks will make some noise but not enough to elicit a strike or attention from very far.
To make the bait more attractive and give it more “jingle” I add three or four holes to the bottom and one more to the top. I install a split ring into each hole. Then I connect each of the lower split rings with another split ring. The result is several interconnected split rings that jingle when you twitch the lure, swim it or jig it up and down. To finish it off, I coat the body and the outside of the ring with clear enamel or nail polish and then sprinkle gold, silver and red glitter all over the lure. Jingle blades, jingle blades, jingle blades—WHOP!