In the fishing community you generally have two types of people when it comes to lure selection; those that stick to their tried and true baits and those who follow the latest trends. I am unintentionally the first type. I don’t really like to follow the crowd and rarely stray away from my usual baits. For the past 3 or 4 years it seemed like I had been seeing a lot of people talking about the Zman Chatter Baits. They had blown up in popularity, or I had just seemed to notice it anyway. Naturally, I was skeptical. I didn’t want to jump onto the bandwagon. Last year, however, I was at a Riverbassin tournament in Garfield Arkansas talking to Drew Gregory about the chatter bait when he says “Here, try one out yourself” and gives me a white ½ ounce Zman Chatter Bait.

The next time I went fishing I was reluctant to give the new odd looking lure a try but since I was having a hard time getting the fish to bite anyway, I figured I would tie one on. I enjoy fishing with football jigs and spinner baits and this looked like a cross between the two. The first thing that I wondered was how to fish it. Do I fish it like a jig or like a spinner bait? What I didn’t realize was that it can be fished both ways depending on water color, temp and trailers. The bait is extremely versatile. The water temps were still pretty cold and the fish were not really eating a ton yet. The white bass were occasionally busting up school of shad but black bass were not moving a bunch. I started out just using the trailer that the bait comes with, a white two tail trailer that has a lot of little movement. Right off the bat I caught two white bass. White bass are a blast to catch but the big fat females hadn’t really started to feed heavily yet so I wanted to target black bass species. I then changed out my trailer for 3 inch paddle tail that was white and grey. As expected, I didn’t get bit right away. I fished it with a slow retrieve and eventually caught some really nice bass. Not bad for the first day fishing a new bait when my usual methods were not productive!

As the summer months came I fished a chartreuse and white chatter bait and used the two tail trailer that comes with the lure and that was very productive with a faster retrieve as the fish became more active. I fished that combo much like a spinner bait and it did very well for me. Back to the versatility of that bait. As fall came and the water temps began to drop, I started jig fishing. It was productive for me but I wanted to give the chatter bait a try in this scenario just to see if it would work. It tied on a gold bladed chatter bait in the green pumpkin color and used a Rage Tail craw as a trailer. Usually when I fish a jig with this setup I will give the jig action by moving my rod tip up and down. With the chatter bait I didn’t have to do that. All I did was give it a slow two or three turns of the reel and the blade did the work for me. It seems to give it a rise off of the bottom and also gave it a little more movement on the fall, which is where all of my bites occurred.

To say that I was pleasantly surprised with this bait is an understatement! You can do just about whatever you want with it. It does very well in cover and grass. The only thing that I will say it doesn’t do well in is brush. The exposed hook cause a lot of hang ups. I encourage you guys to buy one and give it a try yourself! Try different trailers and different retrieves and see what works for you. You can literally adapt this bait to just about whatever the fish are looking for.
Thanks for reading and until next time, I wish you guys tight lines and smooth waters!