Spinnerbait

What it is

A spinnerbait is a safety-pin shaped wire. The lower arm carries a weighted head, a hook and a skirt; the upper arm carries one or two metal blades on swivels, riding above and ahead of the hook. Rob Lever's beginner's guide in Advanced Angler lists the parts as the hook, the head, the skirt and, most importantly, the blades. Bass Pro's Justin Hoffman calls the blades propellers, and Guy Eaker, who had competed in B.A.S.S. since 1979, put it most plainly in Bassmaster: a spinnerbait by itself does not look like much swimming; it is the sound the blades make in the water.

That is the whole logic of the bait. You choose blades for the flash and thump you want, a head weight for the depth and speed, and a skirt and trailer for the profile, and then you keep it moving.

This page is about the safety-pin spinnerbait. The in-line spinner (a blade on a straight shaft, the trout and panfish lure) and the tailspinner are relatives; KDFWR's cold-water column on the tailspinner quotes Chad Miles saying you can fish it like a spinnerbait over grass or mud flats.

Basis: consensus (Advanced Angler, Bass Pro Shops, Bassmaster); official on the KDFWR comparison

Blades: what each one does

The three blades every source names, in the words of the people who describe them:

• Willow leaf. Long and leaf-shaped. Hoffman: the most flash of the three, the least vibration, visible from a distance, best for covering water fast, especially shallow, and in clear water for roaming fish. Lever: little water resistance, a shimmer he compares to a school of minnows. Bernie Schultz, in Bassmaster: willow-leaf blades are fish-shaped and give off a tremendous amount of flash. Because it pulls easily, Edwin Evers fished willows most of the time.
• Colorado. Round or teardrop-shaped. Hoffman: strong vibration that draws fish from a distance, good in stained or muddy water, and the deepest-running of the three, which suits slow-rolling deep. Lever calls it a safe bet in dirty water with little visibility and fishes a large Colorado at night.
• Indiana. The in-between blade. Hoffman: a cross between the Colorado and the willow, a little more streamlined, second of the three in sound, a good choice for medium depths and mixed conditions.

Tackle Warehouse's gear guide lists more shapes than those three (Oklahoma, French, turtle-shell) without saying much about what each one does, and we have not found a maker's description of them that we could read; see what we don't know, below. War Eagle sells a finesse spinnerbait with a Colorado and a turtleback blade.

Combinations. A tandem bait carries two blades on the same arm, and in every example in the sources the front one is the smaller size. Schultz's slow-roller is a No. 4 Colorado or willow in front and a No. 6 willow behind; he notes that No. 7 and 8 trailing blades climb more and suggests No. 5 or 6 for most anglers. Eaker's warm-water bait is a No. 3 silver Colorado ahead of a No. 4 1/2 or 5 gold willow, and he would not fish a blade larger than a No. 5. Mike Iaconelli, on his own site, burns a tandem or double willow and warns against a Colorado as the small front blade on a fast retrieve because it has too much cup and will blow out.

Single or double. Tackle Warehouse: single blades stay closer to the bottom and dredge ledges; two or more blades add lift for skimming grass tops and shallow flats. Evers' version of the same rule: he prefers a heavier spinnerbait, around 1/2 oz, with smaller blades, because smaller blades have less lift and let him fish deeper.

Finish. Nickel (silver) and gold are the common finishes, per Schultz. Two pros in the sources paint the front blade: Evers credits Ken Cook and O.T. Fears with the red Colorado front blade for stained water. Nichols' Pulsator carries what the maker calls 3-D metal flake blades, which it says create a pulsating action and give off an unprecedented amount of flash.

Basis: consensus (Bass Pro Shops, Advanced Angler, Bassmaster, Iaconelli, Tackle Warehouse); official on the makers' descriptions

When it wins

• Wind. Lever calls it your friend: chop can turn fish on, and you can still cast into it. Tackle Warehouse sends you to windblown points and structure where baitfish gather.
• Stained and muddy water. A Colorado or Indiana blade, a trailer hook, and a bait that bumps cover. In dirty water Lever casts to logs and bounces the bait off them.
• Shallow wood, grass and docks. Schultz calls the spinnerbait relatively snag-proof, which is why it goes into cover too thick for a crankbait. Evers fished laydowns, flooded vegetation, lily pads and boat docks, nearly all of it in 5 feet or less.
• Covering water. Hoffman's willow blade is for covering water fast; Lever calls the spinnerbait a search bait for pre-spawn fish.
• Deep cover, slow. A heavy slow-roller down on stumps, brush, rock and submerged grass offshore, Schultz's and Eaker's game.

Where it loses is mostly a matter of what you put on it rather than the bait itself. Tackle Warehouse says to leave the trailer hook off in heavy cover, where it costs you the weedlessness. Big blades lift the bait toward the surface, so getting deep means a heavier head and smaller blades. And Evers, a tour pro, said he almost never fishes a spinnerbait deeper than 5 feet. We read that as a statement about how he fishes, not a limit on the bait: Schultz and Eaker both slow-roll theirs deep.

Basis: consensus; editorial on reading Evers' depth remark

Species

Largemouth first; most of what is published about spinnerbaits is written for them. KDFWR names a white and chartreuse spinnerbait for largemouth in its FINs lakes. Smallmouth take it too; Lever's guide tells of losing a 3 lb smallmouth on one at the boat in a tournament. In our reading, the sources treat smallmouth and spotted bass as a side catch rather than writing for them, so the advice on this page is largemouth advice first.

Basis: official on the KDFWR largemouth note; Advanced Angler on the smallmouth; editorial on the emphasis

Season and environment

• Early spring and pre-spawn. Lever starts once the water reaches 55 degrees F and uses the spinnerbait as a pre-spawn search bait. KDFWR's spring FINs piece puts a white and chartreuse spinnerbait on largemouth then.
• Post-spawn. Tackle Warehouse calls spring after the spawn arguably the best time of the year for it.
• Summer. Deep, heavy and slow on offshore cover, as Schultz describes it in a column posted at the end of July; or a fast willow bait high in the water for fish feeding up, as Iaconelli does in clear water.
• Fall. Tackle Warehouse runs it through late fall; Lever fishes it until then.
• Cold water. Eaker changes to two Colorados, a No. 3 and a No. 4, once the water is 57 degrees F or colder, for a different sound and more thump, and slows the retrieve to a crawl. Evers goes the other way in very cold water, to two same-size willows for a different vibration. Both are pros' preferences, and they disagree; try both.

Basis: consensus; official on KDFWR's spring note

Structure, cover, clarity and current

Wood, grass and rock, roughly in that order. In wood, run it into and past laydowns, stumps and brush, and let it dip into the branches, as Eaker does; Evers kills it beside a log or at the fork of a limb. In grass, bump the tops, and rip it free when it catches, as Schultz describes. On hard bottom, Eaker keeps it scraping.

Clarity sets the blade and the color. Clear water: willows, natural colors, and more speed. Stained: an Indiana or a Colorado and a willow. Muddy: Colorado blades, a trailer hook, and the colors below. Iaconelli's slow-rolling rule puts it in one line: willow in clear water, Indiana in stained, Colorado in muddy.

Current we have no source for; the spinnerbait literature we read is reservoir fishing.

Basis: consensus; current is a gap, not a claim

Rod, reel and line

Beginner

A 7 foot medium-heavy casting rod with a moderate-fast tip, a casting reel around 7:1, and 15 or 17 lb fluorocarbon. That is the middle of the sources: Iaconelli's 7 foot rod, his one-reel answer of 7:1, and the 15 or 17 lb fluorocarbon he uses for about 65 percent of his spinnerbait fishing; Eaker's 7 foot medium-heavy; Tackle Warehouse's moderate-fast to fast taper. A spinnerbait from 3/8 oz up is hard to throw on anything but a baitcaster, Iaconelli says. Our baitcasting setup guide covers the reel, and rods and reels explains power and action.

Intermediate

Match the reel to the retrieve and the line to the cover.

• Reel. Iaconelli: 7:1 to 9:1 for burning, with 8:1 his choice; about 7:1 for a mid-depth retrieve; 6:1 to 7:1 for slow-rolling. Schultz slow-rolls on a 6.2:1. Tackle Warehouse sizes them: a 200-size reel for long casts to deep structure, 100 to 150 for tighter spots.
• Line. Fluorocarbon for most of it: Tackle Warehouse's 12 to 20 lb in open water, lighter in clear and heavier in stained; Eaker's and Schultz's 15 to 20 lb for slow-rolling. Monofilament when you want the bait to stay up: Iaconelli uses 15 or 17 lb mono mostly for burning because it floats, and Schultz uses 15 to 20 lb mono for its buoyancy when feathering a bait over grass and brush tops. Braid for the thick stuff: Tackle Warehouse's 40 to 50 lb straight braid in grass, tangled cover or muddy water; Schultz's 30 lb in thick cover or for big fish. See mono, fluoro and braid for what each material does and line systems for the recipes.

Advanced

Two rods. Tackle Warehouse's split is a shorter rod, about 7 feet, medium-heavy to heavy, for shallow cover, and a 7'6" or longer medium-heavy to heavy rod for slow-rolling deep water. Iaconelli prefers a moderate rod that bends in its top 30 percent for single-hook baits, at 7 feet or at 7'2" to 7'4" for long casts. Schultz's slow-roller is a 7'2" medium-heavy with a moderate-fast tip; in his words, big spinnerbaits require heavier line with stout rods and reels. Evers fished a 7 foot medium or medium-heavy rod with a limber tip.

Basis: consensus; editorial on the beginner outfit, which is assembled from the sources' figures

Weights and the makers' runs

The common weights are 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 oz, Lever says, with 3/4 to 1 oz for depth. The slow-roll sources agree on the heavy end: Eaker's 3/4 to 1 oz, Schultz's 3/4 oz and heavier. Evers' shallow baits run from a compact 1/4 oz to a 3/4 oz single Colorado for lily pads.

Weight and blade size work together. Our summary of Evers and Tackle Warehouse: a heavy head with small blades runs deeper at a given speed, and a light head with big blades runs higher. Evers wrapped adhesive weight strips (SuspendStrips) on the hook shank of a compact 1/4 oz bait to bring it to about 1/2 oz.

What the makers list:

• Booyah Blade, tandem (maker's specification, PRADCO): 3/16 oz with a No. 1 Colorado and a No. 3 1/2 willow on a 2/0 hook; 1/4 oz, No. 2 and No. 4 on a 3/0; 3/8 oz, No. 3 and No. 4 on a 4/0; 1/2 oz, No. 3 and No. 4 1/2 on a 5/0. The maker describes a .037 gauge stainless wire, blades on a ball-bearing swivel and a plastic keeper spike on the hook that holds a trailer without glue.
• War Eagle (the maker's own store, PRADCO): double willow in 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 and 3/4 oz; tandem willow and tandem Indiana in 3/8 and 1/2 oz; a single Colorado night bait in 1/2 oz; a finesse Colorado and turtleback in 5/16 oz; in gold-frame and nickel-frame versions.
• Nichols Pulsator Metal Flake double willow (the maker's page): 3/8, 1/2 and 3/4 oz.

Basis: consensus on the weight ranges; official on the makers' runs; editorial on the weight-and-blade rule, which is our summary of Evers and Tackle Warehouse

Trailers and trailer hooks

• Soft-plastic trailer. Optional, says Tackle Warehouse, and its list is grubs, split tails, swimbaits and flukes. Eaker cuts the skirt off just behind the hook and adds a white 3 inch grub, a 4 inch grub on baits of 3/8 oz and heavier. Lever uses a grub in a contrasting color, which also adds weight for deeper water, or a small swimbait to change the profile. Schultz matches the trailer to the skirt or the blades.
• Trailer hook. A second hook that rides behind the main hook for short strikes. Eaker adds a 1/0. Tackle Warehouse recommends one especially in muddy water, where, it says, fish rely on their lateral lines, and says to leave it off in heavy cover. Lever always uses one at night, and notes that many anglers will not fish a spinnerbait without one. Gamakatsu's Trailer Hook SP comes in sizes 1, 1/0, 2/0 and 3/0 with a rubberized coating molded over the eye, which the maker says makes attaching it to a spinnerbait easy and secure. Lever's description of the usual rig: the trailer hook moves freely on the shank of the main hook and is held in place by a small piece of rubber tubing.

Basis: consensus; official on the Gamakatsu size run and the Booyah keeper

Knots

None of the spinnerbait sources we read names a knot. We tie a Palomar or an improved clinch to the closed eye of the wire; this is our choice, not a source's. If you fish braid with a fluorocarbon leader, see line systems.

Basis: editorial

Lure choices and color logic

• Clear water, sun — a double or tandem willow in nickel, burned or fished fast; a white or shad skirt. Tackle Warehouse: natural shad and bluegill patterns. Eaker: white with blue glimmer for clean water.
• Clear water, cloud or wind — the same willows, slower and a little deeper; a Colorado-willow tandem if the fish want more thump.
• Stained — an Indiana or Colorado-willow tandem, white and chartreuse; Evers' red Colorado front blade.
• Muddy — Colorado blades, a trailer hook, chartreuse or dayglo orange for visibility, or black, red and purple for a dark silhouette; all of these are Tackle Warehouse's. Eaker: chartreuse and white for dirty water.
• Night — Lever's dark colors, a large Colorado, a slow retrieve and a trailer hook every time.

Basis: consensus; the pairing of clarity with light conditions is editorial

How to rig it

1. Choose the blades for the water (clear: willows; stained: Indiana or Colorado-willow; muddy: Colorado), and the weight for the depth and speed.
2. Add the trailer if you want one: thread it straight onto the hook, behind the skirt. On a Booyah Blade the keeper spike holds it; Eaker trims the skirt to just behind the hook and lets the grub carry the tail.
3. Add a trailer hook if the fish are hitting short or the water is muddy, and if you are not fishing heavy cover. Its eye goes onto the main hook, where, in Lever's description, it moves freely on the shank and is held in place by a small piece of rubber tubing; Gamakatsu's Trailer Hook SP has the coating molded over its eye instead.
4. Tie on to the wire's closed eye (see Knots).
5. Before the first cast, run it beside the boat and watch it: the blades should start turning at once and the bait should run upright. If it rolls on its side, retie or change baits. This check is ours, not a source's.

Basis: consensus on steps 1 to 3 (Iaconelli, Tackle Warehouse, Advanced Angler, Bassmaster, Booyah, Gamakatsu); editorial on step 5

How to fish it

Eaker's first rule applies to every retrieve: get the blades turning the instant the bait lands. In his words, about the worst thing you can do is let it hit the water dead. Keep the rod pointed at the bait and keep winding.

• Slow roll. Let it sink until the line goes slack, then reel just fast enough to keep the blades turning, low in the water and touching what is down there; that is Iaconelli's and Hoffman's description, and Schultz's key is keeping the lure in frequent contact with the bottom or the cover. Eaker never stops winding at a drop-off. A 3/4 oz bait or heavier, smaller blades, a 6:1 to 7:1 reel.
• Steady retrieve. Hoffman's basic toss: a medium cast, let it sink a moment, and reel steadily with the bait 1 to 4 feet down and the blades turning. KDFWR describes the spinnerbait as a lure for a steady retrieve.
• Burn. Iaconelli: a long cast, engage the reel at once, rod tip at 1 or 2 o'clock, and reel fast, with a short pause every few cranks so the skirt breathes and the blades stutter. A double or tandem willow, an 8:1 reel, mono that floats. Evers burned his along bluffs in clear water, less than a foot down.
• Wake, or bulge. Fast enough that the bait pushes a bulge on the surface without breaking it. Evers' bait for this was a compact 1/4 oz with size 3 1/2 and 4 willows and weight strips on the shank; he bulged it through shoreline grass and around lily pads and let it drop into openings in the grass.
• Jerk, kill and flutter. Evers' line is that you can jerk it, roll it, stop it, kill it. Iaconelli's middle-depth retrieve adds a twitch every 8 to 12 turns of the handle. Killing it, in Evers' hands, means stopping beside a log or a fork in a laydown so the bait falls a few inches. Hoffman's flutter is a full stop that lets the bait drop on a slack line, for inactive fish and shallow cover. Over grass, Schultz rips it free when it catches and lets it fall on a semi-slack line; strikes come on the fall or as it starts forward again.

The bite is a thump, a heavy weight, or the blades stopping. Eaker: if you feel mush, you had better be setting the hook, because that is a fish.

Basis: consensus; the retrieve names are the sources' own

What to change when it is not working

Change one thing at a time, in this order:

1. Depth. If you are not touching anything, our guess is that you are too high. Go heavier, go to smaller blades, or slow down (Evers; Tackle Warehouse; Schultz on big trailing blades climbing).
2. Speed. From a slow roll to a burn, or the reverse. Iaconelli fishes three speeds for three layers of the water column.
3. Blades. More thump for dirtier or colder water (Colorado, Indiana), more flash for clearer water (willow). Eaker's 57 degree switch is one worked example.
4. Rhythm. Add pauses, twitches and kills to a straight retrieve.
5. Short strikes. Add a trailer hook, unless the cover is too heavy for it.
6. Line. Mono to keep the bait up, fluorocarbon to get it down, braid in thick cover.

Basis: editorial on the order; consensus on each change

Common mistakes

• Letting it land dead. Eaker's worst thing you can do.
• Stopping at a drop-off. Eaker: don't quit winding; keep the blades going.
• Missing the contact. Schultz's key to slow-rolling is frequent contact with the bottom or the cover.
• A Colorado front blade on a burn. Iaconelli: it blows out.
• Too much blade for the depth. Big trailing blades climb, as Schultz notes.
• A trailer hook in heavy cover. Tackle Warehouse: it costs you the weedlessness.
• Line that stretches and is never checked. Lever's 12 lb Trilene stretches, so he checks it and reties through the day; he learned that when a 3 lb smallmouth broke off at the boat.

Basis: consensus (Bassmaster, Iaconelli, Tackle Warehouse, Advanced Angler)

Kayak notes

• Cast along the bank, not at it. Our habit from a seat: a long cast parallel to the bank keeps the bait near the cover for more of the retrieve. Into the wind, Lever's low sidearm cast.
• Let the wind work. Our suggestion: drift a windblown point, the water Tackle Warehouse points you to, and slow-roll down it.
• One rod. Our pick if you carry one spinnerbait rod: the 7 foot medium-heavy and a 7:1 reel from the beginner outfit above.
• Mind the hooks. Our advice: a spinnerbait with a trailer hook has two points, and the fish comes to hand close to your lap, so lip it or use a grip.

See kayak boat control.

Basis: editorial, with Lever on the sidearm cast

In Kentucky

KDFWR's species pages put largemouth in ponds, reservoirs, backwaters, oxbows and sloughs, usually around shallow, vegetated areas, standing timber, stumps and other cover, and reservoir smallmouth along rocky shores under ledges and around stumps and other submerged cover. To our reading, both describe spinnerbait water. The agency's own spinnerbait advice that we found is short: Lee McClellan's 2023 spring primer for the FINs lakes names a white and chartreuse spinnerbait as a good choice for largemouth and says it wants a steady retrieve rather than the patience of a slow-moving lure. His 2019 cold-water column quotes Chad Miles comparing a tailspinner, fished over grass or mud flats, to a spinnerbait.

We did not find a KDFWR column on spinnerbaits for any of the waters on this site, and the tournament reports that might have filled the gap would not load for us; see below.

Basis: official (KDFWR species pages and columns)

Skill level

Beginner. Cast it, reel it, keep the blades turning, and it will catch fish. What takes longer is the slow roll, done well: feeling the blades through the rod, keeping the bait just in contact with the cover, and choosing blades and weight so it runs where you want it.

Basis: editorial

What we don't know yet

• Wire tuning. Opening or closing the arm, and bending it to correct a bait that rolls, is widely discussed, but the instructional pieces we tried to read on it would not load. Status pending.
• Strike King's own descriptions. The maker's spinnerbait pages refused our fetches; we have not used retailer copy in their place. Status pending.
• The other blade shapes. Oklahoma, French and turtle-shell blades are named by Tackle Warehouse but not described in anything we could read. Status pending.
• Trailer hook orientation. Which way the trailer hook's point should ride: we found no maker instruction. Status pending.
• Current. None of the sources we read covers fishing a spinnerbait in river current or a tailwater. Status pending.
• Kentucky tournament reporting. Published results naming spinnerbaits on Dale Hollow, Lake Cumberland and Kentucky Lake exist, but the pages refused our fetches, so we have left them out. Status pending.

Sources and how confident we are

Claim	Source	Confidence
What each blade does	Bass Pro Shops, Advanced Angler, Bassmaster	Consensus
Weights, blade sizes, hooks	Booyah, War Eagle, Nichols, Gamakatsu	Official (makers)
Rods, reels, line	Tackle Warehouse, Iaconelli, Bassmaster	Consensus
Retrieves	Bassmaster, Iaconelli, Bass Pro Shops	Consensus
Kentucky	KDFWR	Official
Beginner outfit, change order, knots, kayak	Ours	Editorial

Sources

• Choosing the Right Spinnerbait & How to Work It — Bass Pro Shops 1Source (Justin Hoffman) — blades as propellers; what the willow, Colorado and Indiana blades do; the basic steady retrieve at 1 to 4 feet, the deep slow roll, the flutter.
• Beginner's Guide to Spinnerbaits — Advanced Angler (Rob Lever) — the parts; blades; 1/4 to 1/2 oz and 3/4 to 1 oz; grub and swimbait trailers; the trailer hook on rubber tubing; 6'6" to 7' medium rod; 12 lb line and retying; 55 degrees; wind and the sidearm cast; night and dirty water.
• Slow roll, take it easy — Bassmaster (David Hunter Jones, with Guy Eaker) — 3/4 to 1 oz; blades No. 5 or smaller; the warm-water Colorado-willow and the 57 degree double Colorado; skirt trim and grub; the 1/0 trailer hook; colors; 7 ft medium-heavy rod and 15 to 20 lb fluorocarbon; never let it land dead; the mushy bite.
• Slow-rolling spinnerbaits — Bassmaster (Bernie Schultz) — 3/4 oz and heavier; No. 4 front and No. 6 willow trailing; larger trailing blades climb; nickel and gold; 7'2" medium-heavy rod and 6.2:1 reel; fluorocarbon, mono and braid by situation; contact with cover; ripping from grass; relatively snag-proof.
• Jerk it! Roll it! Kill it! — Bassmaster (Jeff Samsel, with Edwin Evers) — willow preference; the red Colorado front blade; smaller blades fish deeper; the bulging bait; burning bluffs; killing on laydowns; 5 feet or less; 7 ft rod, 6.3:1 reel, 15 to 20 lb line.
• The Ultimate Spinnerbait Series: Retrieves and Tackle — Mike Iaconelli — the burn, the jerk and the slow roll; blades for each; the Colorado that blows out; rods; reel ratios by retrieve; mono, fluorocarbon and braid.
• A Thorough Spinnerbait Gear Guide for Bass Anglers — Tackle Warehouse — blade shapes; single versus double blades; rods by job; 7:1 reels and sizes; 12 to 20 lb fluorocarbon and 40 to 50 lb braid; trailer hooks and trailers; seasons; colors; windblown points.
• BOOYAH Tandem Blade — Lurenet (PRADCO) — the maker's description and specification table.
• War Eagle — Lurenet (PRADCO) — the maker's spinnerbait line by blade and weight.
• Pulsator Metal Flake Spinnerbait Double Willow — Nichols Lures — the maker's description and weights.
• Trailer Hook SP — Gamakatsu — sizes and the coated eye.
• Spring Fishing Primer for FINs Lakes — KDFWR (Lee McClellan, 2023) — the white and chartreuse spinnerbait for largemouth; the steady retrieve.
• Few lures beat a tailspinner in cold water — KDFWR (Lee McClellan, 2019) — the tailspinner fished like a spinnerbait.
• Largemouth Bass and Smallmouth Bass — Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife — habitat.

Related

Species

• Largemouth bass
• Smallmouth bass

Techniques

• Jig

Knots

• Palomar knot

Line

• Line systems
• Monofilament, fluorocarbon and braid

Gear

• baitcasting-setup