One of Josh Hooks’ big secrets to catching bass out of Shearon Harris Lake’s grassbeds is a lure that every tournament fisherman has in his tackle box: a chatterbait. And they’re used effectively at times.
Hooks at other members of N.C. State’s BassPack discovered — once the Alabama rig craze subsided — a chatterbait that worked like no other. It’s called a Karu chatterbait, and it has a unique blade with a is a pivoting design that bangs against either side of its football-shape head as it wobbles in about a 90-degree arc.
“See where the chatterbait has worn the paint off the side of the leadhead?” Hooks said, pointing to a pair of well-worn spots on either side of the jighead. “It wiggles hard, but the best thing I like is it has a ‘hunting’ action. If it gets hung in grass, you don’t jerk it hard. You just keep reelin’, and it’ll break free.”
Chatterbaits are not new lures. Whopper Stopper Lures of Sherman, Tex., sold a “DirtyBird” lure in the 1950s advertised as a “surface or bottom-bumper” and “weedless for trashy water.” It was, in essence, a Chatterbait.
RAD Lures of Greenwood, S.C., produced a Chatterbait that pro Bryan Thrift of Shelby used to win a big tournament in 2006, and that put Chatterbaits on the map. Shortly thereafter, Z-Man Lures bought the bait from designer Ron Davis and aggressively defended its patent — most manufacturers waved the white flag.
“But I still get original Karu chatterbaits,” Hooks said. “A guy makes ’em in his garage.”
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