Insider advice for choosing the best blade combos.

Copper blades have long been recognized for their effectiveness in stained water. Some top anglers also have discovered the magic of black spinnerbaits. “It’s the diametric opposite of the world’s best selling color, so maybe that tells you something right there,” Ralph Manns says. “When I lived in Austin, Texas, and fished with a bass club there,” Manns recalls, “one of the perennial top finishers relied almost entirely on a black spinnerbait, particularly during the first hours after sunrise, a time when I’d generally do well with an all-black Norman Deep Little N. I picked up on the spinnerbait, but after a few successful years with it, the entire bass club started fishing black spinnerbaits, and it became much harder to win with that presentation.”

Black spinnerbaits have special appeal both in the moderately stained waters of central Texas and in the clear natural lakes of the Northeast and Midwest. It takes a little coaxing to fish a black spinnerbait, after relying on chartreuse and white for so long. But those first few bites go a long way toward creating confidence in a lure. Black works particularly well for me in spring and fall, but those are the best spinnerbait seasons in this region.

“Black contrasts with nearly all background colors,” Manns notes, “so it’s visible to fish that are hunting. At night, black spinnerbaits worked above the fish contrast with the sky, which is comparatively light due to stars, the moon, and city lights.

“Spinnerbaits generally work best fished above the level of the bass, but if you’re slow-rolling along the bottom, bass may target the lure from above. In that case, a light contrasting color should enhance bites. Skirts with a little chartreuse or light blue work well. Two-tone baits, with black and a lighter color, excel at night.”

Around the time bass spawn, spinnerbaits with a general bluegill appearance work well throughout the largemouth’s range. Barbara Cooke-Stevenson, veteran guide on Lake Fork and Lake Cooper in Texas, keeps one tied on during that period, so much so that her clients have dubbed it “Barbara’s Special.”

“It’s the one Johnsons’ makes that combines chartreuse, lime green, and orange; they call it firetiger, but it really resembles a bream,” she says. “Bluegills swarm around the bass beds, and the largemouths take after them with a fury. They really crush this color during spring.”

Industry Perspectives

Alan McGuckin, Public Relations Manager for Outdoor Innovations, makers of the Terminator, comments on color from the business side. “We follow the advice of our pro staff and do a lot of field testing to determine skirt, blade, and head combinations that make a lure effective.

“We offer a wide selection, but it seems that too many anglers want to buy only basic chartreuse, white, or combinations of chartreuse-white. We’ve had to remove some of our best colors from our spinnerbait selection. Our gizzard shad color, which included gold, silver, and black, was a killer, but it didn’t sell well.

“Arkansas bass pro Rob Kilby designed the blue shad, with a SilaChrome blue skirt matched with two nickel blades. That bait is deadly in clear water, but the blue didn’t interest anglers as much as it interested bass.” One of my favorite Terminator colors for northern lakes was shellcracker, with a touch of strawberry, blue, and chartreuse. Its sunfish appearance is a killer around vegetation, but it too is only available in a slip-on skirt, a great feature offered by companies like Outdoor Innovations and Northland Tackle. “I hope your article educates anglers in the need for different colors,” McGuckin adds.