Spinnerbait Insights

On August 29th, Doug Stange posted an interesting blog about his recent endeavor of employing a spinnerbait for smallmouth bass along the Mississippi River near Brainerd, Minnesota, which was running unseasonably high and unusually stained.

About 15 months ago Stange sent a note, wanting to know if we would write a piece for the 2011 Gear Guide about spinnerbaits.  He was wondering if the spinnerbait had lost its luster and sexiness the eyes of the anglers and their quarry. In the article The Spin on Spinnerbaits, we neglected to note a significant insight about spinnerbaits from Charlie Campbell of Forsyth, Missouri.

Campbell is a sage in the bass fishing world. He was also a pioneer in creating and wielding spinnerbaits. His CC Spinner, which Blakemore Lure Company manufactured, inveigled untold numbers of lunker-sized bass in the impoundments across the Ozark region.

Campbell classifies the spinnerbait as a big bass lure, and he suspects that the eruption of the largemouth bass virus at waterways across the nation and killed many of the biggest bass.  Thus, the demise of the big bass made the spinnerbait less effective than it was before the advent of the virus. But as the bass populations have recovered from the virus and the size of the bass has increased, Campbell and his friend Stacey King of Reed Springs, Missouri, have noticed that the effectiveness of the spinnerbait has increased.    Thus Campbell and King are of the opinion that we will see a spinnerbait renaissance in the years to come as more and more lunker bass inhabit the formerly virus-ridden lakes.

In addition, Campbell is eager to read perspectives and comments from other anglers across the country who have lived and are living through the largemouth bass virus years.

Of course, he wants to know if the effectiveness the spinnerbait has improved as the virus has waned.

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