When fishing fallen trees or lily pad beds, stinger hooks waste time in snags. If bass blow up behind the lure in dense cover, Alton Jones recommends changing colors before adding a trailer hook. And Bill Berry notes that a missed strike isn’t always a bad thing. “Always have a soft jerkbait rigged and ready to cast back to the spot,” he recommends.

Tuning Blades: Alton Jones has refined a system for getting the most from a buzzer, no matter the brand. He invites you into his lure lab. “First, I like buzzbaits that are squealers rather than clackers,” he states. “To maximize that sound, you need to work on all the lure’s sound-producing surfaces.

“Start with the aluminum rivet that holds the blade on the shaft. If it isn’t crimped to the shaft, crimp it so it can’t turn. Now examine the rivet and take a small needle-nose pliers and bend the flanges of the rivet to maximize the surface area where the back of the blade contacts the rivet. Ensure that the tab on the back of the buzzbait blade is at 90 degrees to maximize contact.

“Now with the lure turned with the hook up, use a fine file to rough up the surface of the rivet. Once you’ve completed those steps, you’re ready to tune the lure. Forget about taping buzzbaits to your car antennae. That just wears out your lure faster.

“Buzzbaits are meant to turn in water, as it lubricates them to prevent metal fatigue. So, hold your bait under the bathtub faucet for about 15 minutes. After about five minutes, you’ll hear the sound change, becoming louder and squeakier. After 10 more minutes, it will get downright obnoxious. Now you’re ready to fish!

Leftys and Rightys: Wisconsin bass expert Mike Mayan likes to fish buzzbaits in the industrialized harbors of the Great Lakes and their tributary rivers. He targets largemouth and smallmouth bass that hold in the abundant manmade cover these waterways offer—sea walls, barges, and piers. “To fish these straight objects, you need both a right-handed and a left-handed buzzbait,” Mayan says. “Bass hold at the indentations of sea walls or underneath barges.

“On each cast, your bait should tick against the edge of the cover for the entire retrieve. Bass can’t resist it. You need one buzzbait that pulls to its right to cast parallel to objects to your right, and you need one that pulls left for casting in the opposite direction.

“Most baits come with blades that turn counterclockwise as you look straight at the nose, which pulls the bait to the left. You can find baits that run in the opposite direction, or else buy blades and switch them. I also bend the blades backwards to make a standard model run the other way.”

Buzzbait Innovations

The original Lunker Lure remains a standout. Many similar designs feature an overhead wire frame with one aluminum Delta blade. At the same time, lure designers have studied the physics of the lure and have made some alterations that at times outproduce the classic design.

McGuinness Fishing Products offers the Leverage Buzzbait, an offshoot of their popular Leverage Spinnerbait, and has added the Twin Bladed Buzzbait. This model features a pair of Delta blades and the same cablelike connection between the hook and the head, allowing the lure to bend so bass have difficulty throwing it. Field testing has found the wire strong enough to haul bruisers out of brush.