The first time I fished a buzzbait, I knew it would work. So I was surprised when it went untouched for the next 20 casts. It seemed to have all the ingredients—soft, plopping sound on the surface, wiggling skirt, flashing blades. Moreover, the unusual lure seemed guaranteed to arouse the curious and aggressive nature of a bigmouth bass.

Fortunately, I didn’t let my initial disappointment squelch my interest in the bait, an old Harkins Lunker Lure. I kept trying it. One evening it happened—I caught a big bass on almost every cast in a small oxbow lake, fishing over weed pockets and lily pads.

I later learned that this lesson is a common one. It’s hard to predict when buzzers work best. At times, I’ve considered conditions and thought, “Okay, they should really eat a buzzbait today,” then am forced to admit defeat after an hour or two.

Conversely, I’ve spent the day dredging the depths with finesse baits, only to learn that other anglers had enjoyed a blistering buzzbait bite nearby. One thing that’s predictable, however, is that a buzzbait bite is a big-bass bite, which makes it well worth searching for.

Top-ranked Texas pro Alton Jones, known for his versatility, comments: “The buzzer is a bait I always carry, though I may go days at a time without throwing it. When it’s right, it’s really right and will outproduce any other lure,” Jones says. “You have to keep trying it to see if the bass are in a buzzbait mood. Fortunately, when they’re on it, you won’t have to wait long to find out.”

The Buzzbait Calendar

Most buzzbait fans feel confident once water temperatures approach 60°F in the spring, and until they drop below about 50°F in fall. Around the spawn, most anglers favor slow-moving baits, when targeting bass holding in thick cover or around nesting areas.

Alton Jones notes, however, that a buzzbait can tempt big females that suspend just under the surface in early spring, where they seem to heat themselves in the warmest water available. “These big bass are spooky, and once you see one, she’s usually gone. Make long casts with a small buzzbait and work it slowly over open spots in shallow bays. It won’t be a jarring strike, but the bait will just disappear in a swirl.”

Jones notes one other spring situation when buzzbaits shine: “This scenario usually occurs in southern waters when a spring hot spell quickly raises the water temperature into the 70°F range in the middle of the spawn. Again, you’re fishing for spooky females. You can catch them by running buzzbaits over grassy flats, both submergent vegetation like hydrilla and milfoil and emergent plants like Potamogeton, needle grass, pepper grass, and alligator weed.”

During summer, most anglers fish deeper structure or weededges, or target shallow cover with jigs and soft plastics. A morning topwater bite offers a chance for a big fish on a buzzer. But Bill Berry, an aspiring pro angler from Indiana, often sticks to a buzzbait during the heat of a summer day. “In the midwestern lakes we fish, I often pick up my buzzbait rod in the morning and don’t put it down till it’s time for the weigh-in,” Berry states. ”Some folks forget that the Illinois-Indiana region is the original home of the buzzbait, and from there its popularity spread to the southeast.

“I admit you might get more bites on a worm,” Berry continues, “but my buzzbait fish will be bigger. If I can get five good bites, or maybe just four, I can win most tournaments.” For this summer pattern, Berry chooses a 3/8-ounce Terminator T-1 Buzzbait. “It works well at a fast retrieve,” he notes, “due to its titanium frame that flexes to make it run straight. In hot weather, cast it over the thickest cover and crank it fast. Keep a soft plastic jerkbait handy to throw back if a bass misses the buzzer.”

Fall is prime buzzbait time, whether you fish weedy natural lakes or rocky reservoirs. Cooling water moves bass shallow, and they feed aggressively under prime conditions. In fall, prime buzzbait conditions include both sunny calm conditions and overcast windier times.

As water temperature falls through the 50°F range, weedgrowth on middepth flats thins, providing better feeding opportunities for big bass. In clear lakes, a strong buzzbait bite often lasts until waters cool below 50°F. A big, slow-moving, single or double buzzer will lure bass to the top better than a soft plastic bait or a spinnerbait—a strong pattern for the year’s biggest bass.

In reservoirs with a shad prey base, cooling water also brings a strong, shallow bite as bass push baitfish schools against vertical banks in the main lake or in feeder creeks, and they also surface-feed offshore in clear impoundments. In both situations, a buzzbait can be a top choice, particularly for bigger bass. As the water cools, slow your retrieve rate. Wherever possible, run the lure into stumps, rocks, or snags to suddenly change the cadence.

Buzzbaits work in water clarities from ultraclear to muddy, but most experts feel their odds are best with visibility from 6 inches to 3 feet. Water of intermediate clarity keeps bass relatively shallow, while still providing sufficient visibility for them to track the lure from below.

Tricks For Tuning Buzzers

Straight off the shelf, buzzbaits catch fish. Still, pros often alter lures to gain a slight advantage in sound production, in appearance, or in hooking ability.

Stinger Hooks: Because bass often seem to strike behind a buzzbait, many experts add a stinger hook when conditions allow. It’s arguable whether a bass that misses a bait actually wanted to eat it, however. Fish accurately aim attacks on steadily moving objects on the surface. Bass sometimes charge a bait to chase it away, or to investigate it more closely. An extra hook can hook these fish.

Bill Berry prefers a Mustad Triple Grip hook as a trailer, holding it on with a section of hard plastic that allows it to swing freely. “The bend of that hook doesn’t catch objects as readily as other hooks, but when bass hit it, you’ve got ’em,” he says. Some anglers remove the low-hanging tine of a treble to reduce hang-ups, and double hooks are a good option that helps balance the lure. For buzzers in the 1/8- to 3/16-ounce range, a #6 treble is generally sufficient, increasing to a #2 for big 5/8-ounce models.

When adding a single hook, most anglers position it with the point up to reduce snags. But in open water, a down-turned point often will catch schooling bass—largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass—that slash at the lure.

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.

Feeling the need for a more realistic buzzbait, Lucky Craft designed the B-MH Buzzbait, with a lifelike fish-shaped head made of tungsten resin and plastic, in place of a leadhead and skirt. It’s packaged with an optional tail blade for extra flash and added lift at slow retrieves.

Lure designer John Duwel of Strictly Bass Lures offers the Cheeter Buzz, available in 3/16- and 5/16-ounce models. Cheeters feature a bent shaft to drop the head deeper in the water and an oversized blade to keep it on top at the slowest retrieves. Its flattened head also helps it hug the surface. Finally, a specially designed rivet produces a strong squeak right off the shelf.

Terminator, first with a titanium-framed buzzbait, added the Tiny Buzz (1/8-ounce) and Bill’s Triple Buzz. Now comes the 3/8-ounce Ball Buster, with a metal ball hanging below the blade to create an unusual clatter as it’s retrieved. Fans of the Cav-I-Tron buzzbait will be pleased that the originator of the lure, Lee Bailey, is now marketing it under the Bass Challenge brand.

Persuader American, a company specializing in buzzbait innovation, has just added a double buzzer to fill the void of Blue Fox’s discontinued line. Its extra bubbling and slow retrieve cadence make it a top producer.

Also check Persuader’s new in-line double-bladed buzzer with counter-rotating blades, the Two Timer. All Persuader buzzbaits come with powder-painted heads and blades for long-lasting color. Leadhead Lures also has incorporated a new blade-coloring process in their Talon Buzzbaits. Missouri bass pro Basil Bacon worked with designer Dave Trantham of Vision Lures to create what they call the ultimate buzzbait. The HoneyBuzz’s advantage lies in its free-swinging weighted hook, which rides lower in the water to give bass a good target. There’s also a brass weight on the shaft between the head and the hook for balance. Other features include a Limber Legs skirt, VMC needlepoint hook, and a frame of .051 stainless-steel wire topped off with a prerusted rivet for extra squeal. Bacon recently banked $110,000 on the strength of the new lure, fishing the Forrest L. Wood (FLW) tournament on Old Hickory Lake in Tennessee.

As part of Daiwa’s new lure line-up, the T-D Buzzmax adds a Super Splash prop that slices water fore and aft for maximum disturbance. And a keel-shaped head helps plane the Buzzmax at slow retrieves.

In some situations, anglers like buzzbaits that clack, creating extra sound to attract strikes. Several models, including Terminator’s Ball Buster and Persuader’s Clacker Buzz Bait, incorporate blades that swing on the shaft below the main blade to make contact on every blade revolution.

Another family of clackers is built so the main blade whacks the lure’s head on each turn, creating a loud, high-pitched sound. Hildebrandt’s Headbanger, designed by buzzbait expert Bernie Schultz, has a tin head that’s contacted by a plated blade for a raucous commotion. The Flat Shad Lunker Lure has a buoyant plastic body that’s hit by the overhead blade for a resonating sound.

Manufacturers also produce baits with more than two “ears,” which spin easily and quickly to provide action and lift on the lure. Quad buzzers, made with a pair of two-eared blades, also have a following. Hart Tackle has recently added a 4-Bladed Buzzer to their line, for a total of 10 buzzbait models.