staying power
I
t ’ s hard to keep a secret in the bass fishing game . But once Bryan Thrift saw what a funny-looking jig with a hexagonal blade attached to its head could do during the 2005 season , he had to try . Despite winning back-to-back Stren Series events as a co-angler with the bait , Thrift managed to keep it under wraps , at least temporarily .
“ From the first cast I made with it , I could tell the ChatterBait was unique ,” Thrift reflects today . “ At that point , it was up to me to figure out the situations it would excel best in .”
Figure it out , he did . But after his first tournament as a pro the following January , the jig — the vibrating jig , that is — was up .
Thrift bagged 22 pounds , 7 ounces of bass on the final day to win that Toyota Series event on Florida ’ s Lake Okeechobee . Two of his five keepers topped 8 pounds . The 3 / 8-ounce ChatterBait he used to fool them — invented by Ron Davis and made by Rad Lures in Greenwood , South Carolina — could no longer be kept a secret .
Thrift was reluctant to show the world he had an ace up his sleeve . But his success — and pleading from the struggling lure makers — forced the hand of the young pro . Word of the hot new bait was out . The rest is history . Orders poured in at a rate that Davis ’ fledgling company couldn ’ t meet . In stepped Z-Man Fishing Products , a company Davis and the Rad Lures team had met at the 2005 Bassmaster Classic in Pittsburgh .
“ We were a small operation run by five people and behind 60,000 pieces on our orders when we sold to Z-Man ,” recalls Davis , who was grateful for the rescue . “ When Z-Man made its offer , we really had no choice .”
Since Thrift revealed it to the bass fishing world , the ChatterBait has created a whole new lure category . It has won dozens of tournaments , earned pro anglers millions of
Bryan Thrift was one of the first pro anglers to see firsthand the big bass allure of the vibrating jig .
PHOTO BY MLF the z-man chatterbait cfl is an under-the-radar chatterbait variation designed to stay down even when burned deep .
PHOTO BY BRANDON ROWAN
dollars and spawned countless derivatives and imitations . Today , the vibrating , or bladed , jig has become a staple in just about every bass fisherman ’ s arsenal .
“ Nearly every top angler on the pro circuits has a vibrating jig tied on a rod on his deck almost every day of the year ,” says Brett Hite , who has ridden a bladed jig to an estimated $ 600,000 in tournament winnings in his career . “ It catches fish . And bigger ones , too !”
But what is it about the vibrating jig that has given it the prominence and staying power of no bait type since the plastic worm ? A few of the pros who have helped expand the category explained the fish-catching power and versatility of the lure .
game changer
Most anglers agree that bass seem to become conditioned to baits they see frequently over time . Catch rates drop , often dramatically . Not so much with these jigs .
Davis points to the ChatterBait ’ s “ unusual vibration ,” a characteristic he sought to capture more than a decade before his lure reached the marketplace , as the reason . On fishing outings with his son at the Lake Wiley dam , Davis noted a frequent occurrence : bass attacking a sunfish that struggled frantically at the end of the boy ’ s line . Bass , he concluded , were clearly attracted to a prey species in distress .
An inveterate tinkerer , Davis challenged himself to create a lure that would simulate the vibration of struggling prey and trigger that predatory instinct . He pondered ideas and made prototypes . A model with a blade that swung right and left , clacking against a jighead , showed promise .
The effectiveness of the bait rested on a simple dynamic : a blade that produced intense vibration within a short unit of “ pull ,” like how a struggling baitfish might kick its tail frantically while making minimal forward movement .
“ He probably designed 20-plus prototypes over a 10-to- 15-year period ,” says Ron Anthony Davis , the creator ’ s son and Rad Lures founder , who , like his dad ( James Ronald Davis ) also goes by Ron . “ Once he got the hole placement of the blades correct , the material correct , the thickness and hardness of the material correct , the distance between the blade and the head correct , we had that heavy head banging and making noise and creating a lot of vibration . And the bait hunted . Fish would miss and come back to hit it two , three , five times . We just knew we had something special . Clear water , dirty water , cold water , warm water , prespawn , … It didn ’ t matter .”
52 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2023