I believe one of the most highly-effective and overlooked products is the Spike-It Blade Dip. I like the white, chartreuse and chrome blade dips. I like to dip the nose of my baits with fire red blade dip. Another place I use blade dips is on hooks. Red hooks have become very popular in the last few years. Changing the hooks on lures is aggravating, however with Spike-It ’s Blade Dip, changing hooks isn’t necessary. You just use the blade dip to dye the hooks red. Getting a red hook on a blade, such as the spoon, is almost impossible, but you can solve this problem with the Spike-It blade dip. I also like to use the blade dip on vibrating baits such as the Silver Buddy. Most people jerk a blade bait or spoon off the bottom and tend to catch the bass when the bait is falling back to the bottom. I don’t give my blade bait a hard jerk off the bottom. Instead, I use a slow hop – I pull the blade, bait or spoon off the bottom just enough to feel it vibrate. I drop my rod tip and let the lure fall back to the bottom. I think that the bass prefer a slower presentation and a less erratic bait. As the water warms up during March and the first part of April, you may want to rip these baits off the bottom and let them make a long fall back. I’ve found that hopping the bait off the bottom until it vibrates and letting it fall back is more-effective in the lakes I fish at this time of year because the water temperature is 40 to 45 degrees. I catch many bass on the Silver Buddy, which is a piece of thin metal that resembles a shad and has lead on either side of its head. When you pull it off the bottom, it swims or vibrates, and when the bait falls back, it produces a dead action. The Silver Buddy bait is deadly-effective on all the black bass species, including spotted bass, largemouth bass and smallmouth bass. However, in the lakes I fish, I usually catch smallmouth bass with this bait. I also use the Spike-It blade dip to put spots, stripes, dots and other lines on the Silver Buddy.
TOMORROW: THE FLOATING FLY
