March and April are Chatterbait-centric months for many of us who fish them. Z-Man’s extensive lineup of bladed jigs continues to evolve and proves to be an outstanding lure to catch big spring largemouths with.

Whether fishing clear water natural lakes, turbid southern reservoirs, drainage lakes and backwater systems, dark water subdivision ponds, and anywhere else you can access to following ice out, you can often trigger largemouths with some variant and model of the Chatterbait. 

The joy of Chatterbait fishing nowadays is the variety of colors and trailers that can be combined to create color profiles. Z-Man has taken Chatterbait steps further now offering them in tungsten, highlighted by the recently introduced Chatterbait Tungsten Elite EVO. 

Want them in more compact, smaller sizes? The Chatterbait Jackhammer Baby Jack meets the criteria. 

In recent years since my Chatterbait portfolio drastically expanded thanks to our friendship and partnership, I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with colors and trailer options. This all happens through trial and error. During the winter months for example, I’m down in my workshop office where I play around with lures and baits like they’re my toys, creating potential combos. As soon as the ice melts, they go to work for me. Results are either immediate or not at all – or depends on that specific fishery’s preference. The fish will tell you. 

 

How my Chatterbait Fishing Has Evolved

Back when the original Chatterbait first came out, anglers were limited to a handful of generic colors. I still keep a few original OG’s I bought in 2006 when the craze first hit. Today these sit in my office as souvenirs and mementos.

Chatterbaits have since come a long ways. Constuction, colors, weights, sizes, materials, hooks, trailer keepers, skirts…. everything. Today, we have infinite freedom to mix and match different Chatterbait variations and colors to create and accomplish a wide variety of fishing and color objectives.

My bladed jig box comprises of Z-Man Chatterbaits in all sizes and models, consisting of Jackhammers, old discontinued Chatterbait Freedom’s, Chatterbait Big Blades, Chatterbait Elite EVO and last year’s huge hit the Chatterbait Tungsten Elite EVO. 

Just like my color guideline for spinnerbaits and swim jigs, I try to follow the exact same selection processes with chatterbaits. Light and bright colors for shad waterbodies, fire craws for crayfish-driven and dark water fisheries, and dark contrasting colors otherwise and all the time. Black & blue, bluegill, chartreuse, and fire-craw are sleepers for each chatterbait model. Each jig and trailer package you come up with must be color coordinated – that’s mandatory law. 

Not more than 10 seasons ago, I used to fish most frequently with the Chatterbait Freedom, which was made specifically to Freedom Tackle. The Freedom was great for anglers wanting to custom modify the baits with their own hook and skirt options to enhance fishability and its catchability. When I still fish this model, I remove the weedless twisted hook attachment in favor of a 4/0 and 5/0 Trokar Flip’N hook to be fished exposed with trailer of choice. The skirts aren’t the most durable and are prone to warping, so it will accept after-market skirts and custom-ties.

Then when we became friends with Z-Man, the Chatterbait Elite (pre-EVO) in ½ ounce model was the bait of choice. Prior to the 2023 release of the NEW EVO, the Elite was available in 11 basic colors featuring strong hand-tied skirts and air-brushed heads, and a high-quality 5/0 Gamakatsu hook that was much sharper than the Original Chatterbait. I often suggested this Chatterbait to readers if what you sought was simplicity and durability for a great value of $7.99 retail. I still keep a large supply of them but slowly they’ve gotten phased out in favor of current product. 

In 2024 the Chatterbait Elite EVO became a huge hit, scorching the largemouths in March, April and May of that year. The Elite EVO is available in 24 colors with highly detailed sculpted heads, featuring a custom-built trailer-friendly keeper hook system. For the price of $9.99, you can’t go wrong. This bait is still tops for me. 

Later that year Z-Man upgraded the Elite EVO, making it available in a tungsten model, the Tungsten Elite EVO. Cosmetics are the same, but the tungsten version is much denser and heavier – casts further, has quicker and immediate blade engagement, and it can be fished much deeper. The Tungsten Elite EVO frequently gets worked along bottom where it zips past largemouths and smallmouths, triggering them in the process. It’s become an outstanding bottom grinding and shallow water structure tool to trigger bass with. It fishes best on our river systems and flowages.

The key to the ChatterBait Elite EVO’s success lies in its hunting action. The blade’s contact with the jighead creates a lifelike, erratic movement, key for triggering reactionary bites from largemouths. Similarly to how crankbaits contact cover and bang off structure, this hunting action, where the bait tracks straight before darting off and returning, mimics a fleeing baitfish and triggers more bites.

In 2025 we filmed a handful of dark water smallmouth segments using the Tungsten Elite EVO on Midwest Outdoors TV, which will air this programming season. 

Meanwhile, the popular Jackhammer series gets used a little more selectively and sparingly – due to the presence of pike – featuring more bells and whistles and over 20 different colors. Being a Japanese import the Jackhammer recently had a tariffs influenced price hike, now costing consumers $19.99 a pop. Regardless of cost, it too provides a powerful and perfectly-tuned vibration with good looks and in colors not offered or replicated by anyone else.  

 

The Only Colors and Combos You’ll Need

Fishing with Z-Man’s ChatterBaits since day-1, and more extensively these last 5 or so years, I wanted to create a showcase of my top producing colors and compatible trailers that will help optimize your tackle selection and maximize your productivity fishing them – and to make your selection process easy and less confusing.

When pairing lure and trailer together, you’ll learn how color coordinating is integral to creating one cohesive and color-coordinated bait that impersonates the dominant forage of the fishery and gets the fishes attention.

 

Chatterbait Elite EVO

Color: Bama Craw

Size: ½ ounce

Trailer: Z-Man ChatterSpike (fire craw)

Where to use: Excels in early spring for largemouths under all settings and locations, immediate at ice out. Original intent was to replicate bluegills but fishes best where craw patterns work. In 2024 and 2025 this combination was a killer for tannic & dark water smallmouths from lakes and flowages – a top producer on dark smallmouth lakes. I would fish this color hard for river smallmouths too. Replicates yellow perch very well during early fall smallmouths. Fire craw is a thing in spring, so be wise to use Bama Craw with the fire craw ChatterSpike everywhere you fish largemouths too.

 

Chatterbait Freedom

Color: Black & Blue

Size: ½ ounce and ¾ ounce

Trailer: Bizz Baits Killer Craw (black & blue)

Where to use: My personal OG for monster spring largemouths. Has produced multiple fish to 6 and 7 pounds in the last 5 years. No longer manufactured by American Baitworks under the Freedom Tackle brand with Z-Man due to production costs and low demand, which is a shame. Use with regularity once water temperatures reach low 50’s. Larger profile, articulated design, and bulkier body work nicely together to be retrieved slower. Bait pictured has been modified to fit an exposed Trokar 5/0 flipping hook. Exposed hook results in more hookups.

 

Chatterbait Freedom

Color: Black & Blue

Size: ½ ounce and ¾ ounce

Trailer: 4.7 Bass Assassin Boss Shiner (Gold Rush)

Where to use: Sometimes, bigger is better and there will be days largemouths favor a wide kicking paddletail over craws and sickle tail plastics. I fish this combo a lot on trophy waters where big fish seek something a little different and larger. Larger profile, articulated design, and bulkier body work nicely together to be retrieved slower. For best streamlined swimming, rig it as shown with a weedless hook.

 

Chatterbait Elite EVO

Color: Black & Blue

Size: ½ ounce

Trailer: Z-Man ChatterSpike (black & blue)

Where to use: This black and blue Chatterbait should be kept tied on at all times. Just like fire craw patterns, black and blue is synonymous with spring largemouths, and it works everywhere. This combo gets fished year-round as it is also a top producer on bloom lakes in summer, and when largemouths make their final push into the shallows in early fall. This was another top combo from 2024 and 2025. This past season, I found myself working more with Z-Man’s Chattershad as trailer. Just something to experiment with between Chatterspike and Chattershad. I have not found much drastic difference between the two.  

 

Chatterbait Jack Hammer

Color: Fire Craw

Size: 3/8 ounce

Trailer: Z-Man Hella CrawZ (fire craw)

Where to use: Craw rigged Chatterbaits like this package work best under slow retrieves which helps keep it longer in the strike zone and reduces diving depth. I’ve had the best success with this combo on muddy water ponds and lakes from ice out through April. Then it doesn’t get much use thereafter. I theorize fire craw fishes best in wood, sand, muck, mud, rock and rip rap areas rather than weeds due to them being the likeliest crayfish habitats. Alternatively, use a fire craw Razor ShadZ or ChatterSpike too.

 

Chatterbait Elite (original)

Color: Black & Blue

Size: 3/8 ounce

Trailer: Z-Man Razor ShadZ (breaking bream)

Where to use: This Chatterbait is the original black and blue lure for me. Compared to the Elite EVO’s which replaced this model and have a differently shaped head with improved blade attachment and line tie, and sharper hook with hook keeper, the original Elite has less imposing blade power and vibration which aids in its effectiveness in cold water when fish are more sluggish. This combo is historic for producing several large ice-out largemouths in water temps as low as 39 degrees. These strikes in cold water are lighter pickups and slurp-like. Since the introduction of the ChatterSpike, the Razor ShadZ also lost their luster for me but I continue to specifically work this lure exclusively with the breaking bream Razor ShadZ. Excellent cold water bait.

 

Chatterbait Elite EVO

Color: Glitter Bomb

Size: 1/2 ounce

Trailer: Z-Man ChatterSpike (bad shad)

Where to use: Shad based colors excel at fisheries where shad make up the bulk of the bass forage. The shad fisheries I fish are commonly the subdivision ponds, man-made lakes, and reservoirs. Each of these shad fisheries require light, white, and fluorescent Chatterbait jig and trailer colors like this combo. The Glitter Bomb EVO with a bad shad ChatterSpike gets fished most frequently in early season. It will also work up north on clear lakes and as largemouths feed on minnow species, but as noted above I gravitate to other colors for northern largemouths as they are more visible in the shallows and trigger bites better.

 

I fish a steady balance of 3/8 and ½ ounce sizes. 3/8 is adequate in shallow water, but ½ ounce has better casting distance, depth coverage, and produces a greater vibration.

To tackle largemouths, we strongly recommend a heavy power moderate action rod. St. Croix Rods offers several models available at different price points.

For all chatterbait fishing, I recommend the St. Croix Mojo Bass Glass Rip-N-Chatter (MGC72HM). The rod handles and loads gently thanks to the S-Glass, which is critical due to the nature of chatterbait strikes. Some smallmouths had no business staying pinned, but the Mojo Glass kept them on. This setup is paired with an 8:1.1 Seviin GF spooled with 20-pound Cortland Masterbraid.

Additionally, a secondary rod I work with is the St. Croix Legend Tournament Rip -N – Chatter. This 7ft 2inch heavy moderate is a great combo stick for lipless crankbaits and chatterbaits. What I like best about it is its construction, featuring SCIV + with iAct Glass, a carbon fiber hybrid with internally active Linear S-Glass. While this isn’t a fully glass rod like the Mojo Bass Glass, or Legend Glass, and isn’t bulky like them, it’s got the same flex and shock that you’ll find important for working such lures. On this setup, paired with a 7:3.1 Seviin GF, I am running 15-pound Seaguar Fluorocarbon.

It takes a while and a lot of trial and error to find out what the fish and fishery like, and what types of Chatterbait and trailer combinations to use.

Z-Man has done an incredible job at developing primary colorways to represent forage species and cater to nationwide fisheries. Whether fishing bluegill-based lakes, shad-based reservoirs, crayfish-oriented river systems and flowages, or lakes of every water clarity, there is a color and combination out there for you.

 

Andrew Ragas splits time between the Chicago area and Wisconsin’s Northwoods. Based in Minocqua, WI, he specializes in trophy bass fishing and offers guided trips from May thru October. While big bass is the passion, he dabbles in multi-species as well. He may be visited online at www.northwoodsbass.com