Benny Hull — The Ol’ Stump Bumper

Secret Weapon Teaches Old Baits New Tricks

We all have confidence baits — ones that we have come to rely on over the years. If we’re not careful, though, we can get in a rut and overlook even better lures and techniques when they come along.

I remember when the first safety pin spinnerbaits appeared on Hales Bar (now Nickajack Lake) and Chickamauga back in the early ’50s. They revolutionized the way we fished! In-line spinnerbaits had been around for many years, of course, and they caught lots of fish. But you couldn’t pull them through the salad without loading them up.

The Fred Arbogast Baits™ Hawaiian Wiggler™ that I grew up throwing, like today’s Snagless Sally™ by Hidebrandt™, was a big-game, in-line spinner with wire weed guards. It pulled through the grass better than most, but we generally limited ourselves to fishing them over and around the edges of grass beds.

In 1951, a St. Louis, Missouri lure designer came out with a wire frame that positioned the spinner blade above the hook and also guarded the hook. They weren’t a big hit right off the bat because they were different. However, someone discovered it came right through the weeds without hanging up, and it turned out to be better than anything else for fishing log jams and lay downs, too.

Now, three generations of fishermen have relied on that same safety pin spinnerbait… a jig head and skirt, V-shaped wire frame, swivel, split rings, and a blade or two. Every year somewhere around 18 million black bass are still caught on that lure. Other hot baits hit the limelight every so often, enjoys some popularity, and then fade. But the venerable spinnerbait keeps on producing year after year. That’s why you will find a few (or a few dozen) in the tackle boxes of almost every serious angler.

Who would have thought that anyone could improve on the original? For fifty years, no one had.

I was skeptical, therefore, when Jake Davis, a director at Secret Weapon Lures, told me a company had reinvented the spinnerbait and introduced me to their Quickstrike spinnerbait. I could see it was made of good quality components. The head and skirt looked better than any spinnerbait I’d ever held, but where was the swivel? Instead of the usual arrangement, this bait came with an in-line blade assembly. A clip at the front attached it to the spinnerbait frame. When I held the contraption up, it sort of resembled a chain hanging off the lure — not something I’d normally think of to pull big bass out of a thick weed bed.

However, as soon as I tied one on and tossed it in the water, I started seeing things in a whole new light. Not only did that blade spin flawlessly and come through hydrilla and milfoil as well as any spinnerbait I’d ever used, but it actually produced greater vibration than any swivel-mounted blade. Plus, it started turning as soon as the lure hit the water; I didn’t need to pop or speed up the lure to get it turning like I usually do with blades on swivels.

When I killed my retrieve and let the bait drop down beside a grass clump or stump, the blade attachment swiveled up and all the blades fluttered and flashed like nothing I’d ever seen. And then when a two-pound largemouth slammed my lure, the blade was knocked aside but the head and hook remained right where they needed to be for a good hook set.

I kept experimenting with that Quickstrike. First I drifted over to a shallow gravel bar and flipped it out and let it settle to the bottom. As I lifted my rod tip, I saw and felt the blade turning. Thump-thump-thump… and this a willowleaf blade! Not exactly what I was expecting. I yo-yo’ed the bait back, and even as the lure dropped between lifts, I could still feel the revolving blade.

Next I tried burning the bait. Spinnerbait companies have come up with a lot of head and frame designs over the years to reduce roll-over at high speeds. A few ideas have helped, but ultimately all of them fail. You just can’t fight physics. As a blade spins, it creates torque, like you feel with an outboard motor with a spinning prop that pulls off to one side. The same principle pulls the frame to which a spinning blade is attached, and the lure lays over or even rolls at high speed retrieves. Heavier heads, smaller or thinner blades, different frame shapes… they help, but they don’t eliminate the tug of torque on the frame. And when a spinnerbait rolls onto its side, its effectiveness is cut in half.

For example, if the lure is on its side so the hook point is off to the left and a fish hits from the right, the chances of hooking that fish are way down there. That’s just something we lived with for fifty years…. If we wanted to burn our baits, we just had to put up with it.

Until now, that is. The spinner blade on a Secret Weapon still experiences torque; you can’t avoid that. But it is on its own frame. The force of the torque causes the little spinner blade frame to deflect to one side, but that just causes it to wobble like a spinning top. That small frame is attached to the spinnerbait frame — which is not directly affected by the torque. For that reason, I’m able to rip a Secret Weapon Quickstrike back to the boat and it stays upright, with the lure perfectly positioned for strikes from the left, right, behind, or below.

So, better vibration, comes through the slop, better hook sets… was there more to this new design. Jake Davis claimed there was.

“Have you ever had a bass hit your spinner blade?” asked Jake. “A smallmouth will grab a blade and tear it right off your spinnerbait. They can’t do this with a Secret Weapon. No split rings.”

Good point. Try as I might, I couldn’t wrench a blade off the bait he showed me. But then he blew my mind with his next tip.

“We’ve all felt a fish thump our spinnerbait but come up empty. That’s usually the fish hitting the flashing blade and missing the body. If you could put your hook on the blade, you’d really have something, wouldn’t you?” I allowed as how that would be a pretty neat trick.

Davis then pointed out the loop at the back of the blade attachment. I’d seen it was used to clip a second blade behind the first, creating sort of a daisy chain of blades, but when I saw he was attaching a treble hook to that loop with a split ring, the light bulb went off in my head. I couldn’t wait to try that! In the water, the blade spins at a 15 to 45 degree angle off the inline shaft. That’s plenty of clearance for the treble hook, and the spinning blade shielded the hook points so as long as I moved the bait along, it didn’t hang up. This was a great tip for fishing open water, grass edges, rip rap banks and deep water ledges. I’ve used this trick several times since then. When I feel a fish hit my spinnerbait a time or two without taking the hook, I’ll add a hook to the spinner blade and start catching those blade thieves.

Last, and may most important of all, the clip at the front of the blade assembly is secure but can be opened in a second without tools. No more split rings and pliers. I’ve always recommended using the right blade for every situation; blades are the most important part of a spinnerbait for attracting hits. But usually it took me a couple minutes to swap out a spinner blade, from a Colorado to a willowleaf, down-sizing, or changing from gold to nickel or white. To save time, I carried five or six dozen spinnerbaits in my box and just clipped and retied — assuming I had the right head, skirt, and blade combination on hand.

Now, though, I just unclip a blade attachment, pull out a handful of blades from my shirt pocket, pick the ones I want, clip them on, and fire my next cast. It takes about as much time to do as it does to read this paragraph.

While his buddy is pawing through his gear looking for the right bait, an angler using a Secret Weapon can be fishing the perfect blade combination for each cast. Simple, easy, and fast. Retrieves better, attracts more hits, converts more hits to hook-ups… This is how spinnerbaits should have been designed to begin with.

If they had, I know I’d have saved a mint over the past five decades. Before switching to the Secret Weapon spinnerbaits, I carried sixty or more spinnerbaits. Figuring about five bucks each, that comes out to $300. I now carry a ProPack of Secret Weapons that deliver over 2,000 different lure combinations. 60 choices for $300 or 2,000 choices for $100; well, you do the math.

Better performance, better value, better results... hey, for that I'm willing to make a switch. It’s never too late to teach an old dog — or an old lure — new tricks. And you’ll never find me on the water again without a few Secret Weapons in my arsenal.

Benny Hull
“The Ol’ Stump Bumper”