When Greg Hackney began bass fishing, a rod with a spinnerbait tied on was locked in his hand. It’s still hard to pry it loose in October.
“The first five years of bass fishing, all I threw was a spinnerbait,” he said, adding he quickly learned two times of the year when “blades” are ultra-effective.
“It does seem there are two certain periods of time — spring, and late in the year, October — I promise you, a spinnerbait will work in our area,” he said, talking about the marsh, Lake Verret area and the Atchafalaya Basin.
When days get shorter, water temperatures fall and bass target shad more than anything else, Hackney relies on a spinnerbait he designed: the Strike King Hack Attack Select. Hackney normally throws a ½-ounce model but downsizes to a 3/8-ounce model when he prefers a smaller profile.
“Depending on the size I pick, you can really power fish from October to December,” he said.
Color choice
Hackney, an accomplished angler who fishes the Major League Fishing Bass Tour, favors “turtle back” double blades, including an orange blade much of the time on Lake Verret and the Spillway. In clearer water, he likes double willow-leaf blades: a gold and a silver. Hack Attack Selects have painted blades of various popular colors, including white and chartreuse.
The key to catching more bass on his spinnerbait is to use a soft-plastic trailer, with the color hinging on the skirt color, he confided.
“A funny thing, what I do a lot of the time with a chartreuse/white spinnerbait, I use a white trailer. With a white spinnerbait, I use a chartreuse trailer. It’s a confidence deal for me, and it works,” he said.
Most of the time, he uses a single, curlytail soft-plastic trailer, he added.
“The other thing, even when they’re eating it, I find a rule of thumb is to always have a trailer hook,” he said.
Hackney, who turned 46 on Sept. 1, usually ties the blade on with 20-pound Gamma fluorocarbon.
“You don’t want to lose it to a choupique,” he said.
He uses a Lew’s Custom Pro Reel, 6:1 ratio, mounted on a 6-10 Hack Attack Spinnerbait Rod, medium-heavy with a soft tip, he said.
