“Three bass in three casts”
Those were the five words spoken by Bass Pro Dean Silvester at this years AFTA showcase on the Gold Coast that immediately lassoed my attention from the shit chat I was having with Hilly.
I quietly slinked over and found out the bait Deano was talking about was the Jackall Charablade chatterbait. He was referring to a white-hot bass session in spring on Glenbawn Dam where he literally lost count at the amount of bass and yellas the small chatter caught.
“So they’re not only a weapon of bass destruction, but they catch yellas, too?”
“Oh yeah, better than bass I recon. Yellas choke ‘em’”.
Right. I need to get my grubby paws on a few of those I thought and quickly raided the Jackall stand like an NRL player raiding a minibar.
The Testing Ground
Fast forward a month and we found ourselves bobbing up and down on Windamere Dam on our annual yellowbelly trip, with a healthy tally of golden goon bags already under the belt.
It was time to bust out the charablades and see if the tall stories matched the reality. We had two option to try – the 10g and 14g.
Now, no prizes for guessing we threw the 10g on a light spin set up – a soon-to-be-released Jackall Revoltage Light+ rod with a 2000-sized Daiwa TD Black spinning reel, with 8lb braid and 10lb FC leader.
For the 14g model, Hilly opted for a baitcaster set up, settling on a 7ft 2′ rod with a Concept Z spooled to the brim with 10lb braid and 12lb FC leader.
False Start
An hour in and after nothing more than a few solid snags and we quickly subbed out the chatter baits and went back to our tried and tested Jackall Transams.
That night we dissected the days fishing over an amber ale and couldn’t get past the lack of activity on the slow-rolled chatter baits.
So, with renewed vigour we fastened back on the chatterbaits and vowed to mix up our retrieve to hopefully unlock another golden weapon.
A New Dawn
The next session saw us seek cover from the wind and fish a tree laden bay around the corner from the boat ramp.
As Hilly steered the electric he let his fast worked 14g chatter plummet to the bottom. Just as he picked up the slack in his line he felt a soft pluck and instantly rolled the shoulders and drove the single hook in deep.
Now, the beauty of these baits is the swinging head with an ultra-light hook. Meaning that when paired with the right plastic the bait hinges at the join and the plastic sits up off the bottom on the pause.
After interrogating every detail of the capture we both set out ‘burn and killing’ our baits back to the boat. Each time the bait would get either lightly plucked or proper whacked as it was lifted off the dam floor during the start of the ‘burn’ phase.
We also found that the retrieval speed was best done at a fast walking pace for roughly ten cranks of the handle, before letting it sit for up to ten seconds on the ‘kill’.
Good Chatt
The rest of the trip played out like a chatterbait tutorial as we filled our yella knowledge tank with a heap of ‘on the water’ learnings, like what craw plastic worked best and what scent had the best reaction.
For those wondering, it was the Reflexion Swimbaits claw plastic and the Pro Cure Super Gel Shrimp scent that worked the best, with the 10g and 14g varieties splitting the points for the best size.
Now, while we’ve only just scraped the surface with these baits and are excited to keep testing them, the early signs are good for us anglers, but, unfortunately, not so good for Australia’s resident yellowbelly population.