I love vibrating jigs like the Chatterbait for bass fishing. I’ve caught fish off of wood cover, docks, grass, in 90 degree water and 50 degree water alike. So it’s become a staple of my bass fishing lure lineup from about February until December. I sometimes get my Chatterbait hung on wood cover or obstacles in the water, so I was pretty excited to hear about the new Z-Man Chatterbait Freedom and the ability to rig a plastic on there and make it totally snagless.
The Z-Man Chatterbait Freedom comes in 3/8- and 1/2-ounce sizes in the 6 staple colors for vibrating jigs — White, Shad, Chartreuse/White, Black/Blue, Green Pumpkin and Bluegill. And then a 5/0 or 6/0 offset wide-gap hook. The hook is removable like all Freedom Tackle products so you can put your favorite plastics hook on there if you choose.
My Experiences with the Z-Man Chatterbait Freedom
I fish a Chatterbait a lot. This time of year when some of the bass meander back shallow feeding on shad fry, it can be a very effective fish catcher on isolated pieces of wood or around boat docks. I’ve fished the Chatterbait Freedom on laydown trees, stumps, stake beds, floating docks, standing timber, standing docks, rip rap and bank grass.
The bait comes through cover well, keeps it’s orientation around objects and maintains a steady vibration. The hookups have been consistently good on the bait. That was one of my concerns because I typically like an inline head on winding skirted baits. But I didn’t have any problems hooking up with fish with the swinging hook. And they stayed hooked up as well.
I found the hook didn’t work for all trailers because of the need to Texas rig or Tex-pose the hook on the trailer body. Shorter trailers might requirer a smaller hook. But it works well for soft jerkbaits, swimbaits and 4-inch craw trailers.
The bait doesn’t skip quiet as well as the jighead version of the original Chatterbait, but I was still able to slide the Chatterbait Freedom under docks, walkways and low hanging trees without problem, and the fact that it’s weedless, meant I could sling over and through cover without fear of hanging. So I was able to get a bit more aggressive with my casts.
I think this will be a good option for bank fishermen who have to deal with a bit of cover between them and the water as well.
The Chatterbait Freedom retails for $7.99 and you can find them on TackleWarehouse.com and other Z-Man retailers. I noticed as I was writing this today, that the bluegill color is sold out. That’s the one I’ve had the most success with as well around bream beds this summer. Green pumpkin and black and blue are good second options on the bream beds and white, chart/white and shad are good options for fish feeding on baitfish.
