hatchet spinner blades

[night_eyes]

Just wondering if anyone has used the hatchet blades on their spinner rigs and how they worked. Do they outproduce the standard colorado blades or is there no difference?

[Neal/Co]

I have been using them off and on for three summers now and I just can't seem to get strikes. At the same time my boat partners have kicked my *** using colorado blades. I lost my last hatchet harness last time out and I doubt I will buy anymore. I am sure there will be people who post good results, but I haven't caught a thing on them. Eric/Co caught his biggest eye on one, but all I have to show for is a 30 inch Northern, not a single eye.

[Lund_Dude]

They were EXTREMELY effective for me on Green Bay last August/Sept. Tom Keenan (who is locally considered one of the best fishermen on the bay) cannot say enough good about them. Good Luck!

[Neal/CO]

Are there certain conditions that you use them for? I have tried both the crawler and the minnow harness's with no luck. They look good in the water and I can feel them thumping out behind me, but I have yet to get a strike on them. Maybe they don't match our forage well? Most of the places I fish have a shad and perch forage base.

[Juls_WI]

They do work great on Green Bay, and I'm guessing it's because of the large numbers of Alwive in the lake. Neal, you may be onto something there, with matching the forage.

Juls

[Matt]

My brother-in-law and his friends love them on LOTW. I haven't personally used them.

[Neal/CO]

Either that or I am just a lousy walleye fisherman. Maybe I should just stick to my trout roots? Nah.

[Gunga Din]

I've had no luck with them either. Must be an eastern thing.

[Dbl]

I just used them on Ottertail Lake in Minnesota on Sunday and in an hour and a half caught 12 walleyes with a crawler harness. Don't know if I would have done better with another blade, but I did not see any other boats around me catch anything. This is my second year with them and I always start with the hatchet and switch to another style if I don't produce in about an hour. Could be any number of factors, forage, color, action, etc. that comes into play. I need more experimentation before I draw any definite conclusions.
One thing that will never change is the need to experiment and continue to find other ways to catch fish that the other guy may not be doing. Give em a try, they don't cost much in money or time well spent on the water.

[Mako]

I've used them as well, and though they do produce more vibration in the water, I can't say that I've caught more fish with them.
What I did notice though, is you have to troll quite a bit faster than normal to get them spinning, which may affect your catch.

good luck..

[Gizmo]

They don't work for me. I threw all of mine away.

[edge800]

they do work great on LOTW and on mille lacs. the key on mille ;acs though is to have them on at least an 8' snell with a crawler harness. this is what we used in a tournament a couple of weeks ago and placed top 10 because of it. we were fishing right alongside over 30 other boats and we boated over 20 walleyes in about 2 hours, while we saw only maybe 10 others caught by all the other boats in that same time.

edge800

[night_eyes]

Hey edge what color worked for you up on Mille Lacs??

[JonnyMo]

The two guys that won the $100,000 MWC tournament on Mille Lacs a month ago were using metallic Hatchet's the majority of the time, so there definitely is a time and a place for this rig.

[Moose]

They have worked well for me. We started using them on Winnepeg River in Ontario last year and did outstanding. No one else in camp was using them I we think it just gave the Wallys a different perspective. We do know that they need to be real aggreasive. If we were catching some on plain snell / bead, switching to hatchet blade was not the ticket. Needed to wean them up to all that racket.