VERSATILITY OF THE SMILE BLADE® The Mack’s Lure Smile Blade® is a critical component of every kokanee, trout, walleye and panfish arsenal.
areas already filled with other forage opportunities prompting active walleye to strike aggressively. While walleye love the Smile Blade®, the anglers love them even more. This is because the blades are simple to fish and allow for fine tuning to take place on the water rapidly. The Smile Blade® easily slides over a standard Double Surgeon knot, making for fast changes on the water and allowing anglers to quickly find the color and sizes the fish prefer that day.
BY NICK HARRINGTON
MW LIP RIPPERS
The versatility of the Smile Blade® makes it a critical part of every walleye angler’s arsenal. The small, Smile Blade® 0.8 makes for a perfect added attraction for a live bait rig without stealing the show. These blades excel when trolled slowly, as they require hardly any speed to make the blade turn correctly. This makes them a perfect early and late season option for waterbodies as big as the Missouri River reservoirs to a small slough or natural lake. As the forage availability increases throughout the summer, the larger sizes shine as they capture attention in
Another benefit is each individual Smile Blade® can be fished two ways. Utilize a wide blade angle for a slow, rolling wobble or utilize a narrow blade angle for a more aggressive shake and spin. Tuning these blades can be done with an angler’s fingers and can be adjusted in a matter of seconds.
As each day goes on, I pay attention to if the fish are favoring the bladed or plain setups. If they are in a passive mood, they often prefer the plain rods. If they are neutral to aggressive, they often prefer the Smile Blade®. On days they are favoring the bladed setups, I also pay attention to the top colors. Once I’ve determined the best colors for the day, I will fine tune blade angles from there. The ability to quickly slide the Smile Blade® on and off makes this a quick and efficient process. I generally keep the same snells on all day, but if coaxing bites proves to be difficult on all setups, I will begin to experiment with snell length as well.
a guide on the Missouri “ As River reservoirs, I deploy a set of Smile Blades® every time I hit the water.” NICK HARRINGTON | MIDWEST RIP LIPPERS
As a guide on the Missouri River reservoirs, I deploy a set of Smile Blades® every time I hit the water. I like to have half of the rods fish with only a single bead (no blade) set up while the others have a single bead and various colors of Smile Blades®. March through June, I favor the 0.8 before switching to larger sizes in July and continuing them through early September.
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