Ever had this happen>?

[Brian Jones]

Fishing the MMT on Cass this weekend and hooked a good fish on a spinner-bait. The fish went totally airborn shook her head and broke the spinner-bait...left me with the blades.

Second good fish I hook on a custom glide bait, she comes up I see that she is hooked well and the next thing I know my leader and bait are gone and the line is cleanly cut. Anyone ever get cut off when a fish rolled?

[RuKiddingMe]

Brian those are 2 thing I can honestly say I have never had happen to me. I have lost plenty of fish, a few heart breakers to boot, but those 2 cases are weird. What sucks more is the fact they happened during a Tourny, ouch.

RU

[Random guy]

I stopped using certain spinner baits just for that reason. They seem break right at the twist for the eye. What really scared me is once I felt the blades stop spinning over open water so I set the hook and all I had left was the bottom or hook side of the bait.

I suspose if the fish rolled enough to get the line in its teeth I could see it cutting, tough odds of that. I guess you're just lucky. Maybe the line got in the barb of a hook when it rolled?

[minnesotamusky]

My brother and I were on Baby Lake yesterday. He hooked into what looked like a very nice fish. A few seconds later his new leader broke. All he had left was the top ring that ties onto the line.

[AWH]

I've had a couple of spinnerbaits break on me as well. Luckily, they broke on pike and not muskies. Like Jon, I've quit using those spinnerbaits. I don't need to take the chance on a big fish.

I can't say I've ever had a fish break me off when they roll. But I could see it happening. Maybe I've just been lucky...

Too bad about the bad luck in the tourney. Sounds like it was a tough bite up there from what I heard.

Aaron

[RuKiddingMe]

Aaron and Jon,

I don't want to start a product bashing thread here but which spinnerbaits did you experience problems with? I understand if you guys don't want to share that.

RU

[markkstanley]

Musky gill plates are sharper than razors. They'll cut through almost any line. So if the musky rolled and your line hit the gill plate end of story. I've had it happen and it's not a good feeling seeing a fish swim away with the hardware in it's mouth.

Haven't had a spinner bait come apart and I fish them a lot. I use CJ Spins, Rad Dogs, and Shumway Funky Chickens. Not going to bash the products I wouldn't use but you can generally tell by the thickness of the wire.

[AWH]

RU,

Mine happened to two different ones actually. Both companies make their baits in MN. One is a bait that wasn't made for awhile. Now they're back and are being made by a different company. This particular one only broke once on me, and it was an older bait, very used and abused. So that break won't keep me from using that bait again.

The other manufacturer, I had two different spinnerbaits break on me. And neither one had been used very much. I don't think either bait was more than a couple months old. Needless to say, this one I won't be buying again. If you want more specifics, let me know and I'll shoot you an email. I'm pretty sure I still have your address.

Now the only spinnerbait I use are Rad Dogs. Great baits. Lots of fish on them and no complaints!

Aaron

[Brian Jones]

I won't bash any companies but Northland did cost me a paycheck more than likely. Had an M/G break while bending the spinner blades back down too. Both baits were very new. Would hate to see this happen to others so by all means lets hear about the good spinner-baits on the market. I know if the Grinders are anything like the bait they were a copy of then they should be rock solid.

[DUCKJ]

Hey Brian, Sorry to hear about your bad luck.

I use both Northland and M&G,s and have never had a problem like this. I have only started tossing the M&G,s this year but they seenm to a pretty solid bait in my eyes. As for Northland, I have been tossing them for many years and have never had one problem with them. Maby its just the fisherman. HEHE Just Kidding.

Derek "Duck" Johnson

[Random guy]

I have to walk lightly on this one. What baits I really seem to go to and like to use are; CJ's (love em), Rad Dogs, Stump Hawgs, Chickens, and anything that is HAND MADE with heavy wire. I like the idea of some guy sitting at his workbench carefully bending the wire picturing a musky smashing that bait as he makes it, not some machine banging out a mass of lighter frames making that bends so fast it weakens the wire, like bending a paper clip fast verses bending it slow. The wires needs time to strech and form to the bend and not get slammed into a shape,that just fatigues the wire. (I was an iron worker/construction guy before I went into lending)

[jerk bait]

I lost 4 fish during the first MMT on Cass. No equipment failures but had them hooked up and halfway to the boat gone. After fishing for a day and a half in brutally cold windy conditions I was resting with my reefhog hanging at the side of the boat while I chatted with another team that pulled up. All of a sudden I glance down at my bait hanging there and enormous head appears from below the boat and swallows my bait. I let fish swim away a little bit and put the screws to him. It launches straight out of the water shaking his head and spits the reef hog back at me. All this happens in front of this other team. All we could do is lok at each other and laugh. One the teams in our group won that year with a 51.