Why you Need to Try Smile Blades When Trolling

In-Fisherman Article

By Tony Capecchi

You want your friends to catch fish. But you want to catch more. One of fishing’s most rewarding challenges the fact it is an ever-changing puzzle with daily dynamics and variables to solve can also become a source of frustration, especially when an angler in the back of your boat is out-catching you 10-to-1 despite using a seemingly identical presentation.

Funny thing about walleye fishing sometimes all you have to do is find the fish and the battle is won when they bite on darn near anything, within reason, and they’re concentrated or, better yet, they’re seemingly everywhere. Other days, fish are scattered but generally cooperative as long as your presentation at least makes the podium as a first, second, or third preferred option.

Some days, however, the bite is exceedingly tough, and action is nearly nonexistent until you complete an arduous process of not only finding fish and identifying the best general bait and presentation but also fine-tuning a dozen or more details after that. Water depth, clarity, and temperature; blade size, shape, color; weights, direction of movement, leader length, and more. Then, and only then, does fishing flip from The Dead Sea to “one right after another.”

The Rise of Smile Blade Spinners

Days like these have played a major role in the evolution of smile-blade-style-spinners like Mack’s Smile Blades and their increased prominence in the walleye world over the past decade. And such days prompted Dave Hennings, an Iowa-based guide turned tackle manufacturer, to produce several rigs incorporating smile-blade-style spinners.

“I’ve been fishing when a friend of mine is kicking my butt and I ask them what they’re doing, and they’re using the same thing, same speed. And they said, ‘I’m not doing anything different.’ But there’s a tiny thing that is different, and that makes all the difference,” Hennings says. “When I guided on the Missouri River around Chamberlain, we’d have two or three guides in the same area and I’d be struggling, so I pick up the cell and start making calls to the other guides to hear exactly what they were doing. And these little modifications either work or they don’t. Maybe you’re in a little different wind, or a little different water clarity, so instead of a pink blade, it’s a blue blade. And you reflect on that when you’re off the water and you think ‘What happened?’ That’s what makes the fishing fun; it’s a continuous learning process.”

Slowing Down Without Losing Action

Lots of learning condensed into one takeaway produces this reality: smile blades can spin effectively at a slower speed than traditional Colorado, Indiana, or willowleaf blades. That ability to attract fish and trigger walleyes while moving at speeds under 1 mph can make a huge difference. Hennings capitalizes on this with his Fin Spins and Death Fin Spins, livebait rigs consisting of a Mack’s Smile Blade, two size-5 beads, low-visibility leader, and either a straight Aberdeen hook (Fin Spin) or a Mustad Slow Death hook (Death Fin Spin).

The rigs produce with either nightcrawlers or minnows, depending on time of year, and provide anglers an effective way to pull livebait slower with a spinning blade that creates vibration. As more and more bodies of water across the Midwest have gotten clearer due to the presence of zebra mussels, Hennings countered with the same rigs available now with 60-inch, Berkley 10-pound Vanish Fluorocarbon leaders.

Triggering Neutral and Negative Fish

Turk Gierke is a born-and-bred river rat who grew up on the shores of the St. Croix River, a productive but heavily pressured walleye fishery that cuts the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. He’s made a living the past 27 years guiding full time on both the lower St. Croix and the Mississippi River near Red Wing, strongly subscribing to In-Fisherman’s 50-year formula of F (fish) + L (location) + P (presentation) = S (success).

Depending on the variables within this equation, smile-style blades often emerge as an effective presentation for Gierke when he needs to trigger walleyes while moving slow.

“You have three modes fish can be in anytime of the year: positive, neutral, or negative. Negative doesn’t just mean cold water,” Gierke says. “In the summer when a spinner bite is going and I’m moving at 0.9 to 1.2 mph pulling Colorado or Indiana blades, and then all of a sudden, the walleyes are off, perhaps due to a weather front, I need to slow my speed down to 0.5 mph and regular blades stop spinning at that speed. That’s when I use Mack’s Lure Smile Blades with good success, because that blade turns at a slower speed than a Colorado or Indiana blade, so it allows me to go slower, plus the blade itself isn’t too big.”

Using Vibration to Your Advantage

As effective as Colorado, Indiana and willow leaf blades are in various situations, they’re all fundamentally a single-sided blade, whereas a Smile Blade operates almost like a prop because it has two sides, which makes it spin easier and at slower speeds.

The additional vibration of the Smile Blade is especially critical in the river based on water current and clarity, both of which are highly impacted by precipitation. Gierke considers a water event to be an area receiving 1 inch of rain for two or more consecutive days, or more than 1.5 inches in a single day. Such scenarios cause river levels to increase by 3 to 4 feet and dramatically alter the bite.

“When new water comes into a river after a water event, the water that comes into the river is dirtier from the run-off and creates challenging conditions. That’s a great time for a Smile Blade to create that extra vibration,” says Gierke, noting that orange, baby blue and nickel-based colors are among his most productive blade colors.

“If you’re in a channel area in the river where the flow picks up and you’re confident the fish are there, you can’t pull a blade too fast into that flow because your baits will roll,” he says. “Here, I like to anchor or use spot lock and case a smile blade with a half ‘crawler, leech, or fathead. I let the bait sit, slowly retrieve, and let it sit again. The flow turns the blade. I also freeline it backward with the flow, and the current’s tension turns the blade for you, which can be very effective.”

Casting and Freelining Smile Blades

Gierke specifically freelines his bait backward when the flow is over-spinning the blades and recommends a baitcaster reel for this approach. “This all depends on the flow and not letting the blade over-spin,” he says. “You can also swing or sway your baits when anchored by moving the anchor rope, or jigging while spot locked, in the current while in these channels.”

A Mack’s Lure Cha-Cha Crawler Spinner produces well in these situations, and Gierke recommends the lightest line possible, often using Sufix Siege 10-pound monofilament. In summer, he uses a half ‘crawler or a leech on his smile blade rig, with a single hook.

“The river clarity will restore itself, but there’s a period of time when you want that extra vibration with the ability to work your bait slower. In clearer water with no flow, walleyes can pick up baits faster as opposed to water that’s getting darker from run-off.”

Big River Walleyes Out West

Out West, Smile Blades put giant grins on anglers’ faces by producing large numbers of big walleyes.

“They’re catching 15- to 20-pound walleyes in volume on Smile Blades on the Columbia River,” says Bob Loomis, nephew of legendary rod maker Gary Loomis and current Marketing Director of Mack’s Lure. “One nice thing about Smile Blades is you can create any type of forage base that exists between a couple blades and a blade. So, if it’s crawdads early in the season, blacks and browns are good colors, versus late in the year you get your bright oranges and browns.”

“I go with high UV over muted colors, because it draws attention from farther away. A silver scale, silver sparkle pattern is one of my favorites. A 1.5-inch Smile Blade moves almost like a crankbait in some regards,” Loomis says, noting that in many western rivers, nightcrawlers are the only livebait permitted. “I fish longer leaders than most people because I come from a finesse-fishing background, so I run 5- or 6-foot leaders. I run slider weights above the swivel, not traditional bottom bouncers. I want to be able to feel everything that’s going on.”

Early in the season, Loomis pulls blades as slow as 0.5 or 0.7 mph, with a 3-ounce weight in water depths of 60 to 80 feet. In summer and fall, he increases speed to 1.2 or 1.3 mph.

“The new Shimano Tekota Line Counter Reels are good for this approach, and I’m partial to the Northwest Outdoorsman Reels that I designed,” Loomis says. “We have a 7-foot 10-inch rod with an extremely soft tip, so it has sensitivity but still enough meat to move big fish, which is important as we catch a lot of 8- to 17-pound walleyes on large rivers.”

Canadian Guides Embrace Smile Blades

As Smile Blades have risen in rank among professional anglers and weekend warriors alike across America, so too have these blades become more popular in Canada. Even in lesser-pressured Canadian Shield lakes with abundant walleyes, a growing number of guides north of the border bust out Smile Blades to turn comparatively slower afternoons into action-packed outings.

Kurt Sharanowski, head guide at Aikens Lake Wilderness Lodge in Manitoba, has fully embraced Smile Blades. “Often one thinks of big flats, shorelines, long points extending with consistent depths, all as ideal for pulling Smile Blades with bottom bouncers, and that’s completely true,” he says. “But I don’t let this idea limit me. You can use this technique on nearly any spot. It takes a little more effort, practice, and patience, but it absolutely can pay off in big ways. I don’t let the spot dictate my technique but rather think of bouncing Smile Blades as another option when fish aren’t snapping on jigs, Jigging Raps, or crankbaits.”

This means shortening your runs, using electronics to stay on top of depth changes, and moving at slower speeds to stay on top of fish longer and extend the time your bait’s in the water on short runs.

“Slow the boat, drop to bottom, allow a few extra feet of line out, and that’s it,” Sharanowski says, reminding anglers to watch their rig sink boatside to ensure it’s running true. “Just keep an eye on your depth and make micro adjustments. A baitcaster with a flipping switch makes this easy. You should only feel an occasional tick from your bottom-bouncer wire coming in contact with the bottom. A big mistake people make is letting out more and more line until they feel heavy contact. You need to remain confident your bouncer is in the strike zone without relying on that heavy contact feel. A heavy contact or near constant bounce is often the feeling of the bouncer dragging on its side, which is not what you want.”

Hook and Rig Modifications That Matter

Variations within this approach also pay dividends. “I often swap the Slow Death hook for a pair of snelled Octopus hooks,” he says. “I keep the hooks close together as I still only opt for a 1/2 or 3/4 of a nightcrawler. I don’t like how stretched out they look when left whole. The fatter the ‘crawler, the better. I also experiment with floats behind my Smile Blade. Since there isn’t much vegetation on these rocky reefs, sometimes taking the float off and letting it run closer to bottom can make a difference. I find this changes by the day.”

As expected, it all comes back to details that never-ending, always-optimizing, ever-evolving process of refinement to catch more fish. In fact, I’ll end this article near where we started, Hennings and yet another nuance emerging to the process of Smile Blades and the like.

Seems that anglers pushing boundaries in western states like Washington want smile blade-like blades that spin even slower, with a slightly different vibration. So he created a new rig released to market several months ago called the 406, with a Mylar blade similar in material but more of a “S” shape, compared to the “C” shape of a Smile Blade.

Hennings also pre-rigs these 406 setups with five beads connected together (stack beads), starting with a size-5 blade and gradually decreasing to a size 3. There are a dozen color options, but the twist is many colors in the “Sparkles” family present a different color on each side of the blade. Chartreuse on the front side, sparkly silver on the back side.

“This way you have two different colors working for you,” Hennings says. “The 406 rigs use Slow Death hooks, and the material of the Mylar blade lets it spin as slow as 0.4 mph, so you can really slow things down if that’s what it takes.”

Part art, part science. 100 percent fishing enjoyment in this ever-changing pursuit.