It is often asked or wondered, "What makes a spinnerbait great?".

Personally, I don't know anyone who has the answer. Some say, "It's all about the blades, don't worry 'bout the color of the skirt." This is true to the extent that if you took the blades completely off a productive spinnerbait, it wouldn't get bit much without any blades on it. So it seems the blades are the primary triggering attraction and what interests fish.

In the same way you may say the splash or ruckus is the triggering attraction of a topwater surface bait. If a surface bait just came in straight and steady like a stick on a string without any splash or lifelike ruckus, you may not catch too many fish. Likewise a spinnerbait without blades would not be worth the effort.

Yet blades aren't the only answer, since a spinnerbait with blades but no skirt and unpainted head isn't going to catch all the fish it could if it was painted and dressed properly.

But let's stick to discussing blades for today, because  blades do make a spinnerbait. Otherwise, you'd just be fishing a jig with a long wire sticking out it's nose.

Blade spacing or distance between them; length of the blade arm; the nose arm; the effect the front blade has on the water ahead of the back blade; the reflection the blades cast onto each other, onto their surroundings, and beam down onto the skirt and head; the reflection of the skirt and head and surrounding water back onto the blades; the blur or blending of two blades into each other; conversely, the separate distinction of each blade, does all this (and more) matter? Personally, I don't know anyone who has the answer.

In configuring and testing the blade pair on the spinnerbait here, a difference in spacing between the blades as little as 1/8" more or 1/8" less affected the action and interaction of the blades. Likewise, dropping the front blade down a 1/2 size smaller pretty much wrecked the relationship between the blades and had a particularly bad effect on the front blade action.

With the spacing you see here, the .040 wire arm and these big size blades, this configuration catches nice bass on a regular basis.

And when everything is said and done, simply catching nice bass, is what makes a spinnerbait great! Please enjoy.