The Flutter

“That flutter’s your bread and butter, ain’t it?”. That was a question posed to the greatest fishing teacher of all time, Bill Dance, by his fishing partner for the day Jerry Reed during one of Bill’s shows from the 80’s. Not only was that my absolute favorite fishing show I’ve ever seen, but it burned into my brain the importance of the flutter. After all, if Bill Dance thought it was that important it had to be, right? Let me assure you, it is. This single piece of fishing knowledge has probably led to more fish catches for me than any other. In fact, it has become so natural for me that when I’m trying to show someone the basics of fishing I refer to it as “just reeling”. Sometimes it takes a bit for me to realize that I left out a vital piece of information. 

So what exactly is the ‘flutter”? The best way I can explain it is making your bait move in a manner that makes your bait slow down and move differently for a second or two over and over throughout a cast. Some confuse this technique with a “stop and go” retrieve. It is not. It’s a slight change in reel speed accompanied by a simultaneous rod tip movement. The objective is to make your bait almost stop in the water without letting it sink very much. It takes some getting used to, but once you master it the results can be dramatic. Case in point, I was fishing with a good friend of mine and I started catching them on a rattle bait called a Diamond Shad. My friend was upset because he wasn’t having any luck at all. He told me that he’d never caught a fish on any kind of rattle bait. He said he’d tried on multiple occasions but just couldn’t get one to bite. I suspected that the problem was how he was reeling it so I told him to tie one on and I’d see if I could help. Sure enough, he casted out and proceeded to reel it straight in. I told him that he needed to change his retrieve speed and taught him how to flutter. Two casts later he caught his first rattle bait fish and now it’s one of his favorite baits.  

So when do I flutter? The answer to this is any time you are fishing any bait that swims. Crankbaits, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, swim jigs, grubs, topwater, you name it. If it moves you should be fluttering it. About the only exception I can think of is soft plastics and jigs when you’re fishing the bottom.These require the angler to impart the majority of the action into the bait with rod movements, so the retrieve is more about keeping slack out of the line rather than moving the bait along. Anything else you should be fluttering. 

That doesn’t mean that fluttering is the only answer. Many different retrieves can catch fish. Stop and go, yo-yoing, ripping, twitching, and many more can and are very effective. Fluttering is only one tool, but it is the one that I use most often. Fluttering should take the place of “just reeling”. There are very, very few times when just a constant speed will be the way to go, and if it is it will probably be a super slow or super fast retrieve, not “normal”. My “normal”, that is, the retrieve I start with on the very first cast and use most of the time, is the flutter. Next time you’re out on the water try it out. See if you can find a new normal that works for you!