American national distributor of fishing, hunting and other tackle Cabela’s is offering Colorado spinner blades with large holes punched in their tail parts, under the trade mark Vib-Orado. There are controversies in respect of this innovation. Some American anglers say that spinners and other lures equipped with the Cabela’s Vib-Orado blades are better than usuals, especially when fishing for walleye, Stizostedion vitreum, while others see no differences.

In our field experiments, we tested spinners with the intact and perforated blades in the foregoing manner.

Mepps Aglia spinners #2, 4,5 gr with the perforated and blank glo white blades were used in these experiments. In some lures, marked AP, 6 mm diameter holes were ideally cut in the tail parts of the blades (Fig.1). In the other lures, marked AB, 6 mm grey spots were glued instead of holes on the convex side of the blades.

Figure 1. Mepps Aglia original spinner with the perforated blade

Lures were tested in the evening twilight and night when fishing for zander, Stizostedion lucioperca, in the same manner that was described previously for zander and sabrefish:

In final sum, we found no reliable evidence that zander prefer spinners with the perforated blades (Student’s t-test). Note, under the daylight, fish could visually percieve the hole in the blade as an attractive flashing spot in comparison with the blank blade.

Many lure manufacturers offer spinners with the perforated blades, like Daiwa Sliver Creek R, Extreme Fishing Absolute and other, arguing that sounds (hydrodynamic fluctuations) produced by holes in the rotating blades attract fish.

According to our field experiments, this marketing course is incorrect. 

In these experiments, 3 gr Extreme Fishing Absolute spinners with the perforated and blank silver blades were compared with each other. Lures had 6 holes at the blade edge, inluding the clevis’s hole. One half of lures, marked AP, had intact perforated blades. In the other half of lures, marked AB, 5 holes in the blades were covered from the inside with the transparent waterproof adhesive tape.

Rheophilic crepuscular sabrefish, Pelecus cultratus, were selected for experiments because these fish were abundant in the test localities and preyed on baitfish mainly in the windless (that is acoustically favourable: Protasov, 1965) evening twilights and nights. Lures were tested (near the village Nedanchichi, the middle part of Dniepro river, in June) from the evening twilight to midnight in the localities, where sabrefish preyed mainly on juvenile bleak, Alburnus alburnus, and roach, Rutilus rutilus.

At each estimated locality of sabrefish, 12 presentations (cast and retrieving) of lures were made: 3 with AP, 3 with AB, 3 with AP and 3 with AB. After the 10-15 min rest, this procedure was repeated in the reverse order. In total, 37 sabrefish (length of 30-40 cm) were landed for two nights: 20 on AP and 17 on AB lures. To estimate mean differences for field data, fish were group per each 6 lure (for AP and AB) presentations. In final, sabrefish, according to Student’s t-test, showed no reliable preference in favor of perforated (AP) or blank (AB) Absolute spinners.

Read the post given below to understand why sabrefish may ignore, like other fish, sounds produced by the holes in the perforated spinner blades.

Predatory fish do not respond to sounds of rattling wobblers

Cast your attention that audiograms of the Mepps spinners, similar to the Extreme Fishing Absolute spinners, is mainly represented by the powerful rhythmic sounds produced by rotating blades (click here to hear sounds). These rhythmic sounds, with the frequency that is equal to the frequency of blade rotation, overpower any other rhythmic and noise sounds of any spinners.

Basic References

Protasov V.R. 1965. The bioacoustics of fishes. Moscow, Science