When Chas Champagne took one of his artificial lure manufacturing company’s newest creations for a spin, he really took it for a spin.
Actually, the prototype for the Matrix Spin was the star of the Dockside TV video released late last summer. The Matrix Spin video (matrixshad.com/shop/matrix-spin/) was actually shot before the spinnerbait arm hit the market.
The Slidell, La., outdoorsman and entrepreneur obviously enjoyed every minute of that fishing trip with the spinnerbait arm that has a different, albeit catchy, look.
“What we’re showcasing today is the new Matrix Spin. Awesome little lure. Awesome design. … Brand new to the Matrix family,” Champagne said early in the video.
“It’s a neat little design,” he said as he showed the arm and a specially designed No. 3.5 Colorado gold blade. “Free motion at all times. It can slide back and forth and this clevis goes around and around. It gives perpetual motion of this blade no matter what the lure is doing. It’s a really, really high-quality. Spins very easily and it’s a fantastic bait.”
Champagne proved the latter statement by catching multiple bass on it while fishing the shallow, windy, marshy areas off the Pearl River system.
“It’s a fantastic fishery,” he said.
“The spinnerbait is extremely effective and very easy to fish. When I reel it, it never binds up on me. It does a good job cutting through grass,” he said later in the video, noting, “It’s a very, very good lure for a beginner.”
The spinnerbait’s arm is the flagpole, you might say, for the blade on a clevis.
“Instead of (the blade) being clipped on the end in a fixed position, it can slide up and down the arm bar as it’s attached to a clevis. The arm bar is relatively short to where the blade isn’t a far distance from the hook. I find that gives it a better hookup ratio,” Champagne said during a phone conversation while he was targeting speckled trout late in the year in and around a very fresh Lake Palourde. Hurricane Ida dumped 30 inches of rain on the immense lake, which had yet to get right and salty as of November, he said.
Champagne got the idea from a spinnerbait arm made by the late Rick Googins who worked at the bait shop at the marina when it was under Champagne. Googins, he said, liked to make spinnerbaits and had one with a different look for the blade placement.
Last year the artificial lure manufacturer followed up on it, sent a sample to the factory and got a prototype to fish with during the video.
“It’s just we make anything,” Champagne said. “Anything we like to use we make it here. I like spinnerbaits.”
Champagne’s Matrix Spin uses heavy wire that handles redfish but isn’t too heavy for the bass that inhabit the marsh.
“We wanted to make a lure that‘ll catch anything. We just don’t have bass that big (average 12 inches) to have all the overkill,” he said, explaining why the designers eschewed light wire.
He fished that day while the video was shot with the Matrix Spin on a ¼-ounce Goldeneye Series Jig Head. Because he was using a 3-inch long glow Matrix Shad, that 3/0-hook was perfect for the soft plastic paddletail swimbait.
“But if you’re using bigger baits, you can put on whichever (size) jig head you prefer,” he said.
For more information about the Matrix Spin and other Matrix Shad products, go to matrixshad.com.
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