The Mangler???

[1911crazy]

Has anyone bought this lure and had success with it??  I purchased some lastyear a few with the squid trailer and some without.  I haven't caught one fish on it yet all lastyear.  Now the manufacturer sends me an email to buy more because they have larger sizes now but I'm not going to spend more on a bait that I haven't caught anything on yet?  If you had success with this inline spinner please let me know.   I've tried it every trip out I made.                                                  BigBill

[Lawdog]

BigBill,

Everyone that knows me knows I am a big fan of in-line spinners.  Heck I even make my own just to get what I want in an in-line.  But after reading your post I don't think that this is one in-line that will find it's way into my tackle box.  Not unless I find one that is.  Lawdog
 

[1911crazy]

It was advertised as it takes so little movement to spin the blade which it does do.   I filled out a survey at their website stating my dissatisfaction with the "NO SUCCESS"  I'm having with their bait.   I'll have to see what their reply will be.   I like to give the manufacturers feed back about using / trying their baits wether its positive or negative.  But this has been my first negative feed back.                                        BigBill

In using inline spinners I have had great success.  It was one of my very first bass catchers just a few years ago when I got heavy into bass fishing.
The Mepps, Panther Martins, StrikeKing and JoesFlies have been awesome bass catchers.  I have to rate them as good or very close to using spinnerbaits in success.  I think the only seperation between the two is the spinnerbaits tend to work only at certain times during the season.

[broken arrow]

I haven't bought that one yet, and I've decided to really scrutinize these new lures. Everyone is trying to build a better mousetrap so to speak, but they are almost always a gimmick to net them more money. I remember this thing where you bought a little trailer to attach to a Zara Spook. I bought it, tried it, and realized no difference from my normal spook. Some guy made $5.00 off of me though. I guess I'll stick with the classics until I hear from you guys that a lure is, in fact, a holy grail. :roll:

[1911crazy]

Well since I'm retired and came from an Engineering background and being involved in  product developement, reliability testing its fun to buy and test lures to see if they work the way they said they will work or not?
It kind of irks me when a company emails me to buy more of their product which my first purchase hasn't worked for me yet.  This is the first thing i bought that didn't work.  Well besides those 99+ spinnerbaits I have now in storage box.  Some work and some don't its me for sure not setting them up right.  But with using inline spinners I have had great success with them so far but the Mangler.                   BigBill

After my bad report on their survey they told me to send what I purchased back for a full refund or exchange them for different sizes or colors and i was the only negative feed back since 2000 on their lures.   I guess most just buy lures and don't give feed back about the performance of the product they paid for that was ranted and raved about their awesome success on the net.  Is it a bad marketing ploy that we fisherman are being taken advantage of with all this stuff I don't know.

[Lawdog]

My favorite in-line spinner was the Hawaiian Wiggler.  What I liked about it was the way you could FEEL the throb of the blade spinning during the retrieve.  If you couldn't feel the blade then all you had to do was give the blade a little bend to get it to do what you wanted.  Also it was almost totally weedless.  When they quit making them I bought everyone I could find and sat down and studied the way they were made.  Got a wire bending tool and started to practice until I got what I wanted.  I use a Colorado blade, when I can't get blades from Terminator, for the right feel.  Basically it looks like a cross bred between a Terminator in-line and a Hawaiian Wiggler.  So far they work for me on everything from panfish to Striped Bass, Pike and many types of salt water species.  Lawdog
 

[1911crazy]

I owe my very first success 5 years ago in bass fishing to the mepps inline spinner the anglia #3 silver w/gray tail performed well one night and got me hooked in bass fishing.  My youngest son broke his leg doing motocross and he was bored so we took him fishing.  He never really liked fishing before.   One night we were fishing a small swamp with livebait and I had a few lures but not much.  I just bought the mepps inline kit.   I was reeling in a night crawler and it got a strike.  So i figured the fish wanted something moving.  So i put on the mepps and started catching bass after bass on my third bass I gave a mepps to my son the red/white blade w/gray tail and he started catching bass too.  We caught quite a few doubles and i lost count how many fish we caught that night. I caught it just right there was a front comming in with rain later that night and the bass just turned on and it was a feeding frenzy. This was right after the spawn too.  I've only caught this happening a few times and each year its been awesome.  One place between rain storms after the spawn I caugh over 30lbs of bass in 45minutes fish after fish non stop action.   Another year I caught 19 bass during the light rain around the same time in the spring.  Now I make sure i go fishing before, during and after fronts come threw.  If you catch it right the bass fishing is unbelievable!!!!!!!  The only other way I could explain it is my lure is an amusement ride and the bass are lined up for a ride its fish after fish action.  My older brother always told me you have to keep on going(fishing) sooner or later the fish would turn on and he was right.  I never caught on to what he was saying until it happened to me.             BigBill

[Lawdog]

BigBill,

I got my start Bass fishing as a kid, I was 11 at the time, by finding an in-line spinner that someone had dropped.  Took it to the bait shop and the guy that owned the store told me it was a Shyster((sp?) I haven't seen these for a few years just wonder if anyone knows if they are still made).  A 1/4 oz. yellow with red spots, yellow hair on the tribal hook and a silver blade.  It was my first lure.  A few days later my cousin and I went fishing by an old no longer used pier, looking to catch some crappie using worms for bait.  Luck would have it they didn't want worms.  I tied on my cherished Shyster and casted along side the pilings.  I hadn't retrieved it more than a few inches when a nice Bass inhaled my spinner.  I was so afraid the bass was going to break off and I would loose my one lure.  I landed that Bass that weighted 2 lbs., according to my cousin's Zebco hand scale, so I just sat and admired my catch.

Put it on a stringer, we didn't know about catch and release back then, casted out to the same area.  Two casts later I tied into another one about the same size.  To cut to the end I took home a stringer loaded with 12 Bass, yeah over the limit but we didn't know we were in the wrong, with the largest weighting almost 4 lbs.  The crazy thing about this is I never did loose that Shyster though I used it so many times that finely all the hair was gone from the hook and I had to repaint it many times.  Now it is retired and sits with my other mementos.  BigBill, Thanks for jogging a great memory.  Lawdog
 

[1911crazy]

The first lure i ever used and caught a bass was a "sonic"  when I was 12 years old.   It was a cold spring day.                          BigBill

A yellow sonic with red lighting strikes on the side.