When I first discovered Terminator spinnerbaits back in the late 90's I loved them.  I was fishing for bass but more often than not catching Pike and pickerel and they destroyed typical spinnerbaits - the titanium ones didn't get destroyed.  I quickly put an order through to get all the different size spinnerbaits, all the different sized blades to swap out and fished them all the time.  They released 6 and 12 inch titanium leaders and I bought a bunch of those too...

 

I have since lost most of them over the years and wanted to replace some but I notice the selection is gone and the few I did get don't seem to work as well.  I looked on the website and notice most items are out of stock.  I always had great luck with the indiana blades and those are just about impossible to find in different sizes.  There also used to be different colors of blades, like red and black and those are nowhere to be found. 

 

So is Rapala dropping the whole line, I haven't seen anything stating as such?  

I had the same experience with the buzz bait.

31 minutes ago, JediAmoeba said:

When I first discovered Terminator spinnerbaits back in the late 90's I loved them.  I was fishing for bass but more often than not catching Pike and pickerel and they destroyed typical spinnerbaits - the titanium ones didn't get destroyed.  I quickly put an order through to get all the different size spinnerbaits, all the different sized blades to swap out and fished them all the time.  They released 6 and 12 inch titanium leaders and I bought a bunch of those too...

I had just the opposite luck with Terminator spinner baits. I bought them for pike fishing and the pike broke everyone I bought. True, they didn't get bent out of shape, but the wires just snapped. Titanium is just to brittle. I expected a lot more for the premium price

12 minutes ago, Scott F said:

I had just the opposite luck with Terminator spinner baits. I bought them for pike fishing and the pike broke everyone I bought.

Was this with the originals?  I used them and caught some really nice Pike (40+ inchers) and never had one snap.  I can only remember one snapping and that was one that was probably 10 years old.

Originals? Probably. It was back in the 90's. After all the failures, I never even considered buying them again. Did they change over the years?

Spinnerbait blades Barlows Tackle has them all, look under lure making go to blades.

Terminator brand is still listed and available in the TW site.

Tom

If they are I hope their frogs go on sale because they have become my go to frog bait.

I almost exclusively use the terminator brand of spinnerbaits because of the titanium frame. The durability over steel where I fish with pike everywhere is noticeable. The steel ones bend quickly and then don’t run true. Same for the leaders. The terminator series have been tougher to find but they are still available online.

They're releasing a new jig at ICAST so I doubt it.

18 hours ago, Scott F said:

Originals? Probably. It was back in the 90's. After all the failures, I never even considered buying them again. Did they change over the years?

Terminator was made originally by a company called "Outdoor Innovations" or something like that. They first were sold by way of infomercial before the internet was in everyone's home. I got one of the kits from the T.V. commercial and it came with a Jimmy Houston spinnerbait tips VHS tape. The first ones were good then they came out with Terminator snap back plastics, these were the original elastech soft plastics (I still have a bag of worms from them) and not long after that they were purchased by Normark, the parent company of Rapala. Not long after Rapala bought them was when complaints about people losing the blades and swivels off of them, and it was because there ould be a gap on the swivel loop on some baits and you couldn't bend the gap closed because the titanium would just go right back. So they did something else to them to make sure that didn't happen anymore, it was the second version of the Terminator and that is the version that had reports of the wire breaking and not long after that they introduced the "original T-1 bait" again. I honestly believe they changed the tempering process in order to make sure the swivel loops would stay closed and a lot of the wire forms ended up being brittle so they went back to the original way and marketed as the T-1 so anglers knew they were different. That is just an opinion but why else would you go back to the original unless something was wrong with the newer version? 

14 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

They're releasing a new jig at ICAST so I doubt it.

Cool.  Maybe they are rebranding everything.  That would explain their vast amounts of out of stocks.  

2 hours ago, smalljaw67 said:

Terminator was made originally by a company called "Outdoor Innovations" or something like that. They first were sold by way of infomercial before the internet was in everyone's home. I got one of the kits from the T.V. commercial and it came with a Jimmy Houston spinnerbait tips VHS tape. The first ones were good then they came out with Terminator snap back plastics, these were the original elastech soft plastics (I still have a bag of worms from them) and not long after that they were purchased by Normark, the parent company of Rapala. Not long after Rapala bought them was when complaints about people losing the blades and swivels off of them, and it was because there ould be a gap on the swivel loop on some baits and you couldn't bend the gap closed because the titanium would just go right back. So they did something else to them to make sure that didn't happen anymore, it was the second version of the Terminator and that is the version that had reports of the wire breaking and not long after that they introduced the "original T-1 bait" again. I honestly believe they changed the tempering process in order to make sure the swivel loops would stay closed and a lot of the wire forms ended up being brittle so they went back to the original way and marketed as the T-1 so anglers knew they were different. That is just an opinion but why else would you go back to the original unless something was wrong with the newer version? 

I totally forgot about those infomercials that played during in fisherman's show.  I just know I never experienced any trouble with their baits and they ran truer than anything else out of the package. 

I just read a recent question asking about Terminator and remembered I asked this question years ago. Seems they have been on a long phase out...

Rapala can go pound sand.  Terminator is a very popular brand of lures, especially spinnerbaits.  Not sure why they wouldn't want to take advantage of that market.

They were all on clearance at Cabela's a few days ago. Either they are introducing all new lures or ending the line.

Their jigs and spinner baits are on sale at bps. Like... Good sale. Bait monkey is yelling in my ear about it.