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Fact number two, a
bass just loves an edge. Most any edge will do, but the ultimate edge is
the bottom,
and the top of the lake. It's very difficult for a fish to travel much
further than the top of the water. From this we
may conclude that at least some of the time, fish relate to the top of
the water. The reason behind this is
rather simple, it's an easy place to feed. If you examine a minnow or a
small shad, you'll see that they bear a
striking similarity to a bass in physical make up. This in turn means
the bait also sees up better than they see
down. For a bait fish, which feeds on algae, floating seeds, bugs and
such, seeing very well while looking up
is generally a good thing. This fact has not escaped the bass. Since the
bass also see well looking up; and
when they look up they see bait fish looking up; and the bass can then
approach the bait from the bottom
where the bait fish don't see so well; and it's rather difficult for the
bait to travel much further than the top of the
water; add it all up and you come up with a bass's favorite answer, free
food.
Fact number three.
Even a bass doesn't eat all of the time, (a fact commonly know
solely by bass
fishermen.) So, if you'd like to be consistent about catching bass,
knowing how to catch a bass that is not
feeding would be a good thing. Fortunately, bass don't have hands.
So all of those tasks we use our hands
for other than feeding ourselves, a bass is stuck using his mouth for.
Investigation, attack, defense, pushing
something aside, all those touchy-feely kind of things a bass must use
his mouth to accomplish. We know a
bass is territorial, vicious when defending a nest, curious, close to
the top of the food chain, and a bully to
boot. So, if we can interest a bass, we get bit. If we threaten bass, we
get bit. If we intrude on a bass, we get
bit. If we hack off a bass, we get bit. And if we generally look injured
or otherwise unable to defend ourselves,
we get bit, (makes you wonder why we don't get bit more often,
doesn't it.)
And finally fact
number four. If on a peaceful quite day when calming working along a
bait, if a big bass
blowing up on your bait doesn't make you jump, get your heart racing,
bulge your eyes, and flare your nostrils,
then you don't have a pulse. Welcome to the world of Top Water Fishing.
So much fun it should be illegal, and
effective a surprisingly large amount of the time. It's not simple and
you have a lot of options to sort through to
find the right ones, but nothing in bass fishing is as exciting
and rewarding as catching a big fish on top
waters. My Dad taught me 40 years ago an opinion I still hold today,
"I'd rather catch one fish on a top water
than ten on a deep diving plug." Fortunately, it's not a choice you
have to make. With a little practice, you
may find yourself catching more and bigger fish on top waters than on
bottom bumpers.
Where and When to
Fish Top Water
"If
there is a water surface, then you can use a top water." The
only trouble with that statement is you have
to know when. "You can catch fish on top waters anytime." The
only trouble with that statement is you have to
know where. Kind of a chicken and egg problem, isn't it? Fortunately,
there are a few rules of thumb to get you
started. Like all rules of thumb, they aren't absolutes and don't work
all of the time, (what does in fishing?)
First let's go back to
that edge thing. The general rule we'll follow is: "The more edges
the better." So, first
we have the surface which is an edge. Now let's add in it's opposite,
the bottom and where these two edges
meet, (shallow water near the bank.) Then throw in a few vertical edges,
(standing wood or a weed bed.)
Finally let's look for
a general edge to complement the vertical edge. That puts us on either
the outside,
(works sometimes), or the inside of heavy cover, near shore in
shallow water. Under this theory, this should
be the best place in the lake to attract edge loving bass and is clearly
the purview of top water baits due to the
shallow depth. Let's face it, under these conditions we're only talking
1 or 2 feet water difference between a top
water and a bottom bumper. Our experience with other types of baits
suggest this is indeed a good spot for
feeding fish if we're there at the right time. There are loads of great
ambush points for the fish to feed, plenty of
cover for them to hide in, run off washing food into the water. And the
ideal conditions for attracting the bass
will also attract and hold large amounts of bait adding even more
reasons to holding bass in the area.
You normally find
structure fishermen far from shore working weed beds, humps, points, and
such. Any
seasoned structure fisherman will tell you tales of large schools of
fish coming up by his favorite structure or
over his secret weed bed. It's the same types of edges as you find in
the shallows, just well hidden well off
shore. Those fishing relatively shallow lakes with a hydrilla problem
will recognize mats of topped out weeds
and hydrilla clumps sometimes running for miles have more in common with
shore type structure than with
traditional open water. The fish will indeed gang up out here for all of
the same reasons we find them near
shore and the additional plus of lots of surrounding water to protect
them from predators.
And then you've got
the case where the fish are there for no apparent reason other than
several tons of bait
fish, also there for no apparent reason. Those fishing deep reservoirs
will tell you time and again about the
huge schools of fish schooling hard on bait over 50 or 100 feet of open
water. This kind of makes sense. After
all we just said the bait will be feeding on the surface and a bug that
drops to top of the water doesn't care
whether it's 20 feet from shore or 20 miles. The algae will float along
the top just as well in the middle of the
lake or right by the bank. If you're a bait fish, particularly living in
clear water, and have plenty of food
anywhere, you're about as safe in open water where you can see predators
coming as you are working
around a thousand ambush points. And we've long since decided, where
there's bait, there's bass.
All of this is both
true and nice, but sure hasn't narrowed things down too much. It's time
to start looking at
the when. This time we'll start out in open water and work ourselves
back in shallow.
First, just what is
open water? Another old rule of thumb is most of the bass will be no
deeper than 3 times
as deep as you can see. So, have 1 foot of visibility, and open water
becomes anything over 3' deep, (not quite
true since a thermocline is often involved with this pattern, but it
will do for now.) In a clear lake where you see
bottom in 20', open water may not start until you're over 60' deep. The
point of the definition is the surface
becomes the only edge available for the bass to relate if they
are going to feed on surface bait. Typically, this
is a summer and winter pattern when the fish are using the temperature
difference in the water column to stay
comfortable. Like most predators, the bass will feed the heaviest early
and late in the day, (out here it is very
difficult to make a living at night given the 3 dimensions you have
to hunt in.).
The particularly
wonderful thing about this pattern is if you find them, you find a lot
of them. Since these fish
do not depend on isolated ambush spots, they cooperate and school
heavily. To the fisherman that means if
you can ever get the first bite, you'll as often as not load the boat.
There are, of course, times when the fish
will feed actively all day long and I've even seen them school by bright
moon light. But as a general plan of
attack, early and late when the water temperature is under 50 or over
85, depending on the area of the
country, is when you'll find most of these bites.
Moving over to our
more structured oriented open water, we start becoming depth dependent.
Of the three
basic patterns, the structure pattern is where the depth is the most
critical, (the mood of the fish is most
important with true open water.) Since you don't normally have a
hard limiting edge like the shore to rely on,
you're guessing at what depth the fish prefer at that particular moment
and whether they will rise to take a
bait. The good news is that if there is some cover in the area, these
will be ambushing fish and therefore
you've got a pretty good chance they will, pardon the pun, rise to the
occasion. If you're on a good structure
pattern, chances are there will be at least some fish in the area most
of the time regardless of season, water
temperature, or weather conditions, (structure fish are known for
their reliability.).
The other good news
is, as ambush hunters, the fish will feed on and off most of the day. We
can check
back on our definition of open water for a little depth guidance. The
rule of thumb we had then was a depth not
more than three times the visibility. Again, avoid extremes in using
this rule. But I can say that one example
of a great pattern is buzzing a spinner bait along the top in Lake Erie,
(great visibility there), and you can call
up small mouth from a bottom hugging depth of well over 25'. But more
usually, I prefer water less than 10'
deep or so for reliable top water action. One sure sign I use,
regardless of depth, is bait fish skipping across
the top of the water. We've already covered the fact that it's very
difficult for a fish to travel much further than
the top of the water, and they only rarely do it without reason. For
bait fish that reason normally has to do
with a very large mouth trailing a foot or two behind. I can't think of
a better sign, regardless of conditions,
that a top water lure is something I ought to be trying. There are also
more options about methods and types
of top water lures you can use around structure than the other two
patterns, but we'll get there in minute.
That leaves us back
where we started, in the shallows. There are several shallow water
techniques,
including top waters, that have proven to us that some fish live in this
shallow area all year. Past B.A.S.S.
tournament results find aggressive top water patterns producing winning
stringers every where from 100+
degree water in August to 40 degree water in January where you had to
knock the ice out of the tip of your
rod. So, again we believe we have the where, (shallow), and the how (top
water), so we're back to when? Early
and late in the day works everywhere, so that part was easy. For the
rest, I look at the water temperature.
The magic temperature
is somewhere around 76 - 78 degrees, at which time top waters are the
perfect bait
all day long if you're in the right spot. As the water warms, the fish
will start to bury up next to cover in the
heat of the day. The hotter the water, the longer they seem to shut
down. Now depending on which type of bait
you use, this is just a slow down in the action rather than shutting
down completely, but by August it can be
tough to find a mid day bite on anything up shallow. But if you're a
night fisherman, a hot summer night
throwing a big loud top water is about as good as it gets!
Winter fishing is just
the opposite. The fish normally wait until the afternoon sun warms the
shallows before
they venture in too close to shore. Low light conditions will find them
buried deep into a grass ball or cuddled
up next to a tree. Winter fish are sluggish and don't have to feed as
often as in warmer water, but they do still
feed some and the shallows is still a prime area. If you're looking for
a slow, non-threatening lure you can work
all day in a coffee cup, top waters are an obvious choice. After a few
warm days in late winter and the cloud
cover of an approaching front, if you can maneuver a slow buzz bait
among the ice chunks, you might just get
your arm broke by a huge female checking out potential spawning spots
while taking in an easy meal.
Categories and Types
Before
we get to the different types of top waters, (of which there
are many), let's look at the two broad
categories, or jobs we'd like the lure to do. There are two separate and
distinct jobs a fisherman looking for a
limit has to do; find the fish; and catch the fish. Top waters can be
great at both jobs, and sometimes a single
lure will do both. More often than not, we have to choose different
lures for the two jobs and perform the jobs
one at a time.
The first job, finding
fish, calls for wide area coverage. The fish have a nasty habit of
ganging up in one little
area surrounded by what seems like miles of unproductive water. If you
don't know the spot on that particular
day, you want to lure that will cover a ton of water quickly,
eliminating the vast majority of it and finding one of
those magic spots. Several top waters fall into this category and quite
possibly perform the job better than
anything else in your tackle box.
The second job is
catching fish, even fish that don't really want to bite. The secret to
this is normally putting
a bait right in front if their nose and leaving it there. The direct
opposite of area coverage, we'll call it spot
fishing. Again, several top waters are the absolute best choice in the
box for working a small spot thoroughly
and keeping your lure in the strike zone 99% of the time.
Now that we're armed
with our category definitions, lets break things down into types of top
water lures.
We've got your Buzz baits, Stick baits, Prop baits, Chuggers, Swimming
baits, Minnow baits, Floaters, and
a few that just don't fit any of the above.
Buzz Baits:
The area coverage King. If you ever what to really hack off a worm
fisherman, tie on a buzz bait,
put the trolling motor on High/Continuous, and go to work. I can't
think of any bait in the box to cover an area
quicker. Based on a spinner bait with 2 or more blades rotating
around the shaft, this noisy contraption
attracts attention from a long ways off. Although famous for arm
wrenching explosions, as often as not the fish
will just suck it in from behind with only a swirl to say he was
there. The hardest thing about fishing a buzz
bait is to not set the hook. You need a needle
sharp hook, (gives you great practice with a sharpening stone),
and most of the time I use a small trailer hook or stinger. But
given small sharp hooks, I never set them. I've
lost far more fish I took the lure away from than I ever had from
poor hook sets.
When you see the fish
swirl, blow up, or just notice it got kind of quiet all of a sudden, do
nothing. Just
keep reeling at the same speed. The fish will often pull this lure under
before munching down. When you feel
the weight of the fish, then and only then set the hook. If a
fish misses a buzz bait it's even money he'll catch
up and give it another shot given the chance. Even given the stringer
hook, (assuming you use it point up)
these baits are very close to weedless and can be thrown in the thickest
of cover.
Ideal for fishing over
holes in a thick grass bed extending to just under the surface. They
also work great
when the fish are in the lily pads or around heavy standing timber. Buzz
baits are known as big fish baits, and
most of them come in big fish sizes. I've found I catch more, and a lot
of times bigger fish by down sizing to a
little ¼ oz model with 4 blades about ½ the size of the normal blades.
This smaller bait also lets me put it in
those tight places that a big bait just won't fit. I routinely worm a
grub over the stinger hook (curl tail down,
away from the hook point), for a little extra flotation letting me
slow down the bait.
You need fairly flat
water for a buzz bait. Anything from glass to a slight ripple will do,
(the slight ripple is
ideal.) When fishing around weed clumps or timber, throw the bait at
least 10' past the target so it's stable
when it enters the strike zone. Work it slowly past the obvious ambush
point, then speed it up as it moves
away from the strike zone. A lot of times a reluctant fish will let the
slow bait pass by but just can't stand the
idea of it actually escaping at high speed, (Macho Bass!).
For equipment, you'll
want a heavy duty rod to pull the fish out of heavy cover. Many folks
like long rods for
extra casting distance and covering water. I prefer a short rod for pin
point accurate casts around heavy cover.
A compromise is probably right. The line will be out of the water for
the most part, so using extra heavy line
has no penalty and really helps out horsing big fish around. I use
braided line (40 lb.) and love it. Although
buzz baits sometimes work great all day long, (especially in extreme
water temperatures, either hot or cold),
they are primarily a low light level bait and built their reputation on
being one of the best night fishing lures you
can throw around heavy cover.
Final buzz bait trick.
Turns out old baits catch more fish than new baits. As the blades wear
out, they will
tend to develop a squeak as they turn in the water. Kind of your finger
nails on the black board noise that the
fish just can't stand. To quickly age a new bait, tie it to the mirror
of your truck on the way to the lake, facing
into the wind. After 30 miles of wind, the bait will squeak like it's
ten years old. What does a Buzz Bait
represent to a bass? It might be a swimming rodent, maybe a bait fish
school, but I firmly believe they think
it's an itty-bitty bass boat and they're get to get it before it gets
them.
Stick Baits:
Stick Baits are another lure known for wide area coverage and big
fish. Actually, I don't really
catch many giants on this bait, only one or two fish over 8 pounds
in all of these years. But they do have an
uncanny knack of catching large numbers of 4 and 5 pound fish, one
after another, (talk about upgrade
specials.)
The embodiment of the
Stick Bait is the Zara Spook. While there are others, the Zara Puppy and
more
recently the Spittin' Image, or even a Chug Bug comes to mind, the Spook
remains the main stay and has
been boating big fish for over 60 years now. Characterized by the
Walk-The-Dog retrieve, it's a comparatively
difficult lure to learn to use. The lure is inherently unstable and
heavier on the rear of the lure. Many folks
rightfully claim the old wooden models out perform the newer ones. You
can get the same type of extra back
heavy action by adding a few Suspend-A-Dots right in front of the rear
hook on the bottom of the lure.
If you gently jerk the
slack out of your line, the bait will dart in the direction opposite
from which it is facing.
So, by moving your rod tip back and forth, alternately putting slack in
the line and jerking it out, the lure will
thrash back an forth in the water causing quite a ruckus. The practice
part comes when you try to walk the
lure and reel at the correct speed at the same time. Since it is best to
keep your rod tip pointed down towards
the water when walking the dog, short rods are normally preferred. Your
dealing with treble hooks, even though
they are the size of a small grappling iron, so medium rod tips and
monofilament line are generally better at
getting the fish in the boat. Rather than trying to sharpen the treble
hooks, I normally just replace them with
needle sharp after market hooks and move up to the 1/0 size while I'm at
it. With those big hooks, this is not
a lure you'd like down in the thick cover, so open water is usually
where you'll find these lures.
Even with the walk the
dog retrieve, there are a lot of variants you can use. You can walk it
at a steady
pace, stop and go, anywhere from very fast to very slow, and even
occasionally use the old rip it across the
water 10' then let it set trick. More so than most other top waters, I
pay attention to the color of the lure. This
is one of those lures I don't want the fish to see too well,
preferring they strike at the splash and just kind of
find the lure in the middle while they are at it. So, I match the color
of the lure to sky. Blue skies, Blue Shore
Minnow. Gray skies, Gray Shore Minnow. Dead Calm, Clear with no color at
all. Black at night. Bull-frog in
low light conditions at dusk and dawn.
Probably the strangest
thing about these baits is when I like to use them, High Wind. Oh, they
work well
from calm on up, but really seem to come into their own in a 20 mph
wind. Come April or May, look out
across the lake at 2 or 3 foot white caps, and there I am in open water,
Spook in hand, and normally catching
big fish. The trick seems to be to work it cross wind between the waves.
Don't know why it works, it just does.
Swimming Baits:
These baits have almost become a thing of the past, their
niche being filled by Buzz baits.
But they do one thing a Buzz bait can't, they float. This type of
bait is best characterized by the Jitter Bug or
the Crazy Crawler. A very easy bait to fish, just cast out and slowly
wind them in since they normally work
best on a slow steady retrieve. Like Buzz baits, they are at their
best in low or no light conditions. With a big
swimming blade up front and being inherently unstable like a Spook,
the water pressure on the blade makes
the bait roll from side to side yielding their unique plop-plop-plop
sound. Again like the Spook, I like to replace
the hooks with after market hooks of a little bigger size. Like
the Buzz bait, there is little hook setting to be
done and since they are often fished around cover, you'd really
like to horse the fish to the boat, so a heavy
action rod helps, (I still use monofilament line for the trebles.).
There are times when
the fish won't touch a Buzz bait but will nail a swimmer, and a swimming
lure is an
excellent come back or follow up bait for a fish that missed a Buzz
bait. Their biggest advantage is they can
be worked slower than a Buzz bait. You can even stop the bait dead for a
while in a likely looking spot,
(especially effective in a come back situation.) One other trick
you can use for night fishing as long as you're
not in a tournament. If you're working along the shore or a grass edge,
tie down a rod on the rear deck and
trail a swimming lure behind the boat a cast or so as you work along
with your trolling motor. Just let the bait
start and stop with the boat. But you'd better move quickly when it
sounds like someone threw a bowling ball
in behind you.
Chuggers:
Chuggers fall into a gray area
between area coverage and spot fishing. You can either working
them very, very slow, or very fast. With a flat scooped out face and a
loud "ploop" with every jerk of the rod tip,
these most ancient of top waters have been represented by the Lucky 13,
Hula Popper, Bass-O-Reno, and
lately in fashion with the Pop-R and it's many competitors. Unlike most
treble hook baits, you can't blindly go
replacing the hooks since the attitude the bait sits in the water is
important for it's sound, (plus the tassel on
the rear hook is an important part of the profile and needs to be kept.).
The traditional
presentation of a Chugger was to throw it to the strike zone right next
to heavy cover, let it
sit until all of the ripples disappeared, chug it once or twice and let
it sit again. If you didn't get hit in the first
3 or 4 feet, reel it in and try the next spot. Well, that was great for
the first 60 years or so, then Zell Roland
burst on the professional bass scene and has made a good living for the
last 20 years or so fishing a modified
Pop-R fast…very fast. Zell works the bait in a continuous series of
quick short jerks either in a steady pattern
or an irregular one depending on the fish's mood. He works the lure so
fast in fact, this is one of the few
presentations where you could probably out speed a Buzz bait. Talk about
covering water! If the water is calm
enough to keep the waves from tossing the bait out of the water on the
jerk, then the conditions are right.
For your rod, you need
to be able to move the bait against the water resistance yet still have
enough give
to keep the relatively small treble hooks involved, so something in the
medium light to medium range will
probably do. The small hooks and the bait action dictate monofilament
line, heavy enough to move the lure
easily but not so heavy as the effect the action, (10 -14 lb. is about
right.) Chuggers are yet another low light
or no light option and are noted for working well on cloudy days.
Chuggers are also a great choice for stained
to muddy water when you need something to attract attention in low
visibility.
Prop Baits:
Possibly the widest variety of top waters of a single type come
with a prop. Dating back into the
'20s, some of the more popular names in fishing have been prop baits,
the Dalton Special, Devil's Horse, the
Torpedo, Crippled Minnow, and countless others have come equipped
with a prop on one or both ends of the
bait. More subtle than any of the baits we talked about so far,
prop baits cause a relatively minor,
non-threatening splash as they are jerked through the water. These
bait can also be used for wide area
coverage, working quickly with a steady series of jerks. But they
really come into their own when used for
spot fishing. Most modern prop baits have a fairly slender profile
and tend towards the smaller size.
This makes them ideal
for work around isolated spots, letting the bait pause for a period in
between slight
twitches. To keep the props clear of the water, they tend to float very
high in the water, so they are effected
by wave action. You can use this to your advantage, letting even a
slight ripple on the water give a subtle
movement to a resting bait. The small hooks typical of these baits can
be replaced, but you should probably
stick with the same hook size or even downsize one size. The baits are
most effective worked around heavy
cover for ambushing bass. You'll want to use a medium to medium light
rod for the best action and medium
sized monofilament line, (good abrasion resistant line helps here),
so chances are fairly good the bass will
move the bait into the cover on you.
Treble hooks, light
rods, and cover are always a poor mix but using small hooks at least
helps the
situation. If you didn't catch so many fish on these things, they
wouldn't be worth the trouble. The non-intrusive
nature of these baits means the can be used any time of day, but I alter
my retrieve with brightness. The
brighter the light, the slower and more irregular the retrieve. For
night fishing, I fish the baits fairly quickly with
a series of regularly spaced jerks. Since you're using monofilament line
around a rotating prop, these lures are
not a lot of fun throwing in the wind. The props tend to wrap up and
foul the line resulting in a lot of retying and
a few lost fish. When the wind starts kicking up waves instead of
ripples, I put the prop baits away.
Minnow Baits:
These baits have morphed into
hard jerk baits so effective, we almost forget they started life
as a great top water option. The ultimate hard bait for quite, ever so
subtle spot fishing, the Rapala line is so
strongly identified with the class as to be synonymous. Sure there are
the Rouges, the Long-A line, and other
excellent baits, but nothing has yet surpassed the Rapala at the top
water presentation it invented.
The extremely slender
profile of the bait makes it the prefect ambush target when sitting on
top of a wary
bass. If you lightly twitch the rod tip, the bait will gently dip
forward, then spring back, almost returning to it's
original position. This means you can put a Minnow bait on top of a fish
and keep it there. If the fish seem to
be jittery, then a Minnow plug may be your best bet. And this is a
serious Big Fish bait. Some of the better
fish caught every year come on a Minnow plug. The Broken Back version
with it's drooping tail is particularly
deadly on big fish, (my first fish over 10 lb. came on one of those.)
And as an added
benefit, when a spot doesn't pan out, you can simply give it a jerk or
two to get it under
water, then use it in it's newer role as a hard jerk bait, (seems
like I've got an article on that use out here
somewhere.) The weight of these lures make them fairly easy to throw
in a wind and pretty accurate as well.
Since with spot
fishing your normally aiming at heavy cover, this is another bait I
would not up size the
hooks on, (a slightly different story that using the same bait as a
hard jerk bait in open water.) Same
equipment set up as other small top water baits, medium to medium light
rod with 10 - 14 lb. monofilament
line. This pretty much a calm water, (preferably clear water),
presentation and may be your best option in
glassy conditions. It loses some of it's attraction if you even have a
ripple on the water. But regardless of
season, time of day, or weather conditions, on a windless day, this can
be a dynamite bait.
Plastic Floaters:
Everything we've talked about
so far has some serious metal and/or wood associated with it.
But another option to keep in mind is soft plastic baits. There is a
whole class of these baits, and several of
your normal bottom bumpers that will work as well. Some, like Strike
King's Grass Frog have built in action
when pulled on top, (I personally prefer their new chugger version,
but the original is still a good lure.) Some,
like the Mann's Ghost and Goblin series mimic traditional hard baits, (walking
the dog with a ghost over a
hydrilla or milfoil bed is an open invitation for a big bass to
dislocate your shoulder.) And, of course, the old
Creme Worm fished weightless has accounted for untold numbers fish over
the years.
Most all of these
baits have one thing in common, they are weedless, or at least as close
as you can get to
it. This makes them the ideal bait, and a lot of times the only
bait you can fish around and through truly heavy
cover. We're talkin' throwing them in the middle of a hydrilla field, to
holes in middle a heavy pepper grass,
fished right through the heart of a pad field, serious emergent cover or
beds that top out with a couple of
inches of the surface. Now they can be fished in more open situations
and are effective at it, but they really
shine in heavy cover. Have standing timber so thick you
can't get a Buzz bait through it, much less your boat?
Plastic floaters are the answer. Since they float, or sink very
slowly, most of time you want to fish them slow.
Put them in a thin
portion of the heavy cover or over a hole and a bass hangin' around that
hole just can't
stand it. The really fun thing about them is the fish normally have to
strike from directly below the lure because
of the surrounding cover, so this is a serious explosion, not a little
boil. As with most explosions, they aren't
always controlled and the fish often miss the lure, so it's another case
of waiting to feel the fish before setting
the hook. When we say set the hook, we mean it. You'll have slack in the
line and normally the fish will
already be buried before you can react, so a serious all-you-have-got
type hook set is required. Obviously,
this type of fishing is not for the faint of heart, or for ultra light
tackle.
I really much prefer
braided lines for this application, (something in the 50 lb. class)
and if your dead set
on monofilament, start at 25 lb. and go up. Stalks and limbs are almost
sure to be involved so abrasion
resistance and low stretch help a ton. Similarly, the rod and reel need
to be up to the challenge. A lot of folks
go right past heavy action and straight to flippin' sticks., (the
added length helps in leveraging the fish out.)
Now, not all of these baits weigh that much, (i.e. floating worms), so
there is a trade off between heavy enough
to get the fish out and light enough to get the bait in. This is another
all day sport for any time the fish are in
that shallow strike zone. The wonderful thing about this is when the
fish shut down, they will normally bury up
in the heavy cover, exactly where these baits excel. You'd be surprised
how well these baits perform in hard
cold front conditions, (for serious tournament fishing, I'd still go
flippin', but this is a whole lot more fun.)
None, or
All of the Above: OK.
About got all of this covered. But there are several special interest
baits that
at extremely effective but don't really fit in to any of our types.
Their special action or application means that
no tackle box is complete without them, so we'll finish up looking at a
few favorites.
Chug Bugs:
The Storm Chug Bug is a combination
between a stick bait and a chugger, working well in either
application. A long unstable bait with a scooped front, it's quickly
becoming a tournament favorite. The solid
chrome color is a hint of orange belly and a blue back is the standard
for most conditions. You can just use it
as a chugger, but that kind of wastes the bait. The retrieve that's
making the lure famous is a two part retrieve
taking advantage of all of it's properties and combining several proven
top water techniques.
Find a likely target,
(hole in a weed bed, point, or stump), throw the bait in there, then
give it two quick hard
jerks, (C-H-U-G B-U-G), then let it sit. I've let it set for up to a
minute then had a fish blast it. If after setting
you don't have a strike, then just barely twitch, (like a Minnow bait.)
This will often trigger a fish setting just
under the Bug to blast it. If this fails, then start walking the dog
slowly back to the boat, pausing a few
seconds around obvious strike zones.
Another favorite
situation is around schoolers. Cast past the school and walk it as fast
as you can through
the school, (it will hardly ever make it through.) It's a heavy
bait and will work well in a wind. I use medium
tackle and monofilament line, varying the size and action and hook size
according to the cover I'm working
around. Excellent compromise of several top water types.
Rats:
Made famous on Guntersville,
a BassMasters episode a few years ago has brought renewed interest
in
this old lure. A simple plastic body molded to look like a rat with a
couple of upturned hooks means this lure
can be fished over virtually any flat surface, like say a solid mat of
milfoil. Fish buried deep in the milfoil will
attempt to explode up through the mat to nab the little trespasser. Only
about ½ of the fish will successfully
grab the lure, and you'll lose a number of those before you plow your
boat near enough to extract the fish from
the mat, (regardless of what they show on TV, it's better to go in
after the fish than try to drag him over the
mat.) Sharpening the hooks helps some, but it can be as frustrating
to fish this lure as it is exciting. If you
don't happen to live on Guntersville, I'm not sure it's a primary
tournament choice, but you can't beat it for
excitement and thrills.
The other good news is
it will catch some monster fish. The lure works best in the hot summer
and into the
fall when the mats are full, healthy, and the fish buried beneath them.
Under those seasonal conditions, it will
work best in the heat of the day in a bright sun when the fish bury
instead of roam around feeding. Extra heavy
gear is obviously required.
Bang-O-Lures:
Another compromise, this one
between a prop bait and a minnow bait. Bagley has sold
millions of them for one simple reason, they work. Fish this one as a
spot bait similar to the way you'd fish a
minnow bait. But the little prop on the rear means you get a little
splash and all of a sudden you've got a
slender minnow plug that will work in a little wind. The wind is not
required, but it is one of the few minnow
baits to fish on top with a ripple or even small waves. It also works
great when you'd like the very subtle
presentation of a minnow bait but you're in stained or muddy water. A
very nice compromise and a surprisingly
versatile lure. You sometimes have trouble finding this lure, so stock
up when you get the chance.
Flappin' Shads: The
absolute hottest thing in top water lures the last couple of years.
This has the
excitement of a rat, the water covering capability of a buzz bait, the
non-intrusiveness of a minnow plug, the
weedless properties of other soft plastics, and an effectiveness unlike
anything we've seen in years. It started
life as a traditional soft jerk bait but then someone added a paddle
tail. They worked well enough in the
traditional jerk bait role and gave a nice and different look used on a
Texas Rig.
Then one day someone
started reeling in quickly with a Texas rig and was totally surprised
when a major
league size bass nailed the sucker when it skittered over the top. Rig
these baits up with the hook pointing up
(out the back of the lure), behind a 1/8 oz bullet weight. You can throw
them a mile, and do so. Then reel like
hell. The trick of the presentation is to get the bait on the
top of the water. That doesn't mean ½" below the
surface, but right on top. You'll need to keep your rod tip up and have
a high ratio reel to keep it up on the way
back to the boat. The tail will flap rapidly in the water when you're
going fast enough putting out vibrations
rivaled only by a buzz bait. You'll being reeling close to as fast as
you can, and the fish will murder it!
This bait conclusively
proves you can't out-reel a determined bass. Fish that you thought were
only
marginally active will blow this thing out of the water. It looks and
feels just too much like an easy meal about
to get away for a bass to pass up. The speed seems to be the secret, not
giving the fish time to look or think
about it, just enough time to react. You can throw this bait about
anywhere and it works well in any shallow
conditions, (in fact, the shallower, the better.) You're line
will never touch the water and you've got a pretty
good sized hook here, so big heavy equipment with long rods are the
order of the day, (I use a 6 ½' medium
heavy with 30 lb. braid.)
Don't be scared to go
over the top of hydrilla mats, through the middle of pad fields, or any
place else you'd
fish a floating plastic bait. The bait will certainly work the best when
the fish are out roaming, but you'll get
your fair share of buried up fish as well. Since you can, (and really
must), cover so much water with this lure
it's picture perfect for looking for aggressive fish in the shallows in
a hurry. It doesn't put out quite as much
vibration as a buzz bait, so your casts have to be a little closer
together, and thus you can't cover quite as
much water as a buzz bait, but it's close. Have one rigged as a come
back lure for a buzz bait and you'll be
seldom disappointed. A great come back lure for a fish that misses this
bait is a traditional soft jerk bait. If
you haven't tried this bait, you're missing something special.
Well, that's about it
for this time. Hope you found something you can use. Top water fishing
is the pinnacle
of Bass fishing, a joy and excitement that can't be duplicated any other
way. It's addictive and has earned a
well deserved reputation for producing big fish. Best of luck and we'll
see you next time.
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