How to for Fish Bass with Top Water Lures

Top water bass fishing is my favorite way to fish for bass. There is nothing I enjoy more than when a huge bass breaks the water surface and grabs my bait. Talk about an adrenalin rush and heart pumping action top water ‘bassin’ will get it on. There are a number of different baits to use while top water fishing for bass. The popper, propeller baits, twitch bait such as the Rapala or Heddon floaters, buzz baits, rattle baits and rubber frogs and such are all used as top water baits.

With the many different varieties of top water lures comes the many different types of retrieval of the baits. The buzz bait is quite a bit faster than the Hula Popper or Rapala floating lures. You will have to try different speeds, jerks and twitches to see which one the big bass are longing for on any given day or time of day.

My personal favorite top water bait to fish for bass is the black/grey 6 inch Rapala. I actually cut off the lower part of the rear treble hook leaving only the upper two hooks of the three. This way I do not grab so many weeds pieces with the lure. I cast this little baby right along the edge of a weed bed and slowly twitch the bait with three short twitches and then I leave it set for a brief moment and most often the explosion comes during that dead time. If I see a large opening in weed cover I will toss the bait right up the far edge of the opening and slowly twitch it to the nearer edge. Of course sometimes getting it out of the opening before catching a weed or two is difficult but well worth the effort when the lunker hits. If you know where the drop-offs are you can cast up to the high side and then I like to slowly reel the bait in so that it is just under the surface acting like a wounded minnow given a twitch here and there as I reel.

In my younger days I used the popper on a rather consistent basis and have caught a lot of bass with it. Again I have used many different types of retrieval methods with the popper and one of the largest bass I ever caught was when I cast the Hula Popper out and gave it hard long pulls making a huge popping sound and a long trail of air that was pulled under the water about 2 to 3 inches. Not the usual way to fish this bait. But then bass don’t always react the way we think they should. Yes a good way to fish far bass is with top water lures and tackle. Give it a try you will be glad you did.

Dennis writes on a variety of subjects and has been bass fishing for over 45 years. Check out his review of two bass fishing books at http://www.squidoo.com/bass_fishing_review