New Spins, Twists In Topwater Lures

One undeniable facet of bass fishing is that bass become conditioned to lures. Through the archives of professional bass fishing history, there are dozens of once red-hot lures that are merely placeholders in the tackle box today.

Sometimes all it takes to breathe new life into a well-known lure is to slightly modify its action, vibration, noise, size or even color. With such small changes, lures that have lost their luster with bass suddenly become like baits bass have never seen before – all over again.

This phenomenon is especially true with topwater lures. Over the last few years, several traditional topwaters have undergone makeovers to make them new again to bass. In general, these topwaters are simply new renditions of old faithfuls.

Here is a look at some new spins and twists (literally) on topwaters that have made them top performers on the national bass circuits once again.

Buzzbait toad

A prime example of giving an old standard topwater a new look has happened with the good old-fashioned buzzbait.

Buzzbaits have made a huge resurgence in pro tours thanks to one simple modification – taking off the conventional skirt, trailer and replacing it with some sort of buzzing toad like the Zoom Horny Toad.

Among the pro circuits this is not exactly a big secret any more, but there are still a lot of bass in lakes and ponds across the country that have not been fooled by this trick yet.

Bass pros have quietly been replacing their buzzbait skirts and trailers with a buzzing toad for many years. In the beginning, these guys had to push the toad up on to the buzzbait’s lead head and superglue it into place. Now their tournament successes have forced lure companies to make buzzbaits that are specifically designed to hold toads. The War Eagle Buzzing Toad and Dirty Jigs Tackle Scott Canterbury Pro Buzz are just two examples of an age-old bait that have spawned a new category.

So why does putting a plastic buzzing toad onto a buzzbait make it so much better than a traditional buzzbait?

Common answers from pros point to the big, flat, buoyant nature of the toad and how it completely changes the profile, sound and speed of the lure. The overall size of the offering is bigger, it casts better, the increased buoyancy helps with quicker lure engagement on the surface as well as allowing for a much slower retrieve. The buzzing “feet” on the toad adds a new twist to the sound of the bait as well.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of toading-up a buzzbait is being able to skip it up into untapped nooks and crannies where bass lurk, such as under docks, to the heart of buck bushes and underneath thick willows.

“A toad makes it possible to put a buzzbait where it’s never gone before,” said Scott Canterbury, who helped Dirty Jigs design his Pro Buzz. “Bass in those kinds of tight places are not used to a buzzing lure invading their space so it’s like fishing new water with a new bait.”

There is no doubt the buzzbait toad frog combo works. Canterbury alone has put a heap of cash in his pocket, including two runner-up finishes in the Forrest Wood Cup. The only aspect of the buzzbait toad that pros seem to differ greatly on is the color. Some pros swear by all white, some swear by all black while others try and split the difference with sort of a translucent smoky shad color.

Whopper Plopper

The Whopper Plopper is another new form of a topwater buzzer that really seems to ring a bell with bass, especially big bass.

“The Plopper,” as it called on the bass tours, is made by River2Sea and is actually a derivative from the muskie lure market. The lure was designed by Hunt For Big Fish star Larry Dahlberg, who used the lure to hunt for big fish, including muskie and pike. When the giant buzzer started fooling giant bass, River2Sea figured they would give it a go in the bass fishing market and it has become a smash hit on the pro circuits.

The Whopper Plopper is somewhat like the old Rebel Buzzing Frog where the prop doing the plopping is at the rear of the bait as opposed to the front. But instead of a frog-imitation body, the Whopper Plopper 130 has a large baitfish profile body. And instead of just a regular old gurgle, the Plopper makes a very unique popping or “plopping” type noise as it churns through the water.

Major League Fishing and Elite Series pro Chris Lane along with fellow Major League Fishing and FLW Tour pro James Watson have scored some big tournament checks using the Plopper. The secret is now out, but there are still a lot more fish to be caught on the Whopper Plopper as it has a little brother, the Whopper Plopper 90, which produces that same unique plopping sound in a smaller package. River2Sea also recently added a 110 size to the Plopper lineup.

If bass fishing trends hold true, normally the smaller “Jr.” or “puppy” version of a lure brings a second round of fish-catching success and the smaller version of the Plopper (90) has not been touted near as much as the 130.

Popping Perch

Every bass angler is familiar with a good old hollow-bodied floating frog. So how can such a staple be freshened up?

Strike King took a pretty good shot at breathing new life into the hollow-bodied lure segment with their introduction of the KVD Popping Perch. The body of the bait looks like a hollow-bodied frog-type bait, but everything else about it looks like a perch or bream, from its bright colors to its popper-style mouth to its name.

Major League Fishing and Bassmaster Elite Series star Kevin VanDam is the first to point out that even though his namesake Popping Perch looks like a hollow-bodied frog, it’s not designed to be a traditional slop-hopping kind of frog. Instead, it’s meant to be fished more like a spook or popper-style bait in the small patches of open water around bushes, willows, scattered vegetation and behind dock floats.

“This is designed to be a walking bait, used around more scattered cover,” explained the two-time MLF Summit Cup champion. “You work it like a spook, but it stays put in one spot better, splish-splashing back and forth in small pockets of water, looking like an injured perch or a feeding bluegill.

“Instead of traditional skirted ‘frog legs’ we have given this bait this flatter skirt off the back for more buoyancy and better side-to-side walking action. Since it’s so weedless, you can skip it up under bushes, behind docks, into the middle of log jams and work it right through and into those types of cover without getting hung up.”

Shower Blows

The final lure in this list of rejuvenated topwaters is the Evergreen Shower Blows, which is an updated version of the old pencil popper topwaters used by ocean surfcasters.

While some of the other lures in this list have received exposure in the media of national bass tournament circuits, the Shower Blows has remained locked away in the rod lockers of top bass pros who would rather keep it quiet – very quiet – for as long as possible.

Most old school pencil poppers are big lures – 6 to 8 inches in length – and thrown on big surfcasting gear. Evergreen’s versions are smaller, louder, more realistic looking and feature a teaser feather on the rear hook. The two sizes being sought after on the pro circuits right now are the SB 125 (5 inches) and the SB 105 (4 inches, a.k.a: “the Shorty”).

Despite their smaller sizes, the Shower Blows still has that classic pencil popper look with a thin nose and bulbous tail. This allows them to be cast far and walked easily. Their action lands somewhere between a spook and a popper as it frantically spits water while being twitched, making it a great call for open water points, humps and schooling activity.

StutterStep

Whether it’s a buzzbait toad, a Whopper Plopper or the Popping Perch, the topwater goal these days seems to be putting larger-profile baits in unconventional places and have them linger around in the strike zone longer than a bass can tolerate it.

Enter the Bill Lewis Lures’ newest creation: the StutterStep.

Initially, the StutterStep could be considered a walking bait. But the design elements of its deep curved body combined with a flat, angled tail, which acts somewhat like a trim tab on a boat, keeps this raucous topwater from traveling very far when “walking the dog.”

This bait will literally turn back on itself with each twitch due to it’s ultra-wide angle of rotation; it thrashes back and forth wildly but stays in one spot, producing the triggering mechanism that these new topwaters aim to achieve.

“I consider the StutterStep to be a target bait,” says Major League Fishing co-founder and Elite Series pro Boyd Duckett. “Almost like when pitching and flipping to isolated targets, I want to put the StutterStep right up next to a stump, dock, willow tree, buck bush or whatever target I feel is holding the fish and start walking the lure in one place, creating a topwater disturbance the fish simply can’t ignore – because it won’t go away. It just stays there, with that big tail throwing water over it’s own head with each twitch, looking confused and disoriented.”