It goes without saying that Zell Rowland is a master of topwater fishing. In fact, some would say he's the best topwater tournament angler of all-time.
His topwater philosophies have been discussed in past Fishing Tips articles, but this time we dive deeper into his arsenal. Why? Because he fishes versions of topwater baits that virtually nobody else has considered.
These secret baits aren't closely guarded prototypes or obscure samplings from basement-builders. They're refined versions of the baits you've fished for years.
They've given him the edge. Now you can have that edge too.
Bend a Buzzer, Create a Clacker
"There are times when you really need to slow down a presentation," Rowland said. "When it comes to buzzbaits that can be difficult because you need to maintain a speed that keeps the buzzbait on plane. I bend the blades to slow a buzzbait down. The blades are already bent and I just bend them a little more to close the angle. The more you close it, the slower it fishes."
Rowland also said that sometimes a clacker-style buzzbait catches more fish. "But you don't need to buy a clacker-style buzzbait - you can make one yourself. Just take a regular Colorado blade off a spinnerbait and put it on the buzzbait shaft. Simply open up the wire above the buzzbait blade, slide on the Colorado blade, then close it back up.
"As you retrieve it the Colorado Blade hits the buzzbait blade and clacks louder than any clacker-style buzzbait on the market. At the same time, you can maintain the confidence of fishing your preferred buzzbait."
He also said that he paints buzzbait blades for those times when he needs to fish a brighter-colored bait.
"My rule of thumb anytime I fish a topwater bait is the muddier the water, the brighter my bait color should be. To prepare for those days when fish want either darker or lighter blades, I paint some of my buzzbait blades chartreuse, black or white.
"I've even been experimenting with tri-color blades and I've found that in clearer water, the fish sometimes strike these better than the standard chrome or gold blades."
Jerkbait Breakdown
With the growth of deep-diving and suspending models, the jerkbait has somewhat grown out of fashion as a pure topwater lure. Not for Rowland.
"Let's take the Smithwick Rogue as an example," he said. "I fish a kind of Rogue that I'd say 99.9 percent of anglers throw away. When the bill on your jerkbait snaps off, don't throw it away. I'll often fish a Rogue with no bill because it really has a wild action - like a real wounded baitfish trying to get away.
"If you want to take the bill off yourself it's best to take a small pair of pliers and just wiggle the bill back and forth until it breaks free."
He also adds a prop to the Rogue to slow it down. "With just a small propane torch - which you can buy at any hardware store - it's very easy to add a prop to almost any bait," he said.
"I take a small piece of wire and hook it into the eyelet in the back of the bait, then heat the wire. When I heat the wire it transfers the heat to the eyelet and loosens the glue. With pliers I can easily pull the eyelet out of the back of the bait, add a prop, and screw it back in.
"Do this and you'll have a bait almost nobody else has got. I catch thousands of fish on it."
But he doesn't stop with the Rogue.
"I add props to a large variety of baits," he said. "I do it with Zara Spooks, Spit'n Images and so on. When you can add a prop to baits like these you can start fishing them more effectively during different times of the year. You can slow the baits down and keep them around cover longer."
Prop Talk
While he sometimes transforms baits into propbaits, he also alters traditional propbaits themselves.
"I like to say that propbaits are very 'tolerant' baits," he said. "There are lots of things I can do with them that I can't do with other baits.
"For example, when fish are spawning and they're tucked up in a bush or next to another piece of cover, the longer you can keep your bait around that bush, the better your odds of getting the fish to bite. That's just common sense.
"You can't do this with a chugger or popper-style bait. Out of all the topwater baits in my box, I can keep a propbait around that cover the longest."
But he said he adjusts his propbaits to meet the conditions.
"To keep the bait around the bush longer, for example, I bend the prop, or props, toward the front of the bait. The more I bend them toward the front, the less distance the bait moves when I snap my rodtip. If I bend them all the way toward the front, I bet I can jerk that bait 15 times and not have it move more than a foot and half.
"On the other hand, if I'm fishing in the dead of summer and want to move my bait extremely fast, I take the blades and bend them toward the back of the bait."
He's the first to admit that propbaits can be a bear to cast in windy conditions. But he has a cure for that.
"I seldom let the weather, or wind, keep me from fishing a certain bait I want to fish. Whenever possible, I'll have one style of bait that I can fish when the wind's not blowing and a different style of the same bait for fishing on windy days.
"The Smithwick Devil's Horse, for example, is absolutely one of the toughest baits to throw on a windy day because the head of the bait is much fatter than the rear. When you cast it you're usually throwing the lightest end of the bait into the wind.
"What I do is unscrew the front and rear eyes of the Devil's Horse, then reverse them. I actually put the line tie in the 'rear' and put hook in the 'front.'
"When I work the bait I'm working it backward. But when I cast the bait, the heaviest end goes into the wind first and it will cast forever. And even in wind this alteration allows for extremely accurate casts."
Feathers Catch Missed Fish
Some topwater baits come with a feathered rear hook but Rowland replaces it with his own feathered treble which he ties from genuine hackle feathers. His purpose isn't just to attract strikes. He said the feathers give him a second chance for fish that blow up but miss the bait.
"Feathers are the only thing you can put in water that exhibit action even when you move the bait only 1/16 of an inch," he said.
"I call it blink-of-the-eye action because when you pull the bait forward the feathers close extremely fast. When the bait comes to rest, the feathers reform back to their original position. In other words, the bait is reacting even while sitting still.
"Let's use the Rebel Pop-R as an example. If a big fish blows up on my topwater but misses, 9 times out of 10 I can catch him. I can catch him because one, I have feathers on the back of my bait and two, I use a certain hooksetting technique. Let me explain.
"As soon as a big bass blows up on a bait, too many anglers jerk the rod instantly. But if the fish doesn't have the bait in its mouth, the bait leaves the water and travels back toward the boat at about 60 mph. Increasing their mistake, anglers then reel in all the slack and throw right back to where the hit occurred.
"That fish didn't grow to 6 or 7 pounds because it was a dummy. When the fish had tried to get that "shad," the shad jumped about 65 yards in the air. And never in its lifetime has that fish seen a shad jump that far. Plus, when the angler recasts, here's that shad right back where he was a minute ago. If you fish this way, you'll rarely get that bass to strike again.
"Instead, when a fish blows up on a bait, I don't jerk. If it misses, I continue the action of the bait and then do one of two things. I either stop the bait in the water right where the fish just struck, or I continue my retrieve and allow the fish to think the food item's trying to get away.
"If I stop the bait, I know exactly where that fish is at. He's sitting underneath it, looking straight up at it, trying to make up his mind whether he wants to get it again.
"I just slightly turn the reel handle not even a quarter of a turn, which allows the bait to move about 1/2 inch. When the bait moves that 1/2 inch, the feathers look like lightning hitting the ground - they close extremely fast.
"The fish eases up a little closer to look and as he's looking the feathers reopen very slowly. Nine times out of 10 the fish cannot stand that. He has to try to get it. And that's the reason for the feathers on the back of the bait.
"I put feathers on every topwater bait I've got, from a jerkbait to a Pop-R, and it's amazing how many times a fish will have just the rear treble hook in its mouth."
Notable
> Rowland noted his philosophy concerning topwater styles, sizes and colors: "In seminars I always tell anglers to keep their color selection to a very minimum. Expand your selection of sizes and styles instead, which is much more important. A good base of colors would include some shad colors (gray, silver, black, blue, white pearl) and some bluegill (purple, blue, green).
"Size is important because let's say you and I go fishing tomorrow on Toledo Bend. We already know that the lake has a lot of fish in the 3- to 10-pound range. That's a lot of big fish. If we decide to target 10-pounders, we wouldn't want to throw a 3-inch bait. We'd throw the larger size.
"Sure, the minute we go to the big bait we know we won't get 50 bites. We might get only seven or eight bites a day. But when we get one, the fish usually has eyes 6 inches apart. You're effectively taking the smaller fish out of the game. So favoring styles and sizes, over colors, will give you many more options for fishing."
