Hot summer mornings Top Water??
So for me..... My all time favorite hot humid summer morning at first light is too water fishing. Growing up it was either a Spook or a Buzzbait. Now days with so many new lures on the market, what's everyone's choices? I was fishing last summer with a buddy on Lake Lewisville near Dallas.
He broke out a Whopper Plopper, and I had my old trusty Spook. We had lines in at 5:45a.m. and by 6:30a.m. I had 2 with combined weight of maybe 4 pounds, and he had about a dozen fish and a few over 3 pounds and 1 pushing 6.
Since that morning... I have learned to not let my "Old School Pride" keep me from catching fish.
Yes if they will chase the plopped it is much more efficient. You can cover a tremendous amount of water giving more opportunities. But I have found every day and situation is different. Some time none of it will work. They simply will not come up.
Isolated targets with calmer water I’ll throw a popper. More open water areas like covering points or areas with submerged grass, or if it’s choppy I’m throwing a walking bait. Seems like for me, buzzbaits and ploppers are cool really in both scenarios
I really like the Spook type baits... But the popper seems to draw up some bigguns!
The way I think of topwaters is that spooks are like something swimming/feeding actively, which is easy target for feeding bass. I think of poppers as something injured, which is an easy target if you know a small area with bass, because they want that easy meal, even if they aren't biting. Interestingly, I've caught very few spotted bass on poppers, and I wonder if that's because they are less likely to hold tight to cover and more prone to be looking to feed actively.
I like using a spook and a whopper plopper. For me, it’s the water conditions that determine which one I pick up. I’ll throw a Zara Spook for calmer water and I’ll throw a whopper plopper if there’s a some ripple. Both have caught some big bass for me and work very well.
A Spook One knocker is my go-to, but a Plopper does cover water faster. Also, the Berkley Choppo has slightly quieter "plop" and has picked up a few extra bites. Good tool to add to the kit.
