Dawn, dusk and cloudy days with little wind and water temperatures over 60 degrees are topwater times. Topwater bass fishing adds a visual element to the chase, and strikes can be mesmerizing. Fish sometimes tell you if something is wrong. If bass roll behind your lure but do not strike, try making subtle size or color changes. Have another rod rigged with a slow-sinking worm to immediately throw to the spot of those missed strikes.
Cigar Baits
Practice to get the knack of fishing cigar baits properly. The Zara Spook is the most famous of these lures, which are shaped somewhat like a cigar. By itself, the cigar bait does nothing but sit there. Give it action by pointing your rod tip down. The Ultimate Bass Fishing Resource Guide says you want your tip almost touching the water. Lightly twitch your rod tip as you reel in slack. If your lure darts to one side and then the other, you've found the right touch. Experiment with the number of twitches and pauses during your retrieve.
Floating Worm
Try a floating worm around grass beds. White and bubblegum are the dominant colors. The Ultimate Bass Fishing Resource Guide says to use a barrel swivel to tie a 1-foot leader onto your main line. The leader prevents line twist as the worm darts and spins. Rig the worm Texas style, with the hook buried in the worm. Cast around cover and retrieve the line with a series of jerks. Change speeds and the size of your jerks until the bass tell you what retrieve they want that day.
Buzzbaits
Buzzbaits may be the most exciting lure for catching bass. Strikes can be subtle or sudden and explosive. Tie the lure on, cast and retrieve. Start your retrieve the moment the lure hits the water. Retrieve the lure fast enough to keep it on the surface. Vary retrieve speeds until you start catching fish, then stick with that speed. Start with a white, half-ounce buzzbait and experiment with colors and sizes from there. Try black under low-light or cloudy conditions.
Poppers
Fish poppers both quietly and noisily. Filing down the lower lip of the lure makes the lure spit like an injured shad rather than pop. Cast the lure, let it sit for up to a minute, then twitch to barely make a ripple on the surface. While the lure is sitting motionless, the feathers on the back hook are moving like fins. Repeat. If that doesn't work, try skipping the lure quickly across the surface.
Plastic Frogs
Fish plastic frogs on heavy line across the top of grass beds or lily pads. Retrieve them in slow, sporadic movements, as if you were imitating a frog moving from place to place. Once you get a strike, don't set the hook right away. The bass needs a moment or two to take the lure down from the surface and through the grass or pads.
Topwater Tips
Zell Rowland is a topwater expert. His tips include sticking to shad and frog colors, using round hook points so the fish can't throw the baits, painting your treble hooks brown or black, removing buzzbait skirts for easier casting, and tying feathers onto all your topwater baits.
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