Spring Topwater Bass Fishing - Everything You Need To Know!

hey guys Matt Allen here welcome back to tactical Bassin today we are covering one of my favorite topics and that is springtime top water fishing we're talking about walking baits poppers frogs whopper plopper x' and buzzbaits we're gonna break down five different categories we're gonna talk about how to know when there's a top water bite where to look for these fish which baits to throw and we're gonna show you how to do it let's start with how to know when there is a top water bite and then we're gonna go down individually through these five categories of baits explain the colors what the different styles are for and how to throw each one but none of that matters if you don't know when to start throwing top water you guys in the south you're already there and you have been there and most of you know it guys in the north you might be able to start sooner than you think so there are two factors well there's more than that really I guess there's three factors that are going to kick off a top water bite one is water temp typically a top water bites gonna kick off around 60 61 degrees at least that's what they're going to teach you they you know traditional bass fishing is going to teach you 60 61 degrees and it's true for the bulk of the bite but there are definitely times where the fish go much much earlier we've been on amazing top water bites in water in the 40s and on just mind-blowing bites in the 50s so keep in mind sometimes you take that book a bass fish and throw it out the window and give it a try there are two main factors outside a water temp that are gonna determine whether or not you've got a top water bite first one is the presence of bait fish now that could be that could be shad that could be a little pin minnows a little glass minnows that are moving up into the shallows that can also be bluegill crappie all sorts of different things whatever your bass are feeding on if you're a pond guy it's probably bluegill if you're a big water guy in the south it's probably some sort of main forage bait fish plus bluegill in the farther north you get it just depends on the fishery obviously get far enough up there there are no more shed but you still have bait fish so when the bait fish is present in the shallows your top water bite is ready to kick off how do you know if they're up there go out in the evenings it's the early season as that water starts to warm up the warmest part of the day is right there before that light starts to fade off on you that's when the water has warmed all day it's at its peak when it's at its peak the bait fish will get the shallowest and they'll start to feed right before that light fades so if they're up there you're gonna see them work in the surface and as a bonus you might see the bass come up and start blowing up on them too so bait fish that's number one number two is if your fishery has grass in it if the grass is starting to emerge odds are you've got a top water bite now there are lakes in the South where the grass never goes away so that doesn't help you but understand that in a lot of places in the country the grass will die back it's really cold in the winter all the grass will die back if we go back to essentially a mud bottom or a rock bottom and then as you start warming up in the spring you start getting these little sprouts of grass and then up they come towards the surface and it can happen almost overnight you'll pull into a bay it'll be totally open water get a couple of warm weeks and all of a sudden the water is getting clear and you can see the grass starting to grow up might even come up and touch the surface if you can see that grass starting to come up already have a top water bite because those bass use it to ambush they'll go and sit in that grass and then lash out from there to eat as bait fish come by that makes sense so there's your three factors you got water temp but sometimes you can throw that one out the window number two is the presence of bait so that they have something to eat so there's a reason to be up there chasing a top water and number three again it's gonna be that emergent grass coming up giving them great ambush points now let's talk about the different styles of aides what you're going to find that goes across the board here with the exception of a whopper plopper is that speed is everything the earlier you are in the season the slower you want to go you want to just be crawling those baits the fish in that really cold water they're not going to chase very far so I've intentionally selected baits that are slow-moving that will spend the most time in place creating commotion getting a reaction without traveling quickly so that first category let's start with walking baits and then we'll circle back around walking base the idea behind a walking bait is that you can walk the dog takes a cadence of twitching the rod and then turning your handle kind of chopping your reel handle to match you can get the bait it doesn't come straight at you if you're not familiar with them they'll do a zigzag they'll walk the dog that's what that's called you're getting maximum movement without progressing forward very quickly so instead of coming in a straight line you're just getting that wide left and right covering a lot of ground laterally without coming forward you're spending the most time over the top of that fish so it's got time to come up and eat the bait I recommend if you're throwing a walking bait in the spring something with a cup to face the two that I like the best is a river to sear over the other one is the reaction innovations mix in the body style is identical in both the rover has more of a lower mid-range sound the Vixen is much tinnier or higher pitched both are phenomenal options but what I found is that as I go Lake to Lake Ann I travel it doesn't matter where I am in the country but as I travel one lake the big fish absolutely prefer one bait over the other the next Lake it's the opposite they're two different sounds same style similar colors identical profile too different sounds you got to figure out which one's the fish in your lake hit better and then stick to that one because it seems to be very consistent the second walking bait is this guy right here this is called the bubble Walker it's essentially a giant popper but we don't use it like the popper could you just switch it on the surface absolutely you could fish this as a giant popper but that's not what we do we walk it so twitch twitch and you're trying to get that walk only this bait because the cupped face is so large it doesn't give you this walk what it does is it sits almost in place and it just throws the head back and forth so even more than a traditional walking bait this will stay in place right over the top of the fish it moves incredibly slowly makes a ton of ruckus it's a large profile and look at it compared to a normal I mean this is not a small poplar either look at it compared to a normal sized popper its massive anywhere that we've got a grass fishery where you can get right over the top of the grass and slow walk that bait and just spray water and essentially sit in place walk it and let it sit walk walk walk walk let it sit we've done amazing things with that bait right there so that's the walking category again we're keeping it very simple today we're covering five different styles of baits but I'm not gonna give you a lot of options and at the end of all this I'll explain color as well next category poppers poppers are gonna come in a lot of shapes and sizes from a lot of companies it almost doesn't matter which one you go with unless you want to walk them if you're just popping a popper just a sploosh sploosh in and let it sit when you pull that bait that cupped face is gonna spray water then it's gonna sit there and use a cadence I'm either one two or three twitches and it'll splash splash and then sit splash sit if that's how you're fishing a popper virtually any popper is going to be fantastic just pop it let it sit there but if you want to walk a popper some of the higher-end baits the splash it the yellow magic both of those baits cost a little bit more but they're really well balanced and you can walk the dog with them just like you can enlarge or walking bait so you get this really finesse II profile and a really tight little walk you know you're not getting that big wide kick and you're not getting that head knock you're actually getting a walk but it's a very small walk so you spend a ton of time over the top of the fish but where a popper shines the best is right in around cover so if you've got grass beds coming up offshore that walking bait can be fantastic if the fish have pulled up into the pockets so they're right up against flooded brush or Tooley's or bull rushes or right in the backs of spawning pockets and you know they're up against the cover you can throw a popper right up in those edges and just twitch and leave it there twitch twitch let it sit slowly work it out then when you get out away from the bank when you think you you're out of it you're out of the strike zone instead of burning it back to the boat walk it back to the boat and if there's been a fish giving that bait the slow follow it might just unload on it when you start walking that is a great way to fish a popper that very few people do and the other way were not the other way but the other bait this is again that bubble Walker this is the big size as a smaller size but that smaller size is a very large profile for a traditional popper but same rules apply it's a popper you can pop it or walk the small one but it's just a little bit bigger profile so if your fish are eating small little minnows I recommend the smallest little poppers if they're eating standard size minnows or shad you know and how do you know which ones they're eating well you see them in the water I mean you have to physically see them you'll see them up in the shallows or you'll catch a bass it will spit them out you want to match the size and profile so if they're a little bit bigger a standard sized popper if you start seeing that they're eating blue hills or things of that nature that are bigger going to that large sized popper makes more sense next is frogs we're gonna go frogs then whopper poppers then I'm gonna end with buzzbaits in the past I haven't even told you guys to throw buzzbaits in the spring there was a reason for that and I'm gonna explain that but I'm gonna explain why it's a category today as well you're walking baits I throw them on braid with a leader I like braid even for my treble hook baits a lot of guys are gonna throw mono whatever you do don't throw floral fluoro as a whole sinks Flora's gonna try and pull the nose of that bait underwater it's gonna screw up your top water do not use fluorophore top water mono floats you can use mono it's got great stretch works really well that's what a lot of people do I'm a braid guy through and through I'm much for fur braid because out on the end of a long cast you've got a work of eight pretty hard on mono because the mono stretching so much it's absorbing your motions on braids I can just sit there and just barely work that baby it's a lot easier on me and when the fish eat it I've got a strong hook set even way out at the end of a cast but again if it's a walking bait or a slow-moving bait I'm gonna add a leader the walking baits it's because the braid itself the braid is not rigid see how it just sort of folds up mono and fluoro don't really do that they stay pretty rigid on their own so if I've got a big walking bait and I'm using braids it can run over itself and get snagged up and you get stuck on your hooks it'll drive you insane but if you put a piece of mono in there two three four five feet of mono it doesn't matter how much just enough that when it runs forward it's got some resistance in the line and it doesn't do this big kink thing makes a big difference then with a slow moving bait like a popper I like that leader for visibility because when you're going that slow twitch twitch and let it sit twitch let it sit and that fish is studying that bait they can sometimes see that braided line it's a profile up there on the surface it's silhouetted so if it's casting a shadow it actually looks a lot larger than it really is and in really clear water that can be a problem with a really slow-moving bait so again I like a leader for the slow-moving baits the frog however straight braided line powerful rod hit him hard hit him extra hard drag him to the boat the Frog has a giant set of double hooks in it almost every frog that's worth throwing has a huge set of double hooks you need a lot of power to drive that hook home I mean look at the size of those and there's two of them so they're gonna work against each other going in compared to a popper hook totally different ballgame you need a heavy tackle but the beauty of the Frog is that you can put it anywhere so we were talking about that offshore grass well when that grass comes up and lays over on the surface throw the Frog right on top of it the fish are come up through it to get it when we're talking about the backs of those little spawning pockets maybe the fish are right up against those edges and you're trying to get in there with a popper but it's too tight and the end of landing in the stuff and you ruin your whole pocket because you have to go in there with the boat to get your bait back out that's where a frog shines the Frog goes anywhere it's weedless you can throw it up in the junk then pull it out and let it fall right in front of your fish or if the fish are all the way back in that junk you can throw it in there hook them and with 65 pound braid you can drag them back up out of that stuff no problem the Frog is just the power fishing version of both a walking bait and a popper that's what it is you can work it slow just barely move it you can walk it fast I like to walk them pretty fast because it's not that big wide glide it just very quick side-to-side walk and I walk them so quickly that actually it's a body roll so you see both the bottom and the back color of that bait as I walk them the fish react really aggressively to them again I'm moving them faster but they're not coming forward very quickly because there is so much side-to-side darting movement and I'm getting tons of movement compared to how far forward I'm coming it's a phenomenal spring option and it gets overlooked a lot people think of a frog as a summertime bait as a slop bait for fishing in the grass fishing in the crud it is an amazing spring bait some of my biggest bites of the entire year on a frog come in February March and April they just eat them and they haven't seen it in a long time once you get into summer you notice that the the fish don't hit the bait quite as hard he ended up with a lot of skin hooks out on the edges because those fish are getting weary because they've been hooked by a top water but early spring they come up and just choke the baits they're committed to him they believe they're the real thing and they take him all the way in so with the with a frog you guys know the Maine frog Tim and I throw as a bully wah it's actually a bully wah - that's our main frog you also saw if you followed us all last year that we started throwing this Givat show a lot but Givat show is it's smaller and it walks tighter and it's got a true cupped face on it and it's just been an awesome little option a lot of people throw sprows a lot of people throw snag proof there are great frogs in each one of those lines but personally when I am you know looking for a confidence bait the two frogs that I'm gonna grab and throw into a box and go to the lake are gonna be a bully wah - and that givat show that really found a place in me this year the guevara is a round Ben took a little bit smaller profile hook but really heavy wire I've had no issues there then the bully wall has that great big wide gap big hook and we pin big fish with them both awesome options next whopper floppers and then actually you know what I'm gonna skip ahead we're gonna go buzzbaits then circle back to whopper poppers in the past I have completely left buzz baits out of the springtime category I told you just eliminate him focus on the others I did that for a reason the reason I did that is that it's very easy for a guy to just pick up whatever buzz bait that he has in his box or his local tackle shop has and that bait is a single bladed bait it weighs too much it moves too fast and you're wasting time it's just flying across the surface and the fish aren't willing to run it down so for the sake of not confusing you guys and sending you on a wild goose chase we left it off well another year has passed as a whole all of us are becoming better anglers we're getting more time under our belt so this year I'm going to go into it a little more in depth in this bring topwater video there is absolutely a place for a buzzbait if you're careful the buzzbait tends to get a very large bite in the springtime but again it's so easy to do it wrong so the two styles of baits that i've recommend throwing are gonna be one you need a lighter weight head the lightest weight head that they offer whatever buzz bait you decide to go with the lightest weight because the way a buzz bait works it's a sinking bait so you throw it out it starts sinking you have to start moving and the water going over the blade pulls it back to the surface and then that blade spins as it comes across the more it weighs the faster you have to go to get it to plane up to the surface and run so a heavy buzz bait is going to be traveling faster on the surface than a lighter buzz bait so a lighter buzz bait is better if you're throwing a single bladed buzz bait don't throw metal blades throw if you can find it a quad blade that is a four bladed plastic blade I love these they go slower much much slower and it's a very subtle sound it's just a little tiny commotion going on compared to the size of the buzz that will get bit if your fish are actively chasing if you're seeing them blow up on stuff again you don't want to go too fast and that's why you're going with the lightest weight you can with a big plastic quad blade that will slow you down enough and you fish it right on the edges of cover not out in the open water yet that's gonna come post spawn if you guys are in the south and your post spawn ignore what I just said you go for it but if your pre spawn or spawn you want to be right up tight to the cover and the fish will just come right out of the cover and explode on it that is the way to go the other option same thing lighter weight is better double buzz this is a brave back and there's a bunch of great double buzzers on the market but it's it's hard because a lot of double buzzbaits don't leave enough gap between the backs of the blades and the hook it's really important that you find one that has enough gap here that you have a good hook up ratio and then I'm also gonna run a stinger hook behind that to help that much more if you don't the fish will come up they'll get the blade and they'll bail back off it and they'll never get that hook point so larger gap here is important like every video we're gonna link the the exact year that we're using down in the video description so don't worry it'll be there easy to find you find this buzz bait the frogs all of it the rods everything but again the double buzz as opposed to a single buzz the reason why again we're trying to plane to the surface well the double buzzers work against each other they work against each other so they rise much easier and will go slower a double buzz will even go slower typically than a big quad blade it'll just crawl on the surface making a ton of commotion was both blades if you're going fast it looks like an airplane coming in to land I mean it's just two propellers just throw in water but if you go slow with it it'll just gurgle and churn water come right down the edges of cover they will come out and ambush them last but not least is the whopper plopper which has been the craze now for a few years it has been a craze in the West for what seven eight nine years something like that I don't even know when they came out it took a long time for the whopper plopper to hit the national market it was big out here for years and years and years before most people ever even heard of it so the whopper plopper comes in a variety of shapes and sizes the most popular for catching giant fish nationally it's probably the 130 size as we travel that's what we catch the bulk of our biggest ones on and then the 110 and the 75 are also great sizes for getting those big bites there's also a bigger one and a smaller one but what I want to focus on today is these two in between sizes right here this is the I think it's the 1/10 size if I'm wrong I'll correct it down in the description but I'm almost positive this is a 130 yep that's a 110 so the 110 and then this little guy the 75 between them there's a 90 but the 90 is a narrower body it's a narrower profile mimics smaller bait fish has a little smaller tail has a little bit more subtle sound to it and I catch spots smallmouth and largemouth but it's morphin SE the 75 size is phenomenal this time of year because it's a short compact to low bait with a large tail so you're getting a loud sound out of a small profile if you're on a pond or any bluegill fishery that little guy that stumpy little size with that loud sound is phenomenal and then that little bit bigger profile again larger body shape again with the big tail because the bigger the tail the slower you can go and still get the sound now the whopper whopper if you're not familiar with it this is just a cast and straight retrieve bait just like a buzzbait a buzzbait you throw it out and start sinking you start right away it'll come up to the surface and then you just cruise along and it'll make it sound same thing with a whopper popper except they float so you can come right along the edge as a cover and then if you're gonna blow up and you miss him you can pause it and then pull it let it sit and then start again it just sits over the top of those fish you can control your speed because it is a floating bait but you will find with a whopper plopper that each size has a proper speed where the bait is the loudest that's the sound that you want you want that ouap ouap ouap ouap ouap that loudest sound that's what you want now why is the warp whopper in a springtime category because it's a straight retrieve bait and it's going pretty fast the reason why it's in the category is that it's still new enough that all over this country the fish just come unglued for it it's like when the senko was new or the irig was new when these baits first hit and the fish don't have a clue what they are the strikes are explosive and they are like that on the Whopper plopper still today they just Massacre this thing when it goes by so they're if they're on a top water bite at all odds are they will run down a whopper plopper but by focusing on those two sizes you're getting great profile with the larger size tail so you're going as slow as you can with the largest profile that's your best odds of getting that big fish to come up and blast that bait in the spring top water is one of my favorite things to do when it starts I Ted I throw top water I mean the first blow up I get I never put that rod down again until it starts snowing at the end of the year I love doing it I absolutely love it it's one of the most fun ways to get a bite you know when your worm fishing and you get a little tick that's the excitement but when your top water fish in that little tick can be a giant explosion it can be just like a toilet bowl flush where you're walking that froggen you pseudos just sucks it all down the heart race is so much harder when you see it and hear it as opposed to just a tick on the end of the rod if you guys haven't thrown top water you've got to try it it's a blast now last let's talk color gonna keep color really really simple I'm gonna give you four and it's primarily three Tim and I both we believe in the simple method and that is black white or chartreuse those three black white or chartreuse in any bait topwater you want to be careful because they are coming up and studying it so color does matter but if you color if you cover those three categories of color you're pretty much golden anywhere the white it will cover the vast majority of bait fish chartreuse it will cover blue gills it will cover aggression I mean there are times where a fish will eat chartreuse and it will eat nothing else and it eats it so violently it's just a triggering color there's a time when it looks like a bluegill and there's a time when they just plain want to eat it and then the last one is black black is gonna cover everything from terrestrials like rats mice those sorts of things in the water all the way up to just a great large profile all the way to black birds and other birds in the water that that black birds you know they nest along the water and they can fall in baby ducks those three colors will cover basically everything a bass wants to eat on the surface the fourth color is just going to be a natural bluegill type color the time that I go to that is when the fish are being picky I'm catching them on white I'm catching them on chartreuse but I'm not catching them as good as I think I should be and I've got clear water go to a bluegill pattern see if they'll wolf that one down instead especially again if you're a pond guy a small body of water guy if your fish are primarily targeting bluegill and pan fish a bluegill color can kill it and then if those fish are getting really violent really aggressive and really ambushing those baits go to a bold bold chartreuse and see if you don't get an even bigger bite guys I hope you enjoyed the video we went a long time on this one we're pushing I don't know twenty nine minutes or something but this is important stuff top water is awesome if you haven't done it try it if you have done it you know why I'm so excited about it get out there this is your time of year to catch a giant top water fish have a blast hit the like button scribed to the channel if you haven't already we do three videos a week for you guys we're passionate about it we love to teach we appreciate you have a good day [Music]

Channel: TacticalBassin

Views: 388,406

Rating: 4.9310236 out of 5

Keywords: bass, fishing, topwater, Spring, spring fishing, prespawn, early spring, late spring, spring bass fishing, bass fishing tips, whopper plopper, plopper, popper, buzzbait, frog, frog fishing, cold water frog fishing, cold water topwater, top water, underwater, underwater footage, slow motion, topwater blowup, topwater blow up, topwater strike, whopper plopper underwater, popper fishing tips, tacticalbassin, tactical bassin

Id: eRJQXwDlGnI

Length: 29min 47sec (1787 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2019