Topwater heaven
Big bass hit surface lures for Friday fun
I’ll bet the topwater bite is always hot in heaven.
Be it for trout, amberjack or marlin, a hot topwater bite is one of the most thrilling sensations to be had in the outdoors. It was stellar Friday for largemouth bass while fishing with Joe Volpe of Little Rock on a small lake in eastern Pulaski County.
The early morning looked like a rainout, but the weather cleared around 8:30 a.m. Volpe arrived a little late, so I helped myself to three chunky bass, all about 2 pounds, fishing from the bank.
I used a lure new to me, a Bass Pro Shops XPS Double Down Plopper. It is based on the Whopper Plopper concept, consisting of three sections instead of the Whopper Plopper’s two. The Double Down Plopper has a prop on the front and the back, so it makes twice the commotion of the Whopper Plopper. The additional noise and surface chop is measurable. Regrettably, it is no longer available online from Bass Pro Shops or Cabelas.
Plopper-type lures spin when retrieved. That twists your line and eventually renders it dysfunctional. I remedy that by putting a ball bearing swivel on the eyelet. This allows the lure to spin on the bearing without twisting the line.
This was my first time using that lure. It sprung a leak in the middle section, causing it to sink. A sinking topwater lure is counterintuitive and challenging to use, especially in water with a lot of submerged wood cover. It was vitally important for the lure to be returning at full speed the instant it hit the water.
The color is greenish translucent with a black back. Volpe used a bone colored Whopper Plopper, always a dependable color.
We fished from kayaks. I used my Hobie Pro Angler 12, and Volpe used a Pelican.
While waiting for Volpe, I summoned a bass that looked to be about 2 1/2 pounds. It followed the lure almost to my feet and hovered before it when it stopped. When I finally lifted it from the water, the bass fled, creating a mighty wake with its back.
The next three strikes were violent and sure. I landed the last one as Volpe arrived. We exchanged small talk as we transferred our kayaks from our truck beds to the water. We stowed our gear on board, made our last-second checks, and launched.
I followed Volpe, hoping to snap photos and video of him landing fish from a welllit angle.
“Go ahead and fish in front of me,” Volpe said. “That bank over there is really good.”
Before making the move, I cast to the bank and caught a 3-pounder. It struck violently and fought heroically.
“I just cast over there!” Volpe said. “Why are they hitting your lure and not mine?”
I bit back a snarky reply. It’s imprudent to twist a tiger’s tail as a guest on the tiger’s lake.
The fish got progressively bigger as I made the turn in the northwest corner, but I couldn’t tell much about the fish from the strikes. Sometimes a bass blasts a topwater lure like a bomb. Some slash at it. Others take it down with a mighty slurp. Sometimes the lure merely submerges in a boil. That’s always a big fish. I gave each strike a one-anda-half count before reeling in the slack and sweeping the rod sideways to set the hook.
My biggest fish was nearly 5 pounds. She was long and skinny, with a wide, gaping maw. She had recently spawned, and she probably weighed closer to 6 pounds when she carried eggs.
“That lure you’re using looks a lot like a little bass,” Volpe said. “There aren’t a lot of bream in here, and there aren’t a lot of small bass, either. I think they survive eating their own young.”
With the wind churning the water on the north bank, I switched to a Zoom Tiny Lizard. The reel was a Wavespin 2000 spinning reel with 30-pound braid and 8-pound Berkeley Vanish Flourocarbon joined with a double-uni knot. The rod was a 6-foot, 10-inch Abu Garcia Veritas in medium-light action.
Bass were in a mood to bite the lizard. I was late on the first take and missed. I swung hard on the second take and broke the line at the union knot. It happened again shortly after, and then it happened a third time. From this I concluded that in this combination, the double-uni does not have sufficient shock strength for hard hooksets. I switched to a swimbait. It got one strike from the smallest fish fish of the day.
Volpe worked the south bank. There’s a diversity of cover there, including wood, grass and shade. As the sky cleared and the heat increased, the bass finally recognized Volpe’s bone Whopper Plopper.
“They’re super aggressive,” Volpe said. “They’re just cruising the bank feeding.”
I fell in behind Volpe hoping again to get some photos. I hit the red record button on my iPhone the instant a bass smashed Volpe’s lure. That was my best “catch” of the day.
We started at about 9:15 a.m. and ended at 1 p.m. I caught 14 bass, 13 on topwaters. Volpe caught 10, including the big fish of the day, a 5 1/2-pounder.
“Not a bad day of fishing at all,” Volpe said with satisfaction as we loaded our kayaks.
“That’s probably the best morning of fishing I have ever had,” I said.
I had to think that one over. It was certainly right up there with a morning of catching amberjacks with Capt. Justin Leake off Panama City Beach in Florida, and it compared favorably with a morning of catching speckled sea trout, red drum and tripletail near Bay St. Louis, Miss., with Capt. Sonny Schindler. It even ranked high with the reigning champion, a morning of catching speckled trout, jack crevalle and pompano in Pine Island Sound in southwest Florida.
Two of those were topwater eruptions. All were in the company of good friends, and they were heavenly. I think that answers my question. I’ll bet the topwater fishing is always fabulous in paradise.