Topwater strikes leave lasting impressions

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It was early June, when dusk lingers a little longer than it does the rest of the year and the world is trying to squeeze the most out of the last relatively comfortable days before the full-on, ceaseless blistering of a Texas summer sets in. I remember that.

I remember the shoreline of the lake, too. It was the west shoreline, the one that first fell into shadow as the sun sank behind the screen of pines and oaks surrounding the little East Texas reservoir.

And I remember the boat - the damp-wood scent and rough feel of the cypress skiff and the slight but unforgettable-once-you've-smelled-it scent of burned and unburned gasoline and two-cycle oil huffing from the exhaust of the green, 1955 model five-horsepower Mercury outboard clamped to the rented skiff's transom.

But most of all, I remember - not so much remember as can't forget - what came next.

Dad killed the outboard, grabbed a paddle and sculled toward a spot where a bank of cattail stood in the shallows and green platters of water lily dotted the glass-slick surface.

A chugger-style topwater used near cover along the Llano River drew this fierce strike from a hefty largemouth bass. May and June produce some of the year's best topwater fishing for Texas' bass anglers. A chugger-style topwater used near cover along the Llano River drew this fierce strike from a hefty largemouth bass. May and June produce some of the year's best topwater fishing for Texas' bass anglers. Photo: Shannon Tompkins, Staff Photo: Shannon Tompkins, Staff Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Topwater strikes leave lasting impressions 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

"We have to be quiet," he said in a near whisper to the two young sons squirming on the board seats. "Don't want to spook the bass."

He picked up his rod-and-reel, checked the knot that secured the Paw Paw Stick - a wooden, cigar-shaped plug with propeller-like spinners fore and aft and armed with three wicked-looking treble hooks - to the multicolored, braided Dacron fishing line spooled on the direct-drive Shakespeare reel.

"I'm going to teach you how to fish a topwater for bass," Dad said.

And he did.

Father knows best

Topwaters - lures that float or are worked on the surface - are most effective late in the day and early in the morning, he said, when the fish come out of the deeper water where they spend the middle of the day. The water is cooler and more comfortable, and the low light and shadows make it easier for them to ambush a bream or frog or other meal.

He cast the plug toward the edge of the cattails, thumbing the whirling spool at just the right time and with just the right pressure to drop the lure within a couple of inches of the cover. Then he did nothing.

"You have to let it sit there for a minute," he said. "Let the ripples go away."

After what seemed like an eternity, he tightened the line and snapped his wrist, making a sharp, short twitch in the rod.

The plug responded with a splash and sputter as the plug's twin spinners churned water.

The plug moved forward a few inches, then stopped.

"Got to let it sit," he said.

Again, he twitched the rod and the plug danced, rattled and foamed across a few more inches of water and bobbled to a stop.

The plug had barely moved on the next twitch when something simply staggering happened.

The plug exploded in a shower of spray and a sound like a bowling ball had been dropped into the water from some great height. The water boiled and a black/green/silver blur burst upward, twisting and somersaulting into the air, the bass tumbling back to the water only to leap and twist and rage against the meal that had bitten back.

This was magic. Pure, simple, mind-blowing magic.

The bass was not the only thing hooked that June evening more than 55 years ago.

Dad caught several more bass that evening, all on topwater plugs, with every savage strike sinking the hook deeper and deeper into a 7-year-old whose fishing career to that point had consisted of snatching small sunfish on tiny, worm-baited hooks dangled from a cane pole.

Easy to get hooked

Catching bass on topwater lures is a multifaceted sensory experience - tactile, visual, aural. And it is just plain more exciting and almost certainly fires more positive neurotransmitters in a bass angler's brain than any other method or tactic of taking what most consider to be the state's - the nation's - premier game fish.

"I'd rather catch one fish on a topwater than a dozen any other way."

Has the bass angler ever lived who doesn't nod in agreement with that oft-repeated line, invariably uttered after an especially explosive or surprising surface strike?

And is there any better time of the year than now to have that experience?

It's that time of the year

May and June are two of the best months of the year for catching Texas largemouths on topwater lures. The littoral zone of lakes, ponds, bayous, rivers - the "shallows," where water is generally less than 4 or 5 feet deep - are where surface lures are most effective. And where anglers can find good numbers of largemouths during May and June.

Water temperature still is mild enough for the cold-blooded fish to feel comfortable. Plus, there is a lot of food to be found. Swarms of sunfish - bluegills, redears, longears, redbreasts and others - move into the shallows to spawn during May and June. Add the annual crop of aquatic insects, crawfish and other invertebrates that boom during late spring, and those shallows provide a tasty larder for largemouths.

Then there is the annual flush of aquatic vegetation - submergents such as hydrilla and emergents such as pondweeds and water lilies - that provide habitat for all those forage species as well as ambush cover for hungry largemouths plus shade from an increasingly intense sun.

On most waters, the best topwater bass action happens early and late in the day, when the sun's angle is low, the water is coolest and the predators most active. But that's not the only time bass can be tempted to smash a bait fished on the surface. On cloudy days, bass may never leave the shallows.

And even on sunny, warm (even hot) days, bass will hold in lily-pad patches, where the floating pads provide shade and the vegetation pumps oxygen into the water throughout the day. These "lily fields" can produce excellent topwater action during the middle of the day.

The same applies to Texas' river-based bass fisheries, where current and shade from stream-side trees keep water temperature and dissolved oxygen levels comfortable throughout the day and anglers can enjoy productive, even outstanding topwater fishing even in the middle of a sunny day. (One of the largest "river" largemouths I've ever caught - a 7-pounder - hit a topwater plug fished in the middle of a downright hot June afternoon.)

Lures have evolved

Bass haven't changed since that East Texas epiphany more than a half-century ago, and the thrill of having one detonate on a topwater plug certainly hasn't. But the tackle used to catch them certainly has; it has gotten much better, much more varied and much more efficient.

Today, the variety of surface lures includes hard-plastic versions of the classic "stick" baits, propeller/spinner-equipped "slush" baits and dish-faced "chuggers." All can be incredibly effective when fished in fairly open water. But they can be used only in relatively open water, where their exposed treble hooks aren't constantly being fouled by vegetation.

In heavy cover - water-lily fields and areas where pondweed or hydrilla mats reach the surface - buzzbaits and frogs are the go-to lures.

Buzzbaits, elongated spinnerbaits with large, paddle-like blades that keep the lure on the surface under a steady retrieve, draw some of the most violent topwater strikes as bass seem particularly aggressive in grabbing the always moving target.

Frogs, however, many be the most productive topwaters in heavy cover. Hollow-body frog baits, invariably armed with a pair of hooks that ride with their points up so they are effectively "weedless," can be worked through the heaviest cover, up and over and around lily pads and hydrilla mats, stopped and allowed to simply float in openings in the vegetation where they can prove too much temptation to a bass anticipating a meal of frog legs.

Today's braided lines, with their thin diameter, high tensile strength, durability and low elasticity, are much more efficient at driving a hook home when a bass grabs a topwater and wrestling a fish out of heavy cover than monofilament ever was. And when combined with modern rods and reels, the tackle makes gear that anglers used 50 or even 10 years ago seem quaint and horribly inefficient.

But one thing that hasn't changed is the thrill - the heart-in-throat charge - of seeing and hearing the water beneath a topwater lure disintegrate and feeling that absolutely electric charge when the line comes taut, the hook finds purchase and you are directly connected to something from another world.

It's something you remember.