The Surface Strike: A Guide for the Heart-Pounding World of Topwater Lures
There are few moments in fishing as purely electrifying like a topwater strike. It’s a sensory experience that transcends the experience: the quiet anticipation, the visual of the wake forming behind your lure, the sudden, violent explosion of water, and the adrenaline that follows. For many anglers, it’s the pinnacle of freshwater and saltwater fishing.
While catching fish is obviously the goal, topwater bass fishing lures is about the show. It’s a dynamic, engaging, and sometimes theatrical method that targets a fish's most primal instinct: the desire to ambush prey from below.
  
Why Fish Topwater?
Topwater lures can now be worked on the surface of the water, mimicking anything from a struggling baitfish to your hapless frog or even a buzzing insect. They excel in specific conditions:  
Low-Light Periods: Dawn and dusk are prime time. The dim light gives fish the confidence to go into shallow water to secure.
Cloudy Days & Calm Water: Overcast skies can extend the topwater bite the whole day. Calm water is right, because it allows fish to find out and track your lure more easily.
Around Cover: Whether it's lily pads, submerged grass, laydowns, or dock pilings, topwater lures can be worked in places where other lures would snag, provoking reaction strikes from lurking predators.
The Main Cast of Topwater Lures
The step to topwater success is matching the lure and its particular action for the conditions and also the mood from the fish. Here are the most popular types:  
1. The "Plopper" or Prop Bait
What it really is: A lure having a propeller (or two) for the front, back, or both.
The Action: A steady retrieve causes the prop to churn the river, creating a distinctive "bloop-blop-blop" sound along with a significant wake. It’s a aggressive, noise-making lure that calls fish in from your distance.
Best For: Actively feeding bass, pike, and muskies. It’s a fantastic "search bait" to pay for water quickly.
2. The "Walk-the-Dog" Lure (Stickbait)
What it's: A long, slender, often cigar-shaped lure with no built-in action.
The Action: This can be a finesse technique. Using a rhythmic "twitch-and-pause" in the rod tip and your line slack, you create the lure dart side-to-side (or "walk") through the surface. It mimics a wounded, zig-zagging baitfish.
Best For: Clear water and wary, pressured fish. The subtle, tantalizing action can trigger strikes when louder lures fail.
3. The Popper
What it is: A lure with a concave or scooped-out face.
The Action: Sharp, short twitches from the rod make the face to "pop" and "chug," pushing water forward and making a burbling sound and splash. It mimics a feeding baitfish or a large insect.
Best For: When you want a far more rhythmic, "pop-pause-pop" presentation. Excellent for targeting bass, bluefish, and trevally.
4. The Buzzbait
What it can be: A wire-framed lure having a propeller-like blade that spins about the retrieve.
The Action: Retrieved steadily, celebrate a constant, loud, whirring noise as well as a bubbling wake—a pure reaction-strike machine. It’s one in the most exciting lures to make use of.
Best For: Murky water, during the night, or when you need to draw fish beyond heavy cover. A classic for big bass.
5. The Frog
What it's: A soft-plastic or hollow-body lure built to imitate a frog, skittering within the thickest cover without snagging.
The Action: It’s worked which has a "walk-the-dog" action or possibly a series of short hops and pauses right over the tops of lily pads, matted grass, and slop.
Best For: The heaviest cover imaginable. The strike is often explosive, like a bass must burst over the vegetation to consume it.
Mastering the Art: Tips for Topwater Success
Patience is really a Virtue: The biggest mistake is setting the hook prematurily .. When you see the splash, wait! You need to feel the weight from the fish in your line before you decide to cross its eyes with a powerful hookset.  
Embrace the Pause: The moment from a pop, twitch, or chug is often when the strike happens. That pause gives the fish time for you to locate and commit on the lure. Let it sit.
Match the Hatch (Loosely): Try to mimic just what the fish might be eating. A frog lure over mats of grass, a stickbait over open water, or perhaps a popper around schooling baitfish.
Don't Be Afraid of Color: In topwater, action and sound in many cases are more important than color. However, an over-all rule is bright or natural colors for clear water/low light, and darker, more visible colors for stained water or bright days.
Use the Right Gear: A medium-heavy rod using a moderate-fast tip is ideal. It provides the backbone for the good hookset but has enough "give" to stop tearing the lure out of the fish on a violent strike. Always use a braided line for topwater; they have no stretch, ensuring solid hooksets and letting you "walk the dog" more efficiently.
Topwater fishing is not always the most consistent approach to fill a livewell. There will be days of frustrating misses and refusals. But the trade-off is surely an experience unlike any other. It’s a visual, visceral, and heart-pounding style of fishing and build memories long after the ripples have faded. So, the next occasion you're about the water to start with light, tie over a topwater lure. Be ready for the explosion, and prepare to get hooked.