Bass Fishing Forum - Westernbass.com

My biggest fish 7 - 8 lb have all been on top water on Clear Lake mostly because thats that what I like to throw . Do the larger fish 10lb + hit top water ? Whats your largest fish and what did you catch it on ?

OH YEAH! Just ask "Spookman" Johnny C! He has hooked some sweet 10lb+ on spooks at Melones.

Of course they do! Not that I have personally caught any but baits like the slammer have take their share of hogs!

Got a 9 1/2 lb'er out of Pine Flat year before last on a Super Spook. Skeetman5 can attest to that.

Hey Shaft, sure they do..... But there are numbers / small fish topwater baits (I started to post some examples.... but you would immediatly have guys talking about a big fish they caught, or heard of caught on these.... to which I would say, their are always exceptions).........

And their are big fish top waters, like MS Slammers, 3:16 wake baits, Lunker Punkers, etc. I've caught a handful of 8's and 9's on the MS. So nothing big so far..... but then I haven't really been fishing them very hard, for very long.
I believe I will start to get a few 10 to 13's on "big" surface baits within the next couple years.

BTW, try a big surface bait at night ! (shhhhh.... keep that a secret

Peace,
Fish

Chris, are you saying Spooks are little fish baits? This one time at band camp, I caught this fish.....

My favorite topwater bait is a live bluegill with 2 #4 stinger trebbles. I float the gill off a large cork bobber. Im not much into worrying about the trebbles because I'm going to have a skin mount made to prove what a great success I made of my techniques. (fiction)(bold face lie)(if'n the lounge was around)

Spooks,shellcrackers,poppers of anysize,frogs,buzzbaits. As of late in the dark of the night I have scored some nice fish on that huge Spro floating swimbait/wakebait. Nothing over 10, but a couple 6's and (1) OVER 7.


B343

Oh Chris,don't do that to me.8s and 9s are not big?I have to wipe the drool off my face because thats what happens just thinking about 8-9s.
I have been around here enough though to know what your talking about but it just sounded funny to me.I have taken my fair share of what we call big bass(6-7lb) up here though on top water,usally on a buzzer.What a rush to see fish like that slam top water.GB...Jim

This is a trick question guys. Let me answer that for you, no big fish never hit top water, never fish top water again....

I think that more then a few people have caught some good size fish on a frog. Well atleast i think Bobby has done pretty well with topwater.

I would say that a lot of the size matters on the body of water. Pretty obvious.... delta/clear lake = big topwater.... berryessa/shasta = 4 lb class probably.

Greg

Maybe I should ask if I were hunting a double digit Bass by the end of the year on Clear Lake what are the odds of hooking it on a top water ?

Although I do tend to agree with Chris on the subject, I would throw in this caveat..If you keep chucking the top waters on Clearlake, you have a decent shot at a ten plus..You would have a little better chance using a different technique in my opinion, (swimbait for example)..They are out there and they will hit top waters, you just have to be in the right place at the right time..

mac

end of the year as in December ?
Live bait, crawdads and tiny bluegill/crackers...But I'd more n likely be on the delta sticking big stripers on topwater.......

It's illigal to use bluegills as bait in lakes. The delta it is legal as long as it was caught there.

shhhhh....guess that say's im only fishing the delta.

Here's a picture of my wife with an 11.5 lb LMB caught on Pardee last spring. She got this one, an 8, a 6, a 1.5, and one that didn't make it into the boat but was bigger than the 11 all on an MS Slammer 9" on a windy afternoon. I got skunked.

NoCAL

Nice.

In the past two years just the ones over 10 for me on the surface were on, BBZ floater that got one fish at just over 10 (steady retrieve)
3:16 1up got me a 11 and a 12 lber (twitch and go, pause) .
MS Slammer has got me a few close.
So Yes, They do get them and lots of smaller fish 9 lbs on down.
So out of 18 fish over 10 the past two years I have got 3 of those on top. I also did not fish these (surface) baits much the first year. Its because of a good mix of baits that I got more fish this year then last over 10, also like Mac said "Right place at the right time" that sure helps LOL!
Best of luck!

Don.

I would say your odds are good.. Throw a frog, a black dog lunker punker, Black Dog Shellcracker, a 3:16 Wake Bait Jr and a AC Minnow exclusively and you should be able to get that 10 plus.

On saturday the winning team had a 10.20 and it was caught on a frog as they announced it. (I did not see them catch it - nor do I know them well enough to know they are telling the truth or not.... but, it seemed pretty convincing to me)

I personally have caught 4 fish over 10 in the past year and 2 were on the AC Minnow (Delta), 1 on the Armageddon (Delta) and 1 on a DD-22 (10.8 my biggest - Clear Lake).

I have seen many fish over 12 lbs being caught on top water lately as well.. keep chucking the baits I mentioned above and you will get one over 10 on Clear Lake.

Tom, does the AC minnow stay on top or does it dive? How do you fish it if you don't mind me asking.

I fish it both on top and cranking it down like a crank bait.
It's one of the best big baits made... still after all these years!

TomLeogrande wrote:I fish it both on top and cranking it down like a crank bait.
It's one of the best big baits made... still after all these years!

So it stays on top at slower speeds? How deep will it dive?

About 2 feet at faster speeds.

I've a 8.25 on a Rebel Popper and this one over 7 recently on a buzzbait. I'm getting a lot of 4's, 5's and 6's lately on Sammy's.




My fist disappeared in it's mouth by the way.

Big bass will hit topwater if conditions are good. Just remember to get a good hookset but don't put too much pressure on a big topwater bass. The more pressure, the more likely she is to jump - and that is often the end of a of possible topwater trophy!

Nah...Big fish don't eat topwater...

This 13+ is a fine example of how them big Girls don't eat topwater

This big ol' Girl totally inhaled it a 3:16 Wake Bait Jr. Kinda like a turbo toilet flushin

Nice fish! That thing is a pig.

shaft,

these guys are all lying to you. topwaters do not ... repeat ... do not work for big bass. fish-chris is REALLy lying, everyone knows that you can't catch "any" big bass at night, let alone big bass on top water, of all things.

those guys that make the lunker punkers, 3;16, ms, ac's and so on are just trying to pull the wool over our eyes. all they want is our $$

Froteur,

you got me she was actually caught dropshotting a 3" piece of plastic on 2# test in 120' of water

Big fish don't eat (inhale) topwater baits, so don't ever throw them...burn all of them topwater baits...that way I can catch more

gt5bass wrote:Froteur,

you got me she was actually caught dropshotting a 3" piece of plastic on 2# test in 120' of water

Big fish don't eat (inhale) topwater baits, so don't ever throw them...burn all of them topwater baits...that way I can catch more

no ..... no ..... no .... don't burn them. that would be polluting. i think everyone should just send those baits to you and me, gt, so that we can "properly" use ... i mean dispose of them.

funny thing, though, is that my biggest fish of the year (so far) a 7-14 was caught on a little, little huddlebug on 6 pound test line (my dropshot rig - though i wasn't dropshotting the huddlebug)

Fro,

I stand corrected...Yes send all your topwater baits to Fro and Myself and we will see that are properly used...err....ahhh...I mean disposed of

gt5bass wrote:Fro,

I stand corrected...Yes send all your topwater baits to Fro and Myself and we will see that are properly used...err....ahhh...I mean disposed of

good ... don't make me b-slap you again.

ask my buddy Mr. Barrack..He has seen more toilet flushes than a mens room attendant. Lots of times them dam little eight and nines are just faster than the big ones in the wolf pack!

Don't let them all lie to you. DO NOT FISH TOPWATER if you want to catch big fish. To make sure you follow my instructions, take every frog, popper, wakebait, buzzbait, spook, and every other topwater bait you have and mail it to me for sefekeeping. Don't trust Hub, he'll sell them for a 1/2 gallon of gas in his stakebed.

Maybe I'm just kinda slow on the uptake or something, but standard top water baits have never caught anything big for me. My biggest spook fish is probably 4 and a half. My biggest frog fish is probably 4 and 3/4. Poppers are even worse, I used to actually really like throwing poppers and never caught anything over 3 and a half. Typically when I pick up a top water bait it's 1lber, 2lber, 1lber, 2lber.

Trout plugs on the other hand, most definitely get big fish. I would say though that getting a surface fish over 10 on a trout plug is a lot harder than getting one subsurface. On certain condition you can really catch them on stuff like MS Slammers, fished right on top, but it's not all the time. You gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em with the surface baits. So-cal guys get more of that kind of love IMO, but in Nor-Cal it's just not the same exactly.

So anyway, if the question is: do topwaters catch big fish? The answer of course is yes, but there's much more effective ways to get them for the majority of the year like subsurface swimbaits, jigs, and sight fishing.

I suspect that people get hung up on thinking topwaters are good for big bass because it's so FUN that when people get a big topwater fish, they tell a lot of other people. Pretty soon people get to thinking that it's a percentage method, which ... its not really on the majority of lakes.

Biggest fish on "topwater" for me was 13.8 on an MS Slammer. The fish barely made a ripple on the surface when she took it down, just a dimple. When I got the fish in, the entire 9" lure was inside it's mouth crosswise like a piece of corn

I know you got some good ones on the AC Minnow too.

Hey Rob, I thought you got your 15.8 (your first DD bass) on a Slammer too.... No ? That was such a cool looking fish......

Peace,
Fish

Fish Chris your right! Rob got his first DD off a Slammer...as you know his brain hasen't been working right lately!!!!


Kiss my Bass

Yeah that was a Slammer fish, but I caught it reeling the bait about 3 feet under the water.

That's funny, every time I start to reel fast enough to make my Slammer dive, I'm like, "Doh ! Too fast" and I slow down to get it back to the surface..... but I'll remember this in the future

Fish

I have to agree with Rob and Chris, YES, big fish will hit the topwater baits, but it's not like yer gonna go out and bang 3-10 big fish every trip, even if'n ya do hit the conditions right, it's just rare. If yer tossing buzzers, spooks, poppers, prop baits, horny toads and frogs, you'll git a lot of action fer sure, but yer percentage of big fish, those 8 and above, is prolly less than 25:1. Certainly of all the baits I mentioned, we have seen a lot more big fish, especially on the Delta and CLearlake, where guys are using frogs. These two are great places to present topwater to big fish, that are burried in dense cover.

If you are looking for those trophy sized fish on topwater, ya most definately need to "Bubba up" in yer bait selection. An MS SLammer is an excellent choice and anyone looking for that big topwater slurp, should have one! The big buzz right now, especially in SoCal and coming out of ICAST, is Black Dog's Lunker Punker! Their first model in the trout pattern, has been calling giant fish from them southern lakes since the begginning of the year. We are just now getting the indicatoions up here, how good this bait really is! If ya got the patience, the desire and the willingness ta fork out the cash for one of these two high dollar baits, ya need ta do so and git on yer local pond and start chuckin em! Our giant California strain bass will eat em!

Shaft check out the picture of the 11.24 I caught on a spook yesterday morning at 8 o'clock. It is in the photo section.

Not sure about you Cooch.... but, I've been catching them on the Lunker Punker for 4 months now - and mine is a trout pattern!

It's been my Big Fish bait (along with the 3:16 Wake Bait Jr.) all late spring and summer!

Nice , that's what I'm lookin for , on my home water too !