This Week @ Bass Edge

Topwater Action on Percy Priest

The bait sat perfectly still, the circular wakes from it’s landing having traveled several feet, when the big bass shattered the surface. As Pam Martin-Wells lifted the four-plus pounder from the water, she smiled back at Bass Edge host Aaron Martin. The 2007 Women’s Bassmaster Classic champ had indeed figured out what the fish wanted: a slow presentation.

This week’s episode of Bass Edge is something of a case study in tailoring the action of topwaters to the mood of the fish. Fishing baits on the surface of the water for bass is among the oldest techniques in the sport. Who better to visit with about it than the dean of bass fishing, voted the greatest angler in an ESPN fan poll, Rick Clunn.

For Clunn, it’s not the topwater bait you use as much as how you fish it.

“The real key to topwater fishing is establishing the rhythm -- the rhythm that generates the strikes – and the second part of that equation is the rhythm that hooks the fish,” Clunn explained.  “There are rhythms on certain baits, say on Spooks that sometimes generates a lot of strikes but you are not hooking a lot of them.”

When Clunn begins to get strikes without catching fish, he begins to adjust his approach to what he is experiencing on the water.

“Sometimes that is just a pause or a little bit of a change of speed. Sometimes you might need a change in the size of the bait.”

He says northern smallmouth bass are notorious about being picky about the presentations with baits like a Spook.

“You’ll have them jumping over the top of it and hitting under it. You need to develop the rhythm that is generating strikes, then you may have to fine tune that a bit to where you are hooking most of the fish. The important thing, to figure out what presentation will help you put these fish in the boat.”

The Bass Edge crew found their topwater fish on a cloudy, October day on Tennessee’s Percy Priest Lake. Fall is one of the traditional periods that most anglers find themselves fishing baits on the surface. There is nothing quite like walking a bait across a surface that mirrors the glorious fall colors from a nearby shore. Clunn can be found throwing topwaters whenever the fish want them, but looks to two specific seasons for topwater success.

“Usually mid-spring to mid-summer is the first timeframe that I like to fish topwaters. When we start going into the pre-spawn and spawn, I really try to keep alert to some of those freaky one to two week periods when you get a sort of Indian summer effect where it really warms up, especially if you get a few warm nights. The dogwoods and the redbuds are maybe just starting to bloom. Some of the biggest fish you’ll catch on topwaters is that time of year.”

Clunn is much less concerned about the type or color of a bait than he is the speed it can be worked. In the spring, he is typically working his topwaters fairly slow.
“That would be something like a slow buzzbait, where you are just barely keeping the blades turning. That bait, in early spring through mid-spring will produce some of the largest females moving up in that unusually warm week or two. They are thinking about moving up to spawn eventually anyway. It could be a spook that time of year, but with a very slow cadence.”

Waking baits, known nowadays as Wakebaits, are lures that when retrieved very slow leave a wake on the surface. They have long been a favored spring bait of Clunn’s.

“Years and years ago Norman had a waking bait, long before anyone else had one. They didn’t even call it a waking bait back then. About 15-years ago they called it the Waking N. Now everybody’s got one. I really like the waking bait in spring because it is a real slow presentation.”

Color doesn’t matter a whole lot when you are fishing a bait slow, Clunn says, “But if you are fishing slow maybe a little.”

The second time of year that Clunn likes to fish topwater baits is during the hot days of late summer and early fall.

“Some of the best tournaments I have had are at places like Lake Mead in July and August when it was 125 degrees and you fished it in that ultra clear water when most people were doodling at 30 or 35 feet. I fish that topwater Rico all day long.”

The approach to fishing for these blazing conditions is, well, blazing.

“A client of mine, when I was fishing on Lake Conroe (Texas) taught me to fish the bait. We had fished Chuggers our whole life, but we fished the bloop, bloop and let it sit. I’d never seen anybody fish one real fast. I was just amazed at the amount of fish that he caught on that.”

Clunn went on to win the U.S. Open in 1983 on Lake Mead and soon added a summer tournament win in Texas before revealing his new topwater technique to a few close friends.

Like most anglers, Clunn enjoys topwater action because of the visibility of the strike, but he has also made it part of his competition arsenal.

“It’s a very effective technique for catching quality fish. That’s the real attraction to it if you are a tournament angler.”