Surface Strategies That Set A Winning Scenario For Springtime Bass
By Larry Larsen

The sun was only a faint promise in the eastern sky as our plugs landed softly on the placid surface near the vegetation. One small twitch and my topwater disappeared in a substantial boil. I set the hook more from a reactive response to the sound rather than my barely-discernible observations in the faint light of a breaking dawn.

As I fought the fish toward our boat, another surface noise attracted my attention. No, it wasn't my fish breaking the surface 25 feet from where I thought it was, but my partner's topwater plug being popped. I held my bass at boatside while he quickly brought his to the bow. The twin 3-pounders were not giants. But in the darkness, they were fun.

My partner, Will Kirkpatrick, and I caught another four bass as the daylight pushed the dark away. Still, none were the giants that Sam Rayburn frequently offers. After a slow 2-hour spell, we found another flat with hydrilla-laden largemouth that eagerly sought our topwater fare. Six more bass, and save one 6-pounder, our catch was still averaging around 2-1/2 pounds each.

Kirkpatrick is quick to note that topwater action for big fish can be hit-or-miss on the huge East Texas impoundment. He loves to throw surface plugs at Sam Rayburn's healthy largemouth bass. The best times, according to the long-time guide and Broaddus "Fishing School" Director, are in the spring and then in the fall.

"In the spring, I normally select minnow baits, such as PJ Minnows," Kirkpatrick says. "You want to use a topwater that you can keep in one place and twitch, because you're fishing the tail end of pre-spawn. The bass are not as active then as they are at other times."

The personable fishing guide prefers to probe grassy habitat at and around the edges of buck brush. Often he finds that late afternoons are more productive than early morning hours or during the day-especially if the weather is cool.

Kirkpatrick's topwater arsenal includes poppers and skippin' baits. His all-time favorite, however, may be the venerable Dalton Special. He tosses it around the emerging grass patches on Rayburn where the vegetation is sparse, but emerges about the surface in clumps. Twitching the bladed wooden topwater right at the edge of the buck brush and adjacent grass in 3 to 7 feet of water is the prime tactic in this particular scenario. Kirkpatrick suggests fishing the deeper water if grass is present and the shallower, 3-foot areas if the vegetation is absent.

In the cooler weather, he will toss Jerk'n Sams, Nip-i-Diddees, or other "slush baits," as he calls them. While I used a Jerk'n Sam to catch several, Kirkpatrick opted for the latter to also amass a large number of bass during my visit to Sam Rayburn.

Kirkpatrick's largest bass ever, a 9-pounder, was caught on a Nip-i-Diddee. He was fishing the topwater plug on the edge of a hydrilla bank along an extended point bordered with a deep creek when the big fish struck. The guide had stopped the retrieve and was twitching the bait ever so slightly, so that the blades would barely turn; then he would pop it. He had moved the bait about three feet with the little twitches when the big largemouth exploded on the plug.

"Bass make a lot of noise chasing shad, and that's why I think the Jerk'n Sam and Nip-i-Diddee work better when the bass are running shad," Kirkpatrick explains. "I like the Nip-i-Diddee because it lays flat and works better around grass that is just breaking the surface. A Jerk'n Sam's tail droops at an angle," he notes, "and that will result in more hang-ups around the grass."

Kirkpatrick likes to place his surface fare right on the edges of the lake's big hydrilla beds. The closer to the edge, the bigger the bass will be, he believes. His catches over the years have solidly proved that contention.

In the spring, when the guide first starts tossing the surface baits, catches of from 25 to 40 largemouth are not uncommon. The bass may run from two pounds up to double digits. Whatever the size, Kirkpatrick loves to fish the topwater baits for surface-crashing bass, and it shows.

Randy Dearman is another expert Texas bassman who often opts for topwater baits in the cooler months. His success as a guide and tournament professional has been helped often by a proven host of topwaters.

Dearman, who has also guided on Lakes Livingston and Sam Rayburn, often utilizes a popper or chugger-type bait with feathers on the back hook. Such plugs are his confidence baits. He will opt for the popper when he thinks the bass prefer a noisy bait and select a Zara Spook when the fish want a quieter lure. The Spook, another Dearman favorite, is a walking-type bait that may fool especially large bass. The pro generally starts throwing the Spook right after the spawn.

"We can also catch fish on topwater baits during the spawn on Rayburn," says Dearman. "The key spots to find on the lake are flat-water sandspots. Early in the year the spots won't have much grass growing on them. The whole lake has sandspot flats which will be in from 4 to 10 feet of water.

"Look for the bare spots with duckweed growing over and around them and bordered by hydrilla," he continues. "The big holes in the hydrilla are where the peppergrass starts growing. When the peppergrass first starts showing up, that's the prime topwater time."

The Rayburn bass may want those topwaters fished fast, or maybe extremely slow. Dearman recalls that the biggest string he ever caught was on a Spook fished extremely slow.

"We'd let it sit until we couldn't stand it, and sometimes the bass would hit the plug just sitting there," he says. "Sometimes, you could just barely move it, and they'd erupt as though they'd been sitting there watching it. If you worked it like you normally would as soon as it hit the water, they wouldn't bite."

He caught an 11-pounder, a 10-pounder, two 9-pounders and four more fish over 7 pounds. It was the biggest stringer of fish he had ever caught, and they were all caught on topwater baits. It was a fantastic day he will never forget-a very cold, pre-spawn situation-and the fish had been aggressively striking topwater baits.