Topwater Lures: Types, When to Throw Them, How Each Works

A hard-plastic bass popper in a baitfish finish, with a cupped mouth, a belly treble and a feathered rear treble — Photo: サミー (Sammy), Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Topwater lures are fished on the surface, and they work in a narrow window: water of about 65 to 85 °F (18–29 °C), low light, and a calm or lightly rippled surface. Inside that window they are the most exciting lure family there is, because you see the strike. Outside it, in cold water or bright midday sun, they catch next to nothing. The first hour of a warm summer morning is their hour.

Never tie a topwater to fluorocarbon: it sinks and pulls the nose of the lure under. Mono floats, braid floats, and both let the lure walk.

Start here

Frog lures: how to fish a hollow-body frog over grass, and the hookset.
Whopper Plopper: the sizes, how to fish it, and where it began.
Bass fishing: the seasons behind the topwater bite.
Spinnerbaits: the buzzbait’s wire-frame family.
Fishing line: why fluorocarbon and topwater do not mix.
Fishing lures: the other lure families.

Which topwater does what?

Five families cover the surface, each with its own movement, sound and cover.

Family	How it moves	Sound	Cover	Reference lures
Walking bait	Side-to-side “walk the dog” on rod twitches	A slap; most rattle, the original Zara Spook is silent	Open water, points, over grass	Heddon Zara Spook, Super Spook, Super Spook Jr.
Popper / chugger	Cupped face pops or spits on each pull	Pop or spit	Targets: docks, laydowns, pockets	Rebel Pop-R, Arbogast Hula Popper, KVD Splash
Prop bait / plopper	Tail propeller churns on a steady retrieve	A hollow plop; only the Whopper Plopper 130 rattles	Laydowns, docks, grass edges	River2Sea Whopper Plopper, Devil’s Horse
Hollow-body frog	Weedless body walked or crawled over mats	Little	Lily pads, hydrilla mats, thick grass	Snag Proof, SPRO Bronzeye, Booyah Pad Crasher
Buzzbait	Blade on a wire arm lifts it to the surface; sinks at rest	Squeak and bubble trail	Shallow grass, docks, wood	Lunker Lure and its descendants

So the best topwater for bass is the one that suits the cover in front of you. In open water and over schooling fish, walk a Spook: the big Super Spook in a wind, the Super Spook Jr. for fussy fish in clear water. Cast a popper tight to a dock or laydown and let it rest. Over pads and matted grass, fish the weedless frog.

The advice is for bass; walking baits and poppers also take stripers, redfish, pike and seatrout.

When does topwater work?

Water temperature comes first: about 65 to 85 °F, and below 60 °F (16 °C) the surface bite all but stops, by Bass Forecast’s guide. A warming spell before a cold front is a peak. Kevin VanDam’s season guide puts topwater in the post-spawn, at 70–75 °F (21–24 °C), on summer mornings until the sun clears the trees, and in fall when bass school on the surface. The bass water temperature chart shows where that sits in the year.

Light comes second: dawn, dusk and overcast days, when bass are shallow and looking up. After dark the classic is the Jitterbug, a crawler reeled slow and steady so bass find it by sound.

The surface comes third. Calm to lightly rippled water lets a walking bait be seen and heard. A chop favors a louder popper or a plopper.

How do you fish each one?

Walking bait: fish it on slack line. Twitch the rod tip in a rhythm and give the reel a half-turn each time, so the nose swings left and right. Anglers call it walking the dog.
Popper: cast it beside a dock or tree, pop it twice, and let it rest 10 to 30 seconds.
Plopper: reel it steadily, like a buzzbait, rod tip high and lowered as the lure nears the boat. The tail plops at any speed; reel faster over thin cover, slower where bass need time to find it.
Frog: walk it across the mats and pause in the holes. Then delay the hookset. Jenifer Flanagan of Bass Pro Shops counts to two while taking up the slack, then sets as hard as she can.
Buzzbait: reel from the moment it lands, fast enough to keep the blade on the surface.

What rod and line?

Frogs are the exception to everything. They need a 7 ft to 7 ft 6 in (2.1–2.3 m) heavy or extra-heavy casting rod and 50 lb braid to start, 65 lb or more in thick mats. Tie the braid straight on: it floats, does not stretch and cuts through the grass the fish is pulled from.

Every other topwater wants a medium or medium-heavy rod with a moderate action, which keeps treble hooks in. Spool monofilament or braid, which float; fluorocarbon sinks and drags the nose of a walking bait under. The rods hub explains the moderate action and the frog rod.

The Whopper Plopper comes in six sizes. They run from the 60 mm, 1/4 oz bait for a spinning rod to the 190 mm, 2¾ oz musky version; the Whopper Plopper page matches rod and line to each.

Where did they come from?

The Zara Spook, the lure that made walking the dog famous, began as Heddon’s wooden Zaragossa. The plastic version of 1939 gained “Spook”, Heddon’s word for a plastic lure, and has been the Zara Spook ever since.

The hollow frog began with a boot. Harry Ehlers, an advertising man at Totes rain boots, watched a boot mold being dipped in plastic. In the late 1950s he molded the first hollow weedless frog in his kitchen. He sold it through Field & Stream classifieds before founding Snag Proof outside Cincinnati.

The buzzbait arrived with tournament fishing in the 1970s, the Lunker Lure first.

The Whopper Plopper is the youngest. It came out of a 2008 collaboration between Larry Dahlberg and River2Sea, with a prototype carved from a broomstick. It was a musky lure meant to sound like “a small water bird running across the surface before flight”.

When the topwater bite is over

When the sun is high, go under the surface with a crankbait, chatterbait or jig. After dark, the catfish hub is the other way to spend a summer night.

All articles

Frog Lure: How to Fish a Hollow-Body Frog Over Grass, and the Hookset
A frog lure is a hollow, weedless topwater walked over matted grass and pads where nothing else can be fished. The gear, the walk, and the two-second hookset.
Jitterbug Lure: How to Fish the Arbogast Jitterbug, Day and Night
The Arbogast Jitterbug lure comes in four sizes, 2 to 4 1/2 in. Reel it slow and steady, throw black at night, set only when you feel the fish.
Whopper Plopper Lure: Sizes, How to Fish It, and Where It Began
Whopper Plopper lure: all six sizes with the maker's weights and hooks, rod and line by size, the retrieves, colors by light and water, and the hookset.

Topwater Lures: Types, When to Throw Them and How Each Works