There is nothing in fishing better than a topwater bite. If you believe something different, you are either misinformed or you have not yet had a topwater bite. I love punching, I love throwing a spinnerbait, I love fishing a glidebait — none of these do for my soul what a topwater does.
“Best” is a hard term to pin down and thus extremely subjective. Is a topwater the best bait for wintertime fishing, obviously not. Is a topwater the best bait for targeting suspended bass over 50 feet of water—not a bad option but certainly not the best. But across all genres, across all time, the topwater creates the most memorable strikes and catches. It works on basically any fishery and there’s a topwater lure that will work in and around any type of cover. Let’s look at how these attributes and more make the topwater the best bass fishing bait, in my opinion.
Memorable Moments
This is really the crux of my argument: Topwaters are the best baits for bass fishing simply because they create the most memorable catches. If I had to sit down and describe in detail the 20 most memorable fish catches of my life, more than half of them would be topwater bites.
From slow crawling a big wood rat across the surface to snatching willow flies out of a tree with a popping frog to calling up bass on a buzzbait, there are so many topwater bites lodged in my head. I go back to these bites often and revisit them in my mind; and, on the tough days on the water, these are the memories that keep me going and lead to 25 additional last casts at the end of each day.
Versatile Options
Emotions and nostalgia aside, the wide array of baits that fall into the topwater category also make it practically one of the best bait categories of them all. You can fish a Spook out in the open around schooling fish, slide up to a seawall and pick up a popper, bounce over to a grass mat and chuck a frog or a toad, then start the whole rotation over with a handful of other topwater options for each.
There are topwaters that are designed to be reeled continuously, which are great for covering water. There are topwaters that stall and are designed to be fished slowly. There are topwaters that sit high on the surface and others that wake just beneath. There are topwaters that skip. There are loud topwaters and quiet topwaters, baits with rattles and baits without. You can even find topwaters designed to mimic everything from a squirrel to a bream to a snake to a duck. This is the most versatile lure category across the board.
Works Just About Everywhere
There is no fishery in the country where some sort of topwater won’t work at some point during the year. From the Great Lakes down to Okeechobee and over to the Cal Delta, once the water hits 62 degrees, start looking for a topwater bite.
I have caught some beautiful bass down in Florida on Skinny Dippers and Big EZs fishing hayfields and boat lanes that only had a foot of water on them. I’ve caught some fish out in the open closer to home on clear, deep impoundments. I’ve caught some studs fishing topwaters over lay downs in river systems. These baits work well in small creeks and on ponds too. As long as the water temperatures are favorable, you’ll be hard pressed to find a fishery where there is absolutely no topwater bite happening.
Take That, FFS
With all the craze around forward-facing sonar, you’ll be happy to find that topwaters are a great equalizer. You don’t need the electronics to know where topwater fish are, just look for cover.
While bass can, and certainly will at times, eat a topwater out away from cover, you’ll find that you’ll get a lot of bites fishing topwaters around objects that you can identify visually without a graph. Things like boat docks, grass patches, seawalls, stumps laydowns and even shade lines are all great places to throw your topwater. Pay close attention to shade in particular, especially as the water temps rise into the 80s. Look for cover that is either shade-adjacent, or creating its own shade. Think docks, stalky vegetation and overhanging bushes.
They Catch Big Fish
Ultimately, topwaters catch big fish, and I love that about them. This kind of feeds back into the fact that topwaters create memorable catches, though all memorable catches don’t have to be big ones. Still, there are several core memories for me that include a sizable bass caught on a topwater.
Knowing that topwaters get big bites more often on average than most, if not all, other bait categories, I’m more prone to use them when I’m in tournament situations. It’s a high-risk deal, but the reward is great as well. Sitting here now reminiscing, I can vividly remember two tournaments fishing with my dad in the last few years when we caught three big ones in the last hour of each event that gave us enough for the wins — all on a topwater.
And the Verdict Is…
Again, best is such a subjective word. But, best I can tell, there’s no bait better than a topwater. I love these lures because they create epic moments and then carve them into our memory banks. These are versatile lures, they work all over the country, and they’re great for fishing around cover that’s easily identifiable. And, they catch big fish.
So, whether you’re fishing on a pond in Illinois, a bayou in Louisiana, a glacial lake in Michigan or over a grass flat in the South — it doesn’t matter. A topwater is your best bet for creating a memorable fish catch that will last a lifetime.
