June could easily be named the best month for bass fishing in the Northeast. Fish are post-spawn, hungry, and can be found in various locations and depths around the lakes. This is a great time of the year to fish with different techniques and learn more about each one. Becoming confident using new techniques is key to becoming a good bass angler, and June tends to have the best topwater bass fishing of the entire season.
Topwater baits are extremely effective when targeting post-spawn fish because you can cover water and entice fish of all sizes. These are four of my favorite topwater lures that may bring you some of the biggest and best surface explosions of the summer.
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The Frog
It is hard to beat a topwater frog in the early summertime. Isolated patches of lily pads and grass are beginning to sprout, and there is no better bait to get right into the strike zone. When choosing a frog, think about the conditions. If you’re fishing on a cloudy or overcast day, use colors that will stand out, such as white, yellow or brighter patterns. On a sunny day, more natural colors like black or brown will succeed.
It is also important to pay attention to the depth beneath the vegetation you are fishing. If you know it’s deeper water—meaning five feet or more—try using a popping frog to create more commotion and call more fish to the surface. In shallow water and more finesse situations, downsizing your frog and creating subtle movement can generate strikes.
The Spook
My absolute go-to topwater is a spook or walk-the-dog-style bait because it can cover a ton of water, catch bass in numbers and size, and fish just hate it—they want to crush it. There are many different types of walking baits, but paying attention to forage and the prevalent baitfish can help you land fish.
If you are fishing water with large baitfish, such as herring or shad, a larger spook in the 6- to 8-inch range should work quite well. Otherwise, the typical 4- to 6-inch spook imitates almost any baitfish swimming in your waters. Bone-and-white-colored spooks are hard to beat, but if you are dialed in on a certain pattern, there are plenty to choose from.
The Popper
A popper is one of the oldest, most effective lures (let alone topwater baits) in the entire bass-fishing industry. Short pops and long pauses can bring you some of the biggest topwater bass of your life. A popper is extremely effective on very calm days. If you have the patience to fish one slowly, it will drive bass crazy.
Many poppers can also double as walking baits, which makes them very versatile. Natural colors work well in any situation.
Whopper Plopper
Perhaps the best topwater bait in terms of putting up numbers in a short period of time is the whopper plopper. This is an awesome, user-friendly topwater bait to cast, reel, and wait for a strike. You can confidently cover a ton of water and fish it around areas of submerged structure.
This is usually the first topwater bait I put in a client’s hand when I am guiding because of how easy and seamless it is to fish. A plopper excels on windier days, but fishing one very slowly on calm days will out-fish most other topwater lures.
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