Conventional fishing wisdom says that topwater baits should be retired shortly after sunrise, not to be picked up again until shortly before sunset. While this is a good rule of thumb, guide Craig Price always has a topwater plug at the ready when he’s fishing Lake Norman.
“Spotted bass and hybrid bass are fast,” said Price, “They can be down in 25 feet of water, see bait at the surface, bang it, and go back down without expending a lot of energy. They come up top a lot in the dead of summer, even when it’s bright and still.”
Any time an angler spots baitfish being busted at the surface is an opportunity to take advantage of a feeding frenzy and relatively unwary fish. Spotted and hybrid bass use the water’s surface as a means of trapping a school of baitfish, turning a blind eye to the discomfort of the sun’s glare. After they gain a mouthful and the school disperses, they head back to a safe depth and await another passing school.
“I think fishing for spotted bass is better on clear sunny days than cloudy days,” said Price, dispelling another age-old theory favoring cloudy days for surface feeding. “The sun helps illuminate those small baits.
“The topwater bite can be good at daylight,” said Price, “the time when fish are naturally higher in the water column. But it can be just as good at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. You would think those fish would go down and stay down, but that’s not always the case.
“When I go out to a hump in the middle of the lake and hand one of my clients a Pop-R or Zara Spook Jr., they look at me like I’m crazy, but it works.”
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