Topwater basics

Lucky Tackle Box goes south-of-the-border to catch giant topwater bass on the Monsterbass Patriot walking bait from the April bass box. Travis Moran breaks down all the topwater tips you need to catch tons of bass on the surface. Just to make sure you’re set up right, he’ll show you how to rig it, retrieve it and where to fish it.

* Transcript below:

Are you kidding me? Dude, dude, look at that. Holy cow. There we go. Alright guys, let’s start a show. That’s a nice healthy bass.

Guys today, we’re throwing the Monsterbass Patriot. The point of today’s video is I want you guys feeling comfortable to use this bait more often throughout the year. A lot of guys, they think this bait has to be used just in the summer time. I think to some top water is a summer time, morning, evening type of appeal, but the reality is, this bait in California, we can use it year round. And throughout the country you can use it the majority of the year. I want you guys to really understand the different ways to work this bait, the different areas you can throw it, and you would really be surprised how versatile, and how consistent of a bite this bait can be.

Let’s get back to working this thing, let’s break down this technique. Starting with rigging.

Hi guys, this baits pretty much ready to go right out of the package. Just tie it on with a Palomar knot, and you’re ready to go. You can see I have braided line. Right now I’m using a 30 pound braid. But you can go anywhere from a 30, I mean if you really want you can go 80 pound braid. The reason I like braided line is because it floats. If you have any line that’s sinking like a floral carbon, it’s sinking as you’re trying to twitch it, it’s going to pull that bait down, and you’re not gonna get the right action.

Today I’m using this 30 pound braid because it’s a little bit more limber. So it’ll allow this bait to have the action I want it to have, a little side to side motion. The other thing is the rod selection. I’ve got a seven foot medium heavy, it’s basically a great all around rod. It’s got a moderate to fast taper.

Come on baby, come on baby, stay out of the weed, stay out of the weeds. Oh he’s in the … Oh look at the bush shake. He is in the bush. Look at those bushes shake. Oh he’s out, he came out, we let her come out on her own. Here she comes, jump. That’s a really big fish. Holy cow, I did not realize that, that fish was that big. Now we gotta assume that our line is a little brig too.

Bit we got her out the deep water, so I’ve loosened up my drag. She’s gonna jump. Whoa, stay. Oh she’s got another one following her too. She has another, a big old friend following her. That’s a big fish. That is a big bass right here guys. Holy smokes baby. Monsterbass Patriot right here. Guys look at that. That’s a big top water bass right there. Boom.

You guys are gonna watch me fight these fish today. Watch the rod bend. These small hooks and stuff, when that fish pulls, before the drag goes in, you want that rod to bend and give it a little bit, so it absorbs that. So it’s not a real hard pull, and that fish isn’t gonna be able to rip some skin and really be able to pull that bait free. The right rod is very important when you’re throwing any kind of trouble hooks like this. If you have fish, and you keep losing fish, they keep coming off while they’re fighting and everything, that’s because your rod is most likely too stiff, and you’re not allowing that, you’re not having that absorption of the rod when he pulls and really goes into surges.

Then lastly is your reel. It’s not that important, whatever your favorite go to reel is, right here I’m using the Kastking Assassin. Spooled it up with the braided line, I’m ready to go. Because really you’re just cranking, you’re doing that reel motion as you’re working the bait.

Alright so with a walking bait like this, the best cadence for it, is just a continuous side to side, not fast motion, right here. This is gonna be your most, this is gonna be your safety zone. This is you’re little one, two step. Boom, boom. You will have a lot of success doing this. This is your baseline.

Now, the next thing is, these fish don’t always wanna continuously move. So every once in a while, you’re gonna throw in a little pause. This bait, when you pause it, actually sits straight up and down. The nose’ll be up, and the butt down. When you pause it, when you go to start again, you’ve gotta kinda drag it a little bit, and then start going.

You’ll notice this, it’ll make sense once you actually use this bait, but you gotta know that when you throw in the pauses. So every once in a while you wanna see what these fish are actually looking for.

Then the next thing, you can also start trying to speed it up a little. I really like this, this is a technique that a lot of people don’t do too much, but you can actually try to get it, a quick little movement then pause, quick little movement then pause. It looks like something scurrying away really frantic. What I like to do with this is I’ll put it right up against the bank, right, or sometimes on the bank. Let’s see if I can get that off there. Right off the bank, there we go. Now watch. Oh, shoot. That fish was ready to hit it once it hit the bank. The second I hit the water I’m gonna scurry, scurry, scurry.

You know, everything looks good in here, but when everything looks good, you’ve got to be even more alert of the little tiny little changes. So we’ve got a little lane, right up there against that bigger rock. Probably was about five feet, little bit too much to the left, I would have liked to have been right up against that. Oh, that’s still a big fish. We still got him to come out. We still got that fish to come out of there.

I had the drag tightened up because we’re fishing around brush. In the beginning, I wanna have that, I wanna have it tight enough, ’cause I gotta pull that fish out of the cover. But once he’s out now, in open water, we’re deep water right here, I loosen up that drag. So when he pulls, he can pull out drag, and I hope I’m not gonna lose him. Oh he’s gonna, we’re gonna get some head jumps out of him dude, holy cow. This is a big fish.

Come here, come here, come here. Wow, look at that fish. Boosh. Look at the bank right here guys, we’ve got that tree going into the water, we’ve got the big boulder rocks, and then we’ve got brush, right behind that is a steep bluff. It’s got all the elements for these big fish. If you figure that our, shouldn’t you then just be targeting those areas? It seems pretty simple to me.

I’m looking, see if you can see it from the shore, you got these big boulders. I can see them in the water, they’re lighter spots. Dude, this is money. I’m going to get a big fish, right here. This is going to be a big fish. There he is. Watch this fish, watch this fish you guys. This thing is a tank, I don’t know how good he has to hop, but this is a tank, here he comes, here he comes.

Whoa baby, that’s a good fish. Dude, you guys, we have figured him out.

Come here, come here. Holy cow. Look at that guys, that is some fun top water fishing right now.

Okay, so now we’re talking about location. There’s two different types of location I wanna talk about. Around the lake you gotta move around the lake, you gotta move into these points, or back into these coves. Sometimes they’re way out on the main lake points. So that’s just something, depending on time of the year. You’ve gotta figure that out, trial and error. But once you fish, once you pull down you go to a spot you wanna, you’re gonna fish, you’ve gotta pay attention to location of where they’re at in these particular areas.

Alright, look at this background, if we look at it about here. We’ve got the brush, we’ve got the 45 degree angle here, with kind of a gravelly, mud bank. But, the bonus that we’ve got that we’re really looking for right now is that steep bluff that’s behind it. These fish, what we’ve been finding, is they’re on the corners. Right when these bluffs end, the bigger fish are hanging in the little pockets. It’s because they’ve got everything they need there. At a certain point in the day when it gets real hot, they may move out a little bit deeper off that steep bluff.

Look, okay, so what they want, up shallow, regular caves. So you know what? I’m gonna keep doing up shallow, regular caves. Looks like a healthy spot right there. I’m actually gonna make a couple casts. Oh that’s a big one. There he goes. He agreed, he agreed, that, that looked like a good spot to him too. Holy cow. Oh man, so once again guys we got him out of the brush, so I’m loosening up my drag. Wait ’til you see this big one, you cannot see it in his mouth. He goes. Whoa, yeah.

He wanted to beeline to that one. How do you like that guys? If nothing else, I hope this gave you guys confidence to go throughout top watering your lake. I promise you, you will catch. You will have shots at bigger fish, on average, if you’re throwing top water. To increase your catches you gotta be throwing it more, that doesn’t mean just longer every day you go out. That means longer in the year, spread out your top water fishing, and you’re gonna like the results man. You saw who that fish was. When we dialed it in we are paying attention to everything goin on, we could call our shot. We pulled up there, I knew that was gonna be the right spot. And I said, “Okay, I’m gonna make a couple casts.” Because there’s gotta be one somewhere in this little spot, he’s eventually gonna come in. When he did, he came in so hot.

Guys, I’m Travis Moran, today, we were throwing the Monsterbass Patriot that came in your Lucky Tackle Box. I wanna know if it works for you. So make sure you hashtag Lucky Tackle Box on your catches with the Monsterbass. Let’s see if we can’t catch some monster bass together. I will hashtag all these up so you guys can see them as well. Guys, appreciate you watching, if you enjoyed this, show your support, subscribe the channel. Also, throw me a thumbs up, so I know you guys are watching. Any comments you guys make, I’m always responding to those guys. You got questions, comments, anything, I enjoy, I respect you guys put in the time, and I will make sure I respond to those.

Guys, until next time, I will see you later.