When the heat is on and the bass are confined near the surface, topwater lures can be amazingly productive.
Beyond the wide array of prey items that break the surface, everything from frogs and snakes to big insects and injured bait fish, a lack of dissolved oxygen at depth means that bass will be hunting the surface, whether they like it or not!
And when I hit the water before dawn in June, July, and August, you better believe I'm bringing a slew of whopper ploppers with me.
Similar in many ways to a torpedo, with a wriggling tail in placed of a prop, the whopper plopper is nothing short of murder in low-light conditions.
Let's get into the details and help you figure out the best colors and patterns of whopper plopper to throw.
Designed by hall-of-fame angler Larry Dahlberg, the whopper plopper was made with muskie in mind, and there's no question that muskie and pike will devour this lure.
But mid-western and northern anglers quickly discovered that this lure was magic on largemouth bass, though southern fishermen have largely missed the whopper plopper due probably to their unfamiliarity with this musky and pike slayer.
That's a correctable mistake!
Don't dismiss the whopper plopper as just another prop bait. An inline stickbait with a segmented soft propeller tail, the whopper plopper is a hybrid of a buzzbait and torpedo that really struts its stuff in straight-line retrieves. The free spinning tail creates an enticing "pop, pop, pop" sound as it’s retrieved that is unlike any other lure available, and the result is a topwater search bait that bass can't resist.
Sub-surface lures are muted by the water column above them. That layer of water over them drowns colors as the highest frequencies of light fail to penetrate, and they progressively lose red, orange, yellow, and so on as depth increases.
But whopper ploppers are, at most, a few inches under the surface. There's absolutely no color lost to the water column with topwater lures, so color selection is based instead on two factors.
The first is water clarity.
The clearer the water, the more natural you want the colors of your whopper plopper.
In gin-clear rivers and lakes, you need to match the hatch carefully, ensuring that your whopper plopper mimics a prey item the bass are familiar with.
But in murky or stained water, you'll need a bit of flash, and even day-glo color, to get the attention of sight-hunting bass.
The second color consideration is the light level.
In the low-light conditions that favor whopper ploppers, I try to stick with darker hues punctuated by silver or gold to imitate the flash of fish scales or throw a pattern that resembles a frog.
Let's take a closer look at some of my favorite patterns.
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By far the most popular color of whopper plopper on this list, "Loon" reflects what I was writing above: in the 90 minutes bookending daylight, a dark silhouette stands out against the sky, enticing bass to hit what they mistake for an easy meal.
The dark, subdued black has just enough white and red to create a strikingly real pattern, and whether largemouth think the "Loon" is an injured baitfish trying desperately to stay afloat, a large insect that's hit the water in a panic, or a frog that's made the error of leaving cover, all I know is that they hit this pattern like they're mad at it.
I've had my best luck with the "Loon" pattern right before dawn, right after dusk, and night fishing the shallows, when large females move into prey-rich areas as the water temperature drops after sundown.
As a night fishing lure, this whopper popper is almost without equal.
As the moon rises, I like to run it down the edge of cover like lily pads or floating grass mats, and I frequently choose the "Loon" as a search lure, covering water quickly with a steady retrieve.
Give it a try: you won't be disappointed!
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When the water is clear and light conditions allow for color perception, a whopper popper in "Munky Butt" is at its best.
A pattern that doubles down on natural colors and textures, I like to throw a "Munky Butt" at dawn and dusk, as well as on overcast or rainy days where the water remains clear during a storm.
Mimicking bait fish like shad, a common prey item on northern lakes, largemouth don't ask what this pattern is; instead, they see that it's the right shape, size, and color to match an easy breakfast and charge right in.
As you'd expect, I use this pattern a lot as a search bait, hitting the sides of points, live weed beds in shallow water, and overhanging vegetation or floating aquatic vegetation.
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If you're an avid inshore angler, you know how deadly a bone-colored spook can be.
I'm not sure why a creamy-white topwater lure garners the attention it does. Maybe bass can see its silhouette easily, or maybe they can pick up this bright color yards away. But the simple fact of the matter is that running a "Bone" whopper plopper works in nearly any condition where there's light.
I don't throw this color at night, but overcast days, dawn, and dusk are prime-time for the "Bone" whopper plopper.
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While northern bass lakes are full to the brim with shad or cisco, southern lakes are home to legions of bluegill.
And you better believe that big largemouth bass love feeding on young bluegill!
The "Bluegill" pattern marries subtle, realistic hues with a bright flash of silver and red. That makes it ideal for clear water, and I like to throw this whopper plopper in relatively shallow water immediately adjacent to, or above, live weed beds, brush piles, and other attractive bluegill cover. A steady retrieve gets the tail thumping and spinning like mad, and bass rush up to meet this lure with open mouths.
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Northern lakes are home to large numbers of perch, and their distinctive dark stripes and golden-green scales are the basis of the whopper plopper's "Perch" pattern.
Like the "Bluegill," I like to throw this lure when there's enough light to make its pattern just visible, and whether that's as the sun hits the tops of the trees or on a day when the sun is blocked by a thick layer of clouds, this is a pattern anglers in the mid-west and north shouldn't miss.
And while it's generally true that perch are a bottom-hugging species, in summer, when the bass are forced to the surface, a "Perch" pattern buzzing overhead is something they just can't ignore.
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Another shad imitator, "Blue Blood" ups the ante on blue and silver, making this an enticing clear-water pattern for midwestern and northern anglers.
On any lake where shad are a major component of the biome, a whopper plopper in "Blue Blood" is going to get hit - and hit hard.
This is another pattern that I like to throw at dawn and dusk, when the light is there to create flash and produce color.
I use this lure primarily as a search bait, running it down the length of points or through shallow hunting areas looking for actively feeding bass.
To get the most from my whopper ploppers, I keep in mind that they were initially designed as musky lures.
Bass may be aggressive, and they certainly don't shy away from a big meal, but throwing the largest whopper plopper you can find isn't always the right tactic.
Instead, I want to take a close look at the size of the prey items currenlty active: if I see lots of small bait fish, I want to downsize. Ditto if the bass are really keying-in on insects.
But if the feeding is active and the strikes are hard, I might upsize to the 190 or 130mm options, and I definitely like to do this at night with the "Loon."
The whopper plopper is a loud, obnoxious search bait, and there are anglers who will tell you that color and pattern don't even matter with that thumping tail.
I don't think that's true, and given that bass are primarily sight predators, sound can only do so much.
But with the right color and pattern for your conditions, you'll find that the often-neglected whopper plopper is a great option for summertime bass.
As always, we'd love to hear from you!
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