Top water one-two punch for bass

Nose hooked 3 inch stick worm

I’m a big believer in making the most of any fishing situation or location. This usually means throwing multiple baits. Typically when I hit the water in my kayak, I’ll have five rods rigged and read to go. Two or three of those rods will be “at the ready” on the deck of my sit on top kayak.

It seems everybody is carrying multiple rods to the water these days. That being said, many fisherman use them primarily as a way to avoid retying when they eventually decide to switch baits. Very few think about how they can incorporate multiple rods into a strategy for catching more fish. If you have multiple rods, they shouldn’t just be taking up space in your kayak. They should be part of your fishing strategy. One such strategy that I’d recommend is a top water one-two punch.

If you fish top water baits, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ve seen this scenario. You cast your top water bait. Let’s just say, in this case, it’s a top water popper. You let the bait sit till the rings dissipate then you twitch the bait so that it pops a couple of times. You then let it sit motionless for a few seconds. Before you can hit the next series of pops, you see a huge “V” coming at your bait from several feet to the right. You keep your cool. You know that you’re supposed to wait until you feel the fish before you set the hook. You’re doing everything right! The fish is coming at your bait like a freight train! The bass hits your popper knocking the bait out of the water and moving it several inches to the left. You’re heart is pounding. It’s at least a 5 pounder and now it has turned back on your bait “staring it down”. You keep you’re cool. You pop the bait a couple more times. The fish is still tracking your bait so you assume it didn’t feel the hooks but it just won’t hit again!

In this situation, some fisherman would reel in quickly then present the bait again maybe increasing the cadence to try to elicit a reaction strike. Other fisherman would quickly reel in and change up the color of their popper hoping the fish stays in the vicinity. These are both good strategies. Changing cadence can often antagonize a bass into biting. Changing colors is also a good strategy. I will often change colors if I get a lot of follows or swats at a top water bait but no real “takers”. The one weakness in both of these strategies is that we have to make a second presentation and in the time between presentations we loose the basses attention.

How can we take advantage of this situation? How can we convert this intent interest in the bait to a fish in the kayak? Easy, we follow up with the second punch.

My top water one-two punch is typically a prop bait or a popper and a three inch weightless soft stick worm. I like the smaller stick worm because it allows for a subtle presentation if needed. In the scenario described above, I will leave the popper in the water to keep the fishes attention then quickly grab my soft stick worm rod and lob a cast toward the popper. I try to make the cast as close as I can to the popper. More times than not , this will convert the following bass into a caught bass.

Lobbing the bait is very important in this “technique”. It’s been my experience that if the presentation is too subtle, the fish won’t hit. If the entry is too aggressive then it tends to alarm the fish. Lobbing a 3″ soft stick worm seems to result in a presentation that entices strikes more than other approaches that I’ve tried. The bait splashes down nicely when lobbed. It creates enough of a disturbance on the surface to get the fishes attention while not alarming the fish. Also, the very slow fall rate of the 3″ bait is a plus. One of the reasons that soft stick worms are so effective is their slow fall rate. It’s been proven to trigger strikes from even neutral bass. A small stick worm has great properties that make it an excellent follow up bait.

Rigging the 3″ soft stick worm properly is important. An exposed hook will result in a higher percentage of hook ups. I will typically nose hook the stick worm with a #1 or #2 Gamakatsu Octopus Circle Hook. I don’t add weight because I want to maintain a slow fall rate with the bait.

It’s a light rig to cast so having the proper rod and reel set up is critical. I’ll throw the rig on a 6 1/2 to 7 foot medium to medium light spinning rod with 6lb or 8lb test monofiliment. The real trick in this technique is to be prepared. Have your rod ready and rigged. Make sure that the stick worm rod can be accessed quickly.

This technique has helped me catch a ton of bass that otherwise may have just become exciting fishing stories. I’m confident it will help you put more fish on the end of your line.