Buzzbait Tips

It's morning time and the water is like glass. The morning fog is rising off the water like steam off a warm bald head. The sun has not yet broken the horizon and you see topwater strikes off in the distance. You open up your tackle box labeled "topwater" and browse through your lure selections. You tie on a topwater minnow and work it slowly on a surface and then try a popper but the bass don't seem interested. You need something you can count on to churn up the surface and let the fish know its there, something to really get their attention. You tie on a buzzbait and watch as it chirps across the glassy surface. Varying your speed and casting angles you see and explosion as the glassy suface is shattered and a heavy weight on your line, good morning Mr. Bass.

Buzzbaiting is one of the staple topwater techniques used by all successful largemouth and smallmouth bass anglers alike. For those of you who are unaware as to what exactly a buzzbait is, it looks a lot like a spinnerbait, however where a spinnerbait has blades, a buzzbait has more of a propeller designed to churn and cause turbulence in the water, whether fished on the surface or subsurface. 

The majority of anglers fish buzzbaits exclusively on the surface causing explosive topwater strikes and land some solid bass. Few, however capitalize on this baits ability to churn up the water below the surface. Using this presentation is much like fishing a spinnerbait. For this presentation I strongly suggest selecting a buzzbait with a metallic blade that will produce a flash comparable to the blades on a spinnerbait. This combination of flash to attract the fish and turbulence to trigger explosive strikes is a deadly combination for landing huge bass when fishing buzzbaits subsurface. Fishing a buzzbait below the surface is most productive in situations where you would be inclined to use a spinnerbait. I find the subsurface approach  best on windy days with low water clarity, since it produces a high amount of vibration.

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