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With the Columbia staying up unusually high and chilly for this time of year, Vancouver Lake is still a good place to hunt for big Largemouth.

Cast the pockets in flooded brush, look for leaner logs and bounce your spinnerbaits or jig-and-pigs off of them underwater, or yo-yo a Texas-rigged plastic worm up and down on underwater branches. Try rigging them 'wacky' too. If you're sure the bottom is not too weedy, a Carolina-rigged worm, creature or lizard 18 to 24 inches behind the lead and bead might be the just the thing to fool a late Spring or early Summer Bass to chomp and romp. One recent Gallery picture has me holding up a hefty LakeRiver Bass that could not resist a twin-blade, Colorado and Willow Leaf spinnerbait dragged through and over a jumble of logs, then allowed to flutter down helplessly. Wham! What a bite and what a fight!

Lacamas Lake has been producing good fish too. My most recent June Gallery shot features a deep-bodied Largemouth that nailed the same bait just as it dropped in near an underwater branch. The picture is pretty dark {Hint!}.

Silver Lake has been producing good fish soft plastics and on jig-and-grub combinatons. Some folks have been having success with finesse drop-shot rigs, fooling Silver's heavily pressured, tournament-wise fish. The old weedless Johnson Spoons are also producing, slipping and flashing through weeds and pads, but nobody much mentions them. Wonder why??!!

This brings us to the promised discussion of varying your Topwater assaults on the Bass's world. In lakes, ponds or even river backwaters, topwaters will trigger vicious hits from aggressive Bass. I recommend getting in on early morning and late evening bites. Previous articles have discussed the floating minnow-bait such as Rapala or Bomber Long A, along with their jointed-body brothers. We've also discussed the delights of 'walking the dog' with a Zara Spook or other wigwagging, baitfish-resembling surface skimmer.

Floating wacky worms hooked in the middle and twitched open and closed also qualify as topwater tempters, as do 'Salad Spoons', Scum Frogs and other soft plastic surface offerings. Even the lowly curled tail grub, fished weightless or Texas-rig-pegged with a very light bullet weight will also slither across weeds and produce jarring surface hits. It's a real thrill to watch the water hump up when a big fish zeros in on your helpless little grub!

Chuggers (Some come equipped with 'weedless' treble hooks), poppers and 'Crazy Crawlers' can also be relied on to trigger surface hits. The amazing, jiving, diving, rising BassOreno is another topwater that some place in a category all its own. They all get the fish looking up for dinner.

Probably one of the most time-honored topwater baits, though, is the 'Buzzbait.' Whether a single-blade, inline buzzer sporting a weedguard on the hook, a double small-to-large inline blade affair, a 'safety-pin' style buzzer with blade on the top arm and a hydrodynamic, skirted jig head on the bottom arm, or the fancy new side-by-side, 'counter-rotating' blades (or 'wings') on a safety-pin style buzzer wire, buzzbaits produce. You can also buy them in varying sizes, or with 'clackers' depending on how noisy or subtle you want to be. There are even hollow 'spoons' with rattles inside, designed to wobble and sputter along on the surface

These baits may irritate a lurking or hiding Bass into striking as they gurgle over the fish's lair, they may resemble a fleeing baby bird or mouse whose luck ran out, they may resemble surface-busting baitfish being chased, or they may just attract random, curious, feeding Bass. For whatever reason, under the right conditions Bass will explode on them.

Because their hooks usually ride with the point up, buzzbait fishing can sometimes produce fish on only about 70% of the strikes the bait draws. But since the action can be really hot, it probably won't matter! My preference is to fish them with a grub trailer, with the curled tail pointed down away from the hook point. I believe that a slightly inaccurate or short-striking fish is more likely to return for the kill if he got a taste of a lifelike, wiggling grub tail on his first whack at the bait! Either way, confidence in your bait is important.

I like to drag buzzers through ambush points between separate groups of lily pads, over grassy points, through thin stands of bullrushes and over slightly submerged weedbeds. What seems like open water can also produce well too, as can parallel retrieves along shorelines, no matter what features the bank has. Just a related note: Tournament Frogs or any floating frog imitation can sometimes do a surprising job of attracting big fish, even when retrieved across expanses of open water. It's the only game in town, and Mr. Largemouth just might want to play!

My recommendation for this time of year, once the water is warm, is to have a variety of topwater baits ready and try them throughout the day, with special attention to evening hours when the water seems to 'come alive.'

I think you'll be glad you tried topwater tactics!

Have a great June and we'll talk about the 'dog days' of Summer in next month's article.

By Bassmaster Bob

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