Don't Throw a Whopper Plopper Unless You Fix These Things 

Awesome to hear! Hope it works out well for you.

It usually boils down to using light on a light day and dark in overcast conditions. I'll sometimes also switch sides if the fish are just straight up missing the bait over and over.

Totally agree, thank you for saying it. For top water baits, the lure is mostly silhouetted against a sky. How much difference can subtle color differences make? 👍

I've done that in the past but I can be absent-minded at times and didn't like slamming the swivel into my rod tip when I reeled too far. I know others do the swivel thing when using fluoro or mono. I don't notice any line twist while using braid.

I did this a lot early days. Then during the late summer on a certain grassy river, I had to switch from trebles to a weedless bait (horny toad) and it was then that I realized there was no way I was ever going to be able to keep up with the fish/set the hook once they grabbed it. The treble hooks can be forgiving on a slower reel but that single hook just ain't. Lesson learned.

Solid setup for those strong Wisconsin River brutes! 💪

I tend to risk it for the biscuit in little 2x2ft openings in pileups which makes some line contact inevitable, and that's not even taking into account the miscalculated casts when throwing tight into laydowns. Sometimes the cost of a risky cast is a snag. I'm at peace with that price. Point taken on the silhouette. I generally try to keep my line 95% off the water with my rod position so I can control the bait's path better in current. I really doubt the fish are seeing any sort of line silhouette with branches above them as they come to wreck the top. But I do agree with you: even if they are seeing, the nature of reaction baits makes it more of a non-issue. The number of 20" class smallies I've caught on top with braid in clear water is too high for me to worry. Now a bottom bait that they can stare at, I absolutely worry about them getting line shy. No hate taken! Disagreement is good discussion.

Yeah, I get so many more bites on pauses. I know some guys say that a swivel helps with the line twist but I honestly don't notice it when I throw braid. I can see it happening from time to time but it doesn't affect anything enough bother me.

What's funny is yesterday I went fishing on Lake Nottely and literally every spotted bass I caught was on an extremely fast retrieve. I figured it out when I was just reeling my bait in fast so I could get another cast off and wham-o. Maybe I need to switch to braid. Love the bait, but man, the line twists are a pain in the butt.

Keep smashing em 👊

Yessir. The only reason I may not throw braid is because I need that setup for another lure later in the day that will be mid-column or on the bottom in clear water. That's typically not the case though.

My two favorites are Daiwa Samurai Braid and Powerpro Super Slick v2. I mostly run 20-30lb unless it is on a heavy setup for frogging.

Totally agree. Learned that the hard way back in the day.

WhApPer DaPpeR

Uh oh, I'm preparing for the fluoro brigade to stop by soon... Same with me. The number of break offs using braid is so low I can typically remember all of them and count them on one hand. I've had lots of heartbreak using fluorocarbon, however, even when it wasn't due to my own stupidity.

@@RivermanTV- EXACTLY! I can remember damn near every braid break-off, they're so few.

Disagree. I'll take braid and a medium heavy fast every day for ploppers. Crankbaits are a different story entirely as braids floats/limits running depth. Training yourself to wait with braid is perhaps a little more important than other setups, but advocating for a pause certainly isn't contradictory if you understand the limitations of your own setups. What do 99% of people throw topwater frogs on? Don't they want to pause before a hookset? Why is that? They want power, don't want stretch, and understand the properties of braid as it relates to hooksets. Same concept applies here. I win a lot more battles in and around heavy cover by abandoning the "let the hooks do the work" strategy. Big river smallies are experts at throwing hooks and getting into the nasty stuff. I've done a lot of learning with the actual fish instead of conventional wisdom. Drive the hooks deep, worry a little less when they go airborne, and enjoy quality river bronze 🤙

And I'm sure you still catch fish. But hopefully next year a few small changes will get you even more fish/restore your Plopper privileges 😉