Top Water Lure Modifications

[Mike Cork]

I am always tinkering with my baits, I hate throwing the same things as the next guy. There are a few tried and true, year in and year out, modifications that always work for me on my Top Water lures and Surface baits.

Top Water Lure Modifications:

1) Mylar on the rear treble hook, many of you already do this, if you aren't, you are missing out. You can use thread, braided line, or the super simple way is to use a skirt collar. Get some mylar from the craft store. Take the hook off your bait. Thread several strands of mylar though the eye of the hook and fold it over. Now you can wrap some braid or thread around it to hold it in place. However the easiest way to secure the mylar is to simply push a skirt collar over the hook

2) Clear nail polish and flake. Go to the dollar store in your neighborhood and get you some cheap clear nail polish and several colors of glitter. If you buy every color they have you'll spend 7 dollars... It's cheap... Now paint your baits with the clear nail polish and then sprinkle the glitter on it. Let it dry and then follow up with a coat of clear. If after a few trips you don't like it, borrow your wife's remover and take it off and try a different color or combination.

3) Buy your baits in the color 'bone', then using Sharpies and the glitter trick, color them up yourself to match your local bait fish Often you can find a ton of baits in the bargain bins in bone because it often doesn't sell well.

What are your favorite Top Water Bait Modifications?

[SHC286]

Red front hooks, a little tip I read hear. I don't catch near enough fish to tell whether or not it's actually doing anything for me.

I've added feathers and tails to the rear hooks like your Mylar trick, and that one has seemed to attract a little extra attention.

[Oldfart9999]

The nail polish and flake tip works well. I play with bending the blade on buzzbaits to get it to rise higher or lower in the water, it make it easier to slow them down or speed them up. I've done some experimenting with lead tape to weight the back of a POP'R to drop the it deeper in the water, and raise the nose to a more vertical posture, makes a difference in how they move forward when you pop them makes a difference in the noise they make. I've used lead tape on balsa Rapalas to make them float back up slower and to change the attirude they sit at at rest.
Rodney

[Mike Cork]

I like the red hook on the front. I don't think it necessarily provides for more strikes but I do believe it causes better hook ups as bass will strike the nose or entire bait more often. Don't get me wrong, when a bass wants something it's going to strike head first simply by nature (all food goes down the throat easier if it's head first) but sometimes that little bit of read will make sure they do.

Great stuff Rodney, I forgot all about weighting a popper

[njpaulc]

Adding  anything to the tail hook of a lure also changes the action of the bait.  Feathers, bucktail, mylar, act as a rudder causing the tail of the bait to swing out more.  A very popular sufcasting lure from the late '70's was  a surface swimmer (wake bait) with an eel skin on the back, it added scent and flavor, but more importantly it created a wider swing when the plug moved on the surface.  Tying directly to a bait or lure, or using a loop knot on split ring also effects the action of the lure.  Nail polis and hardener are great to use when painting jigs, it comes in black and brown, has it's own brush, and as Mike said, you can add glitter clearcoats.  Hard As Nails is a great final coat on a jig.

[Pat Dilling]

David Dudley has some great hacks for the Whopper plopper or El Choppo.  I have done them and they do work.  I did take the line tie front hook back off as it caused too many tangles.  Check out his video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwyiNRc_qx4&t=400s

[BassmanRudy]

The stock treble hooks on the ploppers SUCK!! Super thick(probably because they started out as musky lures) so def change those to normal gauge trebles!!

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[bigjim5589]

These aren't exactly bass lures, but the photo's show little mods that can be done on many lures, that will certainly be something different. 

[Oldfart9999]

If you have older spooks, the ones with the bent hook hangers you can switch them out for better. Pull the hangers and discard, fill the screw holes with putty, pick up screw eyes from one of the lure building companies, drill a hole for them, mix a bit of epoxy, fill the hole then insert the screw eye, you now can mount the hooks with more freedom of motion. Hooks mounted this way make it possible to catch in the fishes face giving hook ups you couldn't get before.
Blades on baits like Torpedos or Devil Horses can be bent to move easier or harder depending on what you want. Grab the blades and carefully twist them, evenly then try them out, you can make the bait throw more water or less.
Rodney

[coldfront]

mike,just ran across th is today.  intrigued.  don't know much about it.  but thought to share with you and 'possibly' those folks on UB.
https://unicornspit.com/

[Mike Cork]

Very interesting, I may get some and try. Seems like it would be a quick answer to color change.

[jwkelley51]

I bought red treble hooks and the red comes off after a few uses. leaves me with a chrome hooks. What brand  stays red. I know I've used red single hooks with no issues.

[D.W. Verts]

I bought red treble hooks and the red comes off after a few uses. leaves me with a chrome hooks. What brand  stays red. I know I've used red single hooks with no issues.

I've used the Eagle Claw "Lure Replacement Hooks" in red with good luck. But I'm not ever gonna be sold on the red hook theory. I don't think.

Dale

[Wizard]

I'm with Dale about red hooks in our area.  I fish "bone" more than many in the Ozarks. There are many shades of bone. I call the shades I use,  white bone and old bone.  Old bone will work under bright sky and white bone in overcast or pre front conditions. Bone is also good in Mann's Halfback, Quarterback and -1 series.  Mann's "football" series was a early 1980's forerunner to the -1. In MY mind, I put them with my topwater lures.

Wizard