Using A Top Water Bass Popper – Bass Fishing Action

If you want to have a lot of fun try fishing Large & Small Mouth Bass with a 3″ top water popper. It’s a blast and the action can be non-stop when they are in the shadows and feeding. However, these poppers have gotten expensive over the past few years, ranging from $3 to $6, so it’s hard to spend that much on these. But I have some good news, you can make these easy and for less than a $1. They may not look as perfect as a purchased one, but they work just as well.

How To Curve Your Own Bass Popper

First we need a piece of wood to form our Popper from. You can purchase a 48″ Dowel Rod (1″ Diameter) for less than a dollar, soft wood, not Oak. From this you cut the Dowel Rod into several pieces that are 2-7/8″ long. Using a purchased popper for a model draw a circle on the end that will be the nose and an arc on the end that will be the tail. Now take a utility knife and start carving your wood. After you have the approximate shape, use a Dremel Tool to complete the shape by sanding. You may want to use a mask over your nose and mouth as there will be a lot of dust. For the front of our Popper we want the bottom lip to be a little further back then the top lip. You can do this by cutting it on a slight angle or sanding with your Dremel Tool, this is what I use. Then you need to sand out the mouth of the Popper, so you get a good pop and movement of water, when you are popping the bait during your cast retrieval. When curving, choose a bottom side, draw two lines from the front (wider area) to the tail. You do not want to curve inside these lines. Here is a picture of a block of wood and a sanded body, without the mouth completed yet.

What To Use For Painting a Top Water Bass Popper.

We know paints are not cheap, especially if you want multiple colors. So I’m always looking for what I have around the house to use. What I have found is that permanent marks work great for painting wood and there are several colors available. And if you’re like me, you have a few already. I will also use one of the pieces, I cut from my dowel rod, for a color sample, see above. Once you have the bait colored add your eyelets then two coats of Fast-Drying Polyurethane or Lacquer clear coat. As a fisherman I have lacquer clear coat for making fly-fishing poppers, so I use this, but both work fine. Once you have your bait finished, just add the two treble hooks, you will need a split ring to attach them. You may even have old baits that you don’t use that have both the hooks and rings. Below is one example of my poppers, this one I tried to simulate a frog color and it has caught fish. I have several others that have caught fish as well.