Topwater fishing for big pike and musky is some of the most exciting freshwater fishing in the world. The takes are explosive, the fights exciting, and you might even be able to do some sight fishing in the right kind of water.
Pike and musky can be found both extremely deep, or in a foot of water depending on the season, time of day, and individual fish. Topwater fishing obviously has its place when the fish are shallow, but it can be effective even when the fish are a bit deeper (within reason).
Just look at a pike’s (or any member of the esox family’s) head. Their eyes are on the top of their head and their mouth is even somewhat upturned. Pike and musky are fish that are constantly looking up and are very aware of what’s happening at the surface. This makes them the perfect fish to target with topwater lures.
Pike and Musky have certain strike triggers that many of the tried and true lures take advantage of. At the same time, big fish have often seen the more popular lures before and will be wary of striking them again. In these situations, it pays to have something new that the fish hasn’t seen before. For these reasons, an angler should have a mix of confidence lures in addition to some of the newer or oddball lures on the market.
Take a look at some of the most popular and effective musky and pike surface lures below.
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Whopper Plopper
This is a lure that has exploded in popularity with bass anglers in recent years. The lure was actually originally designed as a musky lure, and unsurprisingly deadly effective on them.
Part of what makes this such a fantastic musky lure is that (along with the top raider mentioned below) it’s one of the best baits in the industry in terms of durability. The design of the bait, and the hard body construction means it can take significant abuse from toothy critters compared to many other baits.
This lure is less buoyant than the top raider, which means it sits a bit lower in the water film. This lure fishes better when retrieved at a faster speed. This is great for targeting more aggressive or active fish.
Whopper Plopper 190 (Amazon Link)
The 190 sized whopper plopper works well for musky and pike. The 130 size is a step-down in size, and is popular with bass anglers. This size is also effective when targeting pike.
Top Raider
At first glance this looks alot like the whopper plopper. While it’s true they are similar, they are not identical. The two lures produce very different sounds, either of which may work on any given day.
The top rider is a bit more buoyant than the whopper plopper. This allows it to be worked effectively at lower speeds, which is great for targeting lethargic fish.
There is also a version of the topraider that has two separate props for added commotion.
Pacemaker
Pike and Musky certainly have a type don’t they? The Pacemaker is the go-to topwater lure of many musky anglers. It has the same basic design as the Top Raider and Whopper Plopper, but again the prop offers a unique (very loud) sound.
The stinger hook on the pacemaker sits further back than the other two lures. Short strikes are common with topwater lures, so a stinger hook helps increase your hookup rate.
That being said, the stinger hooks on the topraider and whopper plopper are usually set far enough back. There are a few situations in which the positioning of the stinger hook on the pacemaker will hook fish when the others wouldn’t though.
Drift 7″ Pacemaker (Amazon Link)
My advice on these three lures (if you don’t want to buy all of them) is to buy whichever one you suspect anglers are using less often in the waters your fishing. It’s great if you can show the fish something they haven’t seen before. This is especially true when fishing in heavily fished waters with fish that have likely been caught and released before.
Jitterbug
This is a classic lure that pike love. I’m surprised I don’t see more anglers using them. The classic wobble produced by this lure drive predatory fish crazy, and you’ll get savage strikes with this lure.
I’ve gone into much more detail on Jitterbug lures here.
Another lure from arbogast that I’ve had success with is Aborgast’s buzz plug. It’s not often used, but the spinning blades make significant splashing at the surface, and it’s something most fish haven’t seen before. The hooks also hang off the bang of the lure facing upright, the perfect position for a solid hookup.
I like the rat or black colour for nighttime fishing. Just like the jitterbug it’s a great nighttime lure, but works well in lowlight day conditions as well.
Arbogast Buzz Plug (Amazon Link)
Magnum Torpedo
Lures that make lots of splash, noise, and commotion grab musky and pikes attention. Few lures make as much commotion as prop lures. Heddon has been in the lure making game for a long time, and is a name well known to striped bass anglers. Their Heddon Magnum Torpedo is a deadly effective lure on many large predatory fish, including pike and musky.
Heddon Magnum Torpedo (Amazon Link)
Booyah Pad Crasher
Just ask any bass angler, pike love hollow bodied frogs. The number of frog lures lost to pike is astounding. Many bass anglers don’t use wire leaders (can reduce the bite rate from bass, that’s a debate for another time). As a result, there are many stories of bass anglers losing their brand new lure to a hungry pike.
There are many different frog lures on the market, and they all have their advantages and disadvantages. If you’re going to buy one hollow bodied frog, I’d strongly recommend the Booyah Pad Crasher.
The booyah pad crasher has been the industry standard for weedless, hollow body frogs for some time now, and for good reason. Solid hooks, construction, and buoyancy make it a joy to fish.
These lures are weedless, so you can pitch them right into the thickest vegetation and retrieve them. Pike will often hold on the edge of emergent vegetation. They could be just inside hiding in the reeds, or just outside facing towards the reeds if there’s a rock, log or other similar covers for them. Either way, the strike will often come once you pull the frog lure from the vegetation and it hits open water.
Twitching these lures, or using a stop and pause retrieve (much like you would with bass fishing) are both effective. You can also perform a steady retrieve which often works well with pike.
You will get many strikes with this lure, but it does have a disadvantage. You’ll often hear from bass anglers that the hookup rate is lower than other lures. This is due to the position of the hooks. This holds true for pike, but I have found the hookup rate to be a bit better with these than with bass fishing.
Also keep in mind these are soft-bodied, hollow lures. While they’ll plenty rugged to hold up to many bass, they have a limited lifetime when pike fishing.
Booyah Pad Crasher Bull Frog Lure (Amazon Link)
Colour Selection for Topwaters Baits
Colour selection for these types of lures follows the same general mantra as any other type of fishing.
- Bright day – Light lures. White is a favorite.
- Night fishing – Dark lures. Black is a favourite, but dark purple is also an effective colour.
- Cloudy day or murky water – Bright lures. Yellow, fire tiger, and orange are productive colours with pike and musky. This is likely due the prevalence of perch in their diet.
While the above are general rules for rule selection in general, there are exceptions. What works one day may not work another.
Colour selection is far down on my list of importance when considering traits of a lure I’m purchasing. Size, profile, and action plays a much larger role in the success of a lure than colour does. Still, many of the lures mentioned above come in a variety of colours, so why not pick the ones that best suit the conditions your fishing in?
Soft Plastics
You’ve probably noticed that many of these lures are hardbody lures. This is due to their superior durability compared to soft plastics. Many soft plastics can and do work fantastically for fishing Esox species though.
The problem is with their durability when faced with toothy fish. The sharp teeth of pike and musky often tear these baits apart after only a few fish. I do actually prefer soft plastics to hard bodied lures for most fish, just not esox species.
That being said, soft plastics are generally cheaper than hard bodied baits, and often come in large packs. This can make them a viable option even though you can expect to have them tore up fairly quickly.
What about Pickerel?
Pickerel are the smaller cousins of pike and musky. Size most of these baits down and they’ll work just fine for chain pickerel.
Redfin and grass pickerel are in a completely different size class though, you’re better off using smaller bass sized baits, or even larger panfish lures for these little predators.
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