A lot of bass anglers stick to using a buzzbait in the early morning, late afternoon or any other low light condition, but Chad Hoover recommends throwing a black buzzbait all day long. 

Try adding a toad to your buzzbait once the water temperature gets above 55°.  Once the bass hit post spawn, they're feeding to recover from the grueling spawn phase, and starting to get more active. Try slowing your retrieve and pulse it to keep your lure just below the surface, and the big fish looking for an easy meal will smash on it every time.

Video transcript:

Chad Hoover:
Hey guys. I'm Chad Hoover, welcome to the Monsterbass channel. We're going to talk about buzzing toads for big old bass.

Chad Hoover:
All right. So pretty much anytime the water temperature gets above 55 degrees. One of the things I'm going to have tied on is a buzzbait. Now, a lot of people think a buzzbait is a low light, throw it in the morning, throw it in the afternoon deal. But when I tie on a black buzzbait, I can throw that thing all day long. It doesn't matter if the sun shining it doesn't matter how clear the water is or how stained the water is. In fact, I have a lot more success with black buzzbaits in the middle of the day than I do any other color. I like to use white. I like to use more natural colors, but for whatever reason that black color really does well. One of the things I like to do, especially after that water temperature gets up and you know, those bass are post spawn and they're really trying to feed up, is to add a frog or a buzz toad trailer to the back of my buzzbaits.

Chad Hoover:
Now a lot of people, the first thing that they do when they do that is they tear the skirt off. One of the things that I really like to do is to pulse a buzzbait. A lot of people don't realize this, but you can slow a buzzbait down and let it be running just below the surface, and it's basically an inline spinner and big fish will wake on that bait and turn off. But if you slow it down and bulge it, they'll smash it. So when you're doing a start and stop, that skirt really gives it an extra bit of a pulse. Looks a lot like a bream looks like a lot like a bluegill, depending on what part of the country you're in. And it just creates a heck of a lot different look than they've seen in a lot of other cases.

Chad Hoover:
Now, the big reason that I like to use the Yama frog from Yamamoto is it's got a big, broad surface area. The legs are super soft, so you don't have to do a whole lot to get action out of them. I usually start out with it full size and thread it on there, so it gives me more surface area and lift. But if the bass are following it and they're not committing, I like to cut off about a quarter inch and then work my way all the way down to as much as a half inch to give that bait a little bit more of a blunt leading edge. The more blunt that leading edge is the slower you can reel that bait because it creates lift and it creates drag. So you can sit there and really slow reel that thing. So even though I like to fish it slow, I really like to use a long rod.

Chad Hoover:
It gives me a lot of leverage for setting the hook. It gives me a lot of leverage for turning those fish away from cover. In this case, I'm using a seven foot 11 rod, but I'm using a high speed gear ratio reel, and I'm using a seven four to one today. And I'll go as high as an eight, five to one when I really want to burn a buzz bait, but you do need to slow that thing down at certain times. If there's a mistake that I see anglers make more often than not, it's that they throw a buzzbait in open water only, they don't try to get it into tight spots, and they fish it way too fast. Now I'm going to be the last person that'll tell you that you can't fish a buzzbait fast. In fact, I think sometimes you can't fish it too fast.

Chad Hoover:
You can burn that thing as fast as you can possibly burn it. And as long as it's staying in the water, it's going to catch fish. But then there's other times, especially post spawn and off peak periods, when those fish aren't chasing that you can slow that thing down, run it into stuff. And that's why a trailer, especially a buzz toad, and in this case, the Yama frog, just gives it that extra lift so you can reel it that much slower. And when it bumps into cover and kicks off of there, you're going to get a lot of reaction bites.

Chad Hoover:
All right, so one of the easiest things you can do to increase your hookup ratio with a buzzbait is to add a toad trailer. What it does is it gives the bait more lift, gives it a broader target in the back, makes it more compact and focuses the bite, right where the hook is. Gives it a little bit of action when you're fishing it slower, gives it a little bit of lift to keep it up on the surface. Guys, you can't go wrong adding a toad trailer to the back of your buzzbait.