The Mad Max Popper delivers explosive topwater bass fishing action! This new lure SLAYS in windy conditions! Fishing the Lonestar and Oklahoma's Worst Angler got together for a friendly topwater face-off to see who can get the most action out of this topwater popper on a windy day. 

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Video transcript:

Jeremy:
All right, literally first cast guys. First cast with the muddy gill. Come out of that grass.

Alex:
It's a better fish too.

Jeremy:
We are starting to get some cooler temps at night, a little bit cooler temps in the day, the water temp's dropping. That means the fall transition's upon us and top water lures is where it's at. That's what we're talking about today on this MONSTERBASS video.

Jeremy:
All right, what's going on guys and welcome back to the MONSTERBASS channel. My name is Jeremy with Fishing the LoneStar and... Well, let me just go ahead and show you. I'm also out here with my boy, the one and only, O.W.A. We're doing some filming this morning and fishing in Oklahoma, but we're using some top water lures. In particular, we're using the Mad Max 2.0, a great new lure re-introduced by MONSTERBASS with some awesome upgrades we'll talk about a little bit in this video, but really want to talk a little bit about, too, the gear technique and the things you should be using to have success with top water. We'll get into that today on this video. We're going to show you some fish catches we're going to have some fun out here in the water. Stay tuned for lots of catches coming.

Jeremy:
Alright guys, let's first start with the gear to use and then we'll talk about a little bit of the retrieval techniques as well. So, gear to use. Now, this is just my personal preference, so I'll give you some different options here, along with what I'm using. So, first of all, we got that Mad Max 2.0. Now I am throwing, if I can get it off my reel here, I am throwing the green, sexy color. I really like that dot right there. One thing that's awesome too are the feathered treble hook in the back, and then you get that red treble hook in the front. That red treble hook gives fish something to key in on. I actually already caught three or four this morning on the front red treble and a couple on the back. Sometimes some fish come up and bite that feather, some fish come up and bite the red treble hook, really kind of just depends.

Jeremy:
What also depends on is your body of water, if you're going to throw a shad color or more of a gill color. Alex at the front is throwing more of that muddy gill color. He's throwing a gill style, I'm throwing this white, kind of more of a shad style. Both of us actually having some luck on it this morning. But you can vary it up a little bit by your colors, depending upon what the fish are eating. Now, I am throwing, as you can see here, this on 30 pound braided line. I'm not really walking so much this lure, I'm more popping it. If I was walking it more, I might consider throwing like a monofilament or a copolymer, which is what Alex is using, is a copolymer. That just allows your line to have a little bit more memory to it, a little more stiffness and allows the braid, or the line, not to get caught up in your lure if you're retrieving it.

Jeremy:
I'm also using... The reel speed really doesn't matter, but I'm using just a Lew's LFS, a pretty standard reel. This [inaudible 00:02:59] reel speed is a 7.5 to 1. It doesn't matter, cause you're mainly moving the lure with your rod. You can move it and twist it with your reel, but you're mainly moving with your rod. And speaking of the rod, I am using a glass rod... Oh, hang on. Alex is on. Alex is hooked up.

Alex:
I switched over to the braid.

Jeremy:
Alex just got him one.

Alex:
He's just sideways.

Jeremy:
Got a little side hook there.

Alex:
Yeah, I thought he was about three times bigger.

Jeremy:
I'm using a glass rod. This is a 7'2 moderate. We'll talk about different options here, but 7'2 moderate. And it's kind of a moderate/fast tip to it. Really what you want to look for though, consider this... If you're throwing treble hooks, right? This goes for the Mad Max, but any bait particularly, but if you're throwing treble hook lures, you want to give yourself a little bit of forgiveness. And what that means is some bend. So you'll see there's a lot of bend in this rod tip, but there's not any forgiveness in the line.

Jeremy:
Now what you don't want is a stiffer rod and stiff line. The copolymer or monofilament does have some stretch to it, so if you do not have a parabolic rod say, for example, a medium power, then consider not using braid. If you're using braid, then consider using a rod with some give to it. But either way you want some forgiveness somewhere in your retrieve... Sorry, I got this lure stuck on my hand... But somewhere in your retrieve, so that you can keep the fish pinned and they don't come up and spit your hook and try to throw that treble hook. Because, keep in mind when you're throwing a treble hook bait, you're using these really smaller treble hooks. As opposed to like a big 4 aught or 5 aught on a Texas [inaudible 00:04:34], you can really jack them there.

Jeremy:
Here, you can set the hook, but those hooks can also come out pretty easily. So the rod or the line does make a difference. Just make sure you've got some forgiveness somewhere. All right, I'm going to let Alex continue to run the troll motor for a little bit. I want to fish off the back here as we kind of fish and talk and we'll talk about retrieving. So for me, I kind of varied a little bit. You, you can start off kind of more of doing a walking. You can just kind of do a pop and spit. Really kind of depends on how aggressive you want that lure to be, and really how aggressive the fish are eating.

Jeremy:
Alex and I have kind of been doing a bit of both this morning and have had luck doing both. So we haven't really had to hone in yet our retrieve, because the fish...

Alex:
[inaudible 00:05:15].

Jeremy:
That's right, the fish have been kind of eating either way. One thing that I like to do... Alex is probably fishing a little bit faster than me with his... I like almost kind of pop pop, and then stop. Just to kind of see if there's any fish that are following it and kind of looking at it. And sometimes on that pause, they'll see it as an opportunity to go in and grab it. Or, right as you pause, then you start back up right as that bait almost kind of starts to flee from that fish is when they'll also come up and attack it.

Jeremy:
But if you were going to use a walking style, just a couple of quick twitches, now I want you to notice that I'm twitching and then in between the twitches, I reel in the slack. So I'm kind of always keeping tension in the line, but I'm twitch, reel, twitch, reel, twitch, reel. Once you get that cadence down, you can kind of walk the beat really well side to side. And this Mad Max does a really good job of walking, popping, small spits, big spits, big plops like you see here. It's a great little lure.

Jeremy:
One thing too, it's a 1/3 ounce. It's not extremely heavy, but you'll notice that Alex and I both are getting some good distance on our cast. That's because the weight transfer system in this lure does a really good job of having the weight load in the back, which gives you a lot of distance on your lure. And it sits in the water really well too where that back treble hooked with that feather sits right down in the fish's face. I've actually caught several fish so far that I didn't even see them bite, they just came up and bit that feather treble on the back because of how it sits down in the water. Really awesome design, MONSTERBASS did a great job.

Jeremy:
There's a good one.

Alex:
And he hooked back up...

Jeremy:
I mean, on cue.

Alex:
And I get to be in front. And he's like, you know what? You haven't caught enough yet, so he puts me up front. That's our biggest one of the day.

Jeremy:
It might be, yeah. There we go.

Alex:
Double up you say?

Jeremy:
Oh, hang on.

Alex:
He's little.

Jeremy:
Hang on boys and girls.

Alex:
He's little, but I'm going to make him look good.

Jeremy:
Fight it.

Alex:
How do you boat flip him?

Jeremy:
Oh, Alex is on. There we go. All right, I'm going to talk about that catch just then. We're casting up along the grass line... Oh, it came off that muddy gill... But we're throwing up on the grass line, but that particular fish actually came out quite aways. That fish came out quite aways to eat that. Oh, there's another one up in the grass.

Jeremy:
So the point of that is, don't give up sometimes on your cast, right? Sometimes you make a cast, as it gets closer to the boat or the bank or the shore or whatever, you kind of reel it in really quickly as you get close to the end, and you almost kind of give up on it? Don't give up on it. Alex just then did not give up on it. Nice job Alex, and ended up bringing a fish out of some of that grassy cover and stuck him... So, nice. It was playing in my head. Oh, that was a fish right there. He didn't even actually hit it, he just kind of slurped it. Literally, I just felt it, I didn't actually see him bite. And he got both trebles. Yeah, that's what you like to see there.

Alex:
Walking it, wading it, even. Got him.

Jeremy:
Oh, Alex is on. Pretty good one, too.

Alex:
He actually swam up and ate it that way, instead of blowing it up.

Jeremy:
Nice one. All right guys, when it comes to color selection, I was throwing that green, sexy a minute ago, I've switched now to the muddy gill. The reason why is because the sun's now come up, we're fishing in a pretty clear body of water. This is more of a little bit of a translucent lure, a little more of a natural, subtle color. Whereas that green, sexy is a little bit of a bolder, brighter color, which does work great when, like this morning, when the water... I'm sorry, when the sun was still lower, that brighter color was working great. Now that it's up a little bit, we're going to switch over to this muddy gill color and try to catch one on it.

Alex:
Just like that.

Jeremy:
All right, literally first cast guys. First cast with the muddy gill. Come out of that grass.

Alex:
It's a better fish too.

Jeremy:
All right, that's actually a pretty decent fish.

Jeremy:
As I was saying, sometimes you can switch over to a more natural color and it'll help you find the fish. Ouch. Ouch, treble hook in the thumb... But find the fish, right there. That's a good one. Really good one there on that muddy gill. And if you guys can see that, that fish came up and you'll notice he keyed in on that red front treble. Just such a good idea for MONSTERBASS to add that on the bait. And, if you guys haven't yet checked out, check out these carpet decals, MONSTERBASS carpet decals. Got your measuring board right there. Let's stick this one on there and see what he comes out to. All right, good 16... 17... 16.5 inches.

Jeremy:
Oh, just letting it sit. Little guy. Had his lips pierced shut. Yeah, he ate that on the pause. Yeah, he had a funky hump on his back too.

Alex:
Schooling activity, I want to see that one school, that one blow up, followed by another one, and see it kind of start to boil up and then I will...

Jeremy:
I missed him, I went back in and got him.

Alex:
And then I will fire right back into it and really target just the schooling activity.

Jeremy:
That little guy got both hooks in his face, that's awesome. I'll tell you, this little Mad Max popper, these hooks are really sharp and they're really sticky. They do a really good job. That one almost looks like a small mouth, look how dark he is.

Alex:
Yeah, living up in that grass.

Jeremy:
Yeah, he's been up shallow, but good belly. Those fish are eating. It's a long ways out there.

Jeremy:
All right guys, thanks for checking out this video today on the MONSTERBASS channel. Again, my name is Jeremy with Fishing the LoneStar and we were just using that Mad Max Popper 2.0 by MONSTERBASS, a great lure for this time of year, an awesome new popper that monster bass is introducing. Make sure you go check them all out. They'll be linked below, tons of great colors to help you get on some fish. We just showed you a couple of them today. If you've not yet, made sure you subscribe right here to the MONSTERBASS channel. More awesome videos coming your way. Also, check out my channel Fishing the LoneStar if you have not yet, would love to see you there. Please go subscribe as well. Make sure you're also checking out the regional pro bags that MONSTERBASS offers to help you catch more fish and bigger fish. MONSTERBASS, go catch one.