Whopper Ploppers

These really intrigue me. During certain situations they get bass so angry they hit these lures harder than any other lure I’ve ever used. Then a few days later, same conditions they don’t even generate a sniff. Couple things I’ve noticed:

-Stopping and starting doesn’t seem to generate more strikes than a steady constant retrieve (in my experience).
-There is a sweet spot when it comes to speed in relation to retrieve rate and plopper sound/speed.
-The bone color is an absolute monster
-Bass will hit these in extremely shallow water (less than a FOW)
-If there are weeds anywhere near this lure it will grab them.
-Pairing these with a spook is can be deadly. Whopper Plopper is great for covering water, something most topwaters aren’t great at doing. I’ve found that if I get a couple of strikes on the plopper in an area, I’ll pick up a spook and pick apart the area and get a few more fish.

All that said, I’ve had plenty of times where I strike out using them. But in the end I keep using them because the strikes they generate are so darn entertaining. Have you guys used them much and what are your thoughts? This video is from last week FYI.

Nice review! Great video
Love fishing topwater anything, ploppers, buzzbaits, frogs, toad, anticipating that explosion is what does it for me.

I got sucked into the whopper plopper craze 3 years ago when they started becoming popular. I bought 3 of them in 3 different sizes and colors (dicks had a buy 2, get one free sale). I have the 130, the 110, and the 90. I have never caught a single fish on the 130, not even a pike. I think the 130 is over kill in terms of its size for bass here. The other 2 I have caught a few fish on. I just have not found it to be an effective lure with any regularity. They are well made quality lures, I will admit that. I just haven’t done very well with them and I’ve given them more than enough time to succeed. I wish I would have just bought one instead of 3. My wife brought this up when I bought them too “maybe you should just buy one and see if it works well first.” Shoulda listened.

gim wrote:

I got sucked into the whopper plopper craze 3 years ago when they started becoming popular.

Every style of lure cycles thru a resurgence at some point in time. I have several that I purchased back in the mid 80’s,,,,,, back “when they started becoming popular”.

I’ve never even seen one much less tried one. I wish I had one tied on this morning. I think I may have caught a few on it. A fair amount of surface activity today. A whole 3700 box full of topwater lures with and I never tied one on. The bite was slightly off this morning. Went to a lake that gets lots of mid week tourneys and it may have been hit hard recently. My partner caught a nice near 19 on his 1st cast and I got a nice one on about my 3rd cast. Managed 6-8 more fish and packed up and went to a different lake. Large bass tourney going on out there as well. We caught a few good ones but decided to call it a early day.

gim wrote:

I got sucked into the whopper plopper craze 3 years ago when they started becoming popular. I bought 3 of them in 3 different sizes and colors (dicks had a buy 2, get one free sale). I have the 130, the 110, and the 90. I have never caught a single fish on the 130, not even a pike. I think the 130 is over kill in terms of its size for <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>bass here. The other 2 I have caught a few fish on. I just have not found it to be an effective lure with any regularity. They are well made quality lures, I will admit that. I just haven’t done very well with them and I’ve given them more than enough time to succeed. I wish I would have just bought one instead of 3. My wife brought this up when I bought them too “maybe you should just buy one and see if it works well first.” Shoulda listened.

Funny you say that. I only use the 130 unless using them for smallmouth. Then I use the 90. I’ve caught some nice 4 lbers on the 130 and also plenty of 1 lbers. I wouldn’t say they are too big. I’ve seen one lb bass hit musky lures so I’ve stopped thinking much is too big for our bass around here.

Best two sizes for me (by far) for both LMB and SMB are the Whopper Plopper 75 (fishes “bigger” than the WP 90 IMO) and the Choppo 105.

I use whopper poppers often. Almost always throw 130s i have multiples in loon and bone color. I have other colors that have never been hit. Loon and bone are almost always taken. I only throw them at certain times. Either real erly or late in the day and by cover or off deep points. Chaining how you reel them in is the thing. Ill reel and then hit like a jerk bait. Then reel and walk and sit. I get more on the wack and sit then I do the steady retrieve

Before the whopper plopper came out I used the top raider musky lure. Similar size to the whopper plopper 190. One of the best musky and big bass lures ever. Don’t be afraid to use the 190. It will out fish the smaller ones Plenty of days.

Modeled after the original Gooch’s Tallywacker . They work .

Have yet to get one on a Whopper Plopper the Jitterbug for me works great! Wish they worked paid enough for it

I have an ancient purplish pink wooden Jitterbug that puts the Whopper Plopper to shame. Gotta say those Whopper Plopper paint jobs are pretty tho.

I don’t think I’ve caught a bass on a jitterbug in 20 years. Although I can’t say I’ve thrown them much since then!

They do work though!

Thanks for the nice typed up review along with posting the video.
I found with prop style baits it works best for me to cast it out and give it a pop, wait, pop, wait, then steady retrieve. Doing the first couple of pops and waiting gives anything close to it a change to check it out before it flees and they chase.

Poppers pretty much replaced buzzbaits for me. When they are working and the bass are aggressive it is fun.

I used to always have jitterbugs and poppers in my tackle box as a kid. I don’t remember ever catching a bass on a jitterbug, but I probably was throwing them mid day. I used to always use buzz baits in the morning and sunset.

Only time I ever messed around with bass fishing was during college, which was when whopper ploppers first were starting to get popular. Absolute blast. Turns out little pike love them too. Thanks for the write up!

Tbro!!!!! All the BEST things were messed around with in college!!!! Might want to revisit it!!!!

mahtofire14 wrote:

All the BEST things were messed around with in college

You’re not wrong there

Every place I look is sold out, expensive online, so I tried the Berkley Choppo
caught some nice fish, biggest was a thick 19”. Plastics, not working, cranks that had worked just a couple of days ago, nope. Bunch of boats for a tourney on this lake, I was sailing that thing up onto flats that nobody had touched. Fun

Nice! That choppo is basically the same lure just cheaper and not as good hooks. Glad it got the job done for you! And yeah, tackle is hard to get anywhere. Joe’s had quite of few of the actual whopper ploppers when I was in on Wednesday FYI

I just got the Berkley Choppo also awesome caught many fish already

Choppo rocks! Nice to have something to just chuck, after hours of diddling around with plastics, going to be one of my go tos around sunset.