“You should throw a buzzbait.”
That was the advice I got from Terry Bolton on the phone this spring while he was off fishing an FLW Tour event in March. I of course didn’t throw one. In April, the next time we fished, he picked up a buzzbait and proceeded to crush nice bass on it during our filming session. I quickly tied on the War Eagle Buzz Toad buzzbait and proceeded to crush them myself.
I actually grew up fishing buzzbaits on the Arkansas River and in Florida. In fact, it was my favorite bait for catching big bass growing up. But, I’ve been on about a 10-year hiatus from throwing it. But now the resurgence of buzzbaits with plastics rather than skirts has brought them back into favor so I spent a month throwing the Buzz Toad and rekindling an old fire.
The War Eagle Buzz Toad features a Zoom Horny Toad in place of a silicone skirt to give it a more streamlined profile that has become popular in professional fishing circuits as it allows the bait to be skipped under docks, low hanging trees and other cover.
The keeled belly is unique to allow the bait to skip and get up on plane quickly with a lot of lift.
The bait comes in 3/8 and 1/2 ounce sizes. Surprisingly, the 1/2 ounce size skips and fishes well even at slow speeds. The soft plastic toad helps keep it up. So you can fish it fast and slow effectively and get it buzzing on a long cast quickly which can be a big key to getting buzzbait bites.
I caught a lot of fish on the buzzbait as it was, but I also had more success adding a trailer hook. The cover you fish will dictate if a trailer hook makes sense or not.
I fished the black model and the white model both and had good catches on both colors. Their patent-pending TLAP Bait Gripper holds the Horny Toad in place through multiple fish catches. In fact I caught dozens of bass on the buzzbaits and didn’t even use a pack of Horny Toads and didn’t have to mess with super glue to hold it on the buzzbait, even with skipping it hard under docks.
It has a good squeak to it out of the package, but it definitely got better the more I fished it and the more it got bit. The hook was very strong and sharp and a lot of the bass were hooked in the deepest hardest parts of the mouth. The profile is a standout among buzzbaits.
The buzzbait is reasonably priced at $6.49. You can find them at TackleWarehouse.com and other retailers that carry War Eagle spinnerbaits and buzzbaits.
