I love topwater fishing as much as anything, and as a result I fish it a ton this time of the year. My favorite topwater for big fish is a bigger popper, something like a old hula popper or a river2sea bubble walker. The bubble walker you can pop or walk and it is the size of the old pop-r 70 and they cast great. But the problem with the poppers is they are kinda slow, even walking them takes much longer than a traditional walking bait.
Walking baits: Gunfish, Rover, Vixen, and Evergreen SB with those four you can cover most anything you need, I do like the Ima Skimmer or Ima Little Stick on herring lakes.
Poppers: Evergreen popper (best hooks in the world), River2Sea Bubble walker, and the old Hula Popper with good hooks if you are around bigger fish and it is flat calm, something about that big popper with the skirt just sitting there can catch your personal best on it.
The other one I like is a buzz bait with a toad. I use a 1/4 oz bait with the toad and seem to get more bites and the same size fish as will hit a bigger bait, the old lunker lures are hard to beat, but Nichols and Cavatron make good ones too.
I am not a huge fan of the Whopper Plopper, I get lots of bites on it, but my hookup ratio on it is way worse than on other topwater baits.
Of late I have been throwing an old bang-o-lure and having a little success on it, fishing it really slow around fallen trees in the water. Just pop it a few times, then let it sit, then pop it a couple of times get that prop to turn and then let it sit again, seems to still work, have not caught any big ones on it though.
