Heddon’s Moss Boss – I’ll take my salad with a spoon please.

In the winter months I tend to watch a lot of WFN (World Fishing Network). Some shows are better than others, with my favorite being the Scott Martin Challenge. With both of my home lakes locked in ice and snow, I really do enjoy watching people fish for big bass in Southern Florida. My dream is to some day toss a topwater lure for giant 10 pound bass in that gorgeous, dark water Florida salad. One of the lures I would use on such a trip would the Moss Boss – a big fish producer from way back.

Aside from a strike at boat side, there is nothing more exciting in sport fishing than having a giant bass or pike destroy a topwater bait from deep within a lily pad or reed bed; water boils and explodes, salad is chopped and sent flying, your heart starts racing and your muscles tense in preparation – it’s like time stands still for a moment and your brain scrambles, trying to react. It’s the bee’s knees, truly. So what’s the most effective presentation to illicit such incredible strikes? Well, you’ll need a lure that is built tough; you’ll need a lure that transitions well between heavy salad and open water; and you’ll need a lure that can be stealthy in delivery and still cut a tempting path through the pads/reeds. That lure, for me, is the Heddon Moss Boss. This middle-weight skirted plastic spoon is a big time strike inducer. So much so, that I have put it on my “unfair advantage” bait list. Throw this bait deep into the lily pads and reel it back, letting it sink and dance into any holes in the canopy it finds. When you reach the edge of the pad field, let it sink again. It will wiggle and ripple and float to the bottom – Repeat. Big fish will hunt down this intruder and you’ll see the tell-tale v-wake in the pads signaling an imminent strike - It’s addictive, trust me.

My choice of colour for this lure is a toss up between green frog, yellow chartreuse scale, white scale or black scale (note: full black was once available, but I don’t see it offered for sale since Heddon purchased Swamp Fox, part of the lure’s original name), depending on the type or time of day – as always dark colours for dark photoperiods, light for light. For overall success with this bait, it’s important to add a trailer hook for short striking fish. It’s also important to add a large curly grub or worm tail piece to the main hook, as it will seductively poke beneath the surface and drive fish nuts. My plastic of choice? A big purple or black curly tail worm/grub section, cut down to the base. Cast this combo on as heavy a line that you can get away with (30+ pound test is a minimum here); couple that with a capable baitcaster, possessing a fair amount of stopping power and a matched rod, and you’ll be in the salad chopping business in no time.

Topwater Bottom Line: The Moss Boss is a skirted upside down plastic spoon that, when combined with a trailer hook and a plastic tail, can raise the behemoths from their weedy caves like nothing else. It mimics a frog, a mouse, a snake, a salamander, a bird or a turtle, and at $4.49 a pop (1/4 and 3/8 oz sizes available) provides an attractive alternative to the basic weedless frog. It will get hung up on occasion if the lure flips over onto its stomach, but with the proper line test, retrieving this bait shouldn’t be a problem. The Heddon Moss Boss is a topwater and a subsurface lure, a true value added proposition – and it is a fluid bait that you’ll learn to master with great satisfaction. These baits need to be in your box if you consider yourself a top-shelf topwater fisherman. As always, please practice catch and release with this lure.

Topwater Rating:

5 out of 5 bobbers

Waiter, there is a frog and a mouse in my salad!