Popper speed?

[PoBoy]

I have seen and read some conflicting things about Topwater popper speed of retrieve.  I have seen on tv people "machine gunning" the popper across the water.  I have read that the strike usually occurs on the pause and to fish it in a 3-5 pop sequence followed by a short to lengthy pause.  

In my experience I have never had a fish bite while popping the lure, the strike has always occured during the pause.  I have had strikes immediately upon pausing and even up to a minute after pausing.

So what I am trying to get at is to see if anyone has tips, advice, or experiences that they would like to share concerning topwater rate of retrieve.

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

The way to become a better fisherman is to constantly change it up till you notice the pattern in what is working

Some options to try:

Real slow, POP and wait

Real fast popopopopopopopopop

Erratic pop pop          pop         pop pop pop           pop            pop pop

and every mixture and speed difference in between.  when one hits, duplicate what you were doing and try and establish a pattern.  This applies to every and any bait you are learning.

[snapper G]

I like to pop the bait twice lightly, let it site of about 5 seconds, than do 3 hard pops. On "choppy" days, pop the bait harder, than you would on calm days, so on calm days, pop it lighter.  

[Bassin_Fin@tic]

Sounds to me like you already got the right idea.Just do like LBH said and mix it up.

It also seems to me that different poppers/brands work better worked in certain ways (IE:I always machine gun a Storm chug bug)

These are lures that need to be played with a lot.When you get confidence in it you will begin to feel as if you can catch one on any day since you know so many retrieves.

[avid]

Unless you continually reel a popper like a spinnerbait, it will always have a pause.  Even when popped very quickly there is still that split second of pause between pops.  

I experiment with the # of pops, the speed of the retrieve, and the forcefulness of the popping action.  I definitly find that the bass will prefer one method over another on any given day.

[bass wrangler569]

Like LBH said vary your retrieve until you find the presentation they like. I typically start with a medium speed 3-5 pop retrieve and if that fails I'll slow it down or speed it up until I find the right retrieve. Sometimes I've waited as long as a minute in between pops in order to catch fish, other times you can't get the bait back to the boat fast enough.

[PoBoy]

Thanks everyone!  I am trying new retrieves and having mixed success, but thats fishing!!