Wally,
Torpedos have 2 propellers (fore and aft) and are a great smallmouth bait that attract their share of Northerns as well. Leaders are useful if you're fishing during the day (and aren't independently wealthy). Sometimes I'll put a bend in the leader to give the lure a sideways motion when I twitch it, or travel at an angle if I'm using a steady "buzzbait" style retrieve.

We like torpedos and zara spooks after dark when the pike are much less likely to steal your lure. Pike are also less likely to cut the line attached to a spook, so it's my favorite daytime topwater lure.

Posted by Skip Guyer on January 19, 2001 at 20:01