As soon as Brad Smith began throwing an XCalibur Xz2 Zell Pop, he began catching bass, and within 30 minutes he had a limit in his livewell. Prior to switching to a Zell Pop, Smith didn’t catch a fish.
Smith, a guide a tournament pro from Fort Smith, Ark., continued catching fish all day on a Z-Shad-colored Zell Pop and ended up taking first place in an Arkie Division BFL event at Greers Ferry Lake on May 6. Smith weighed in a 14-pound limit, topping all other anglers in the field by nearly 2 pounds.
"The Zell Pop makes a unique sound that is not a traditional ‘plunk.’ It really sounds like the noise made when baitfish are being chased on the surface," Smith said.
The Zell Pop, part of XCalibur’s new Hi-Tek Series, was designed by legendary topwater angler Zell Rowland to "spit" and skitter on the surface like a fleeing baitfish. "A bass can’t stand it when a bait does that," Rowland said. 
Smith worked the surface lure with short, fast series of twitches, but paused it every three or four seconds. "When I’d start it moving again, they’d get it," Smith said.
While Smith got his limit early and used a single lure and presentation to catch all his bass, putting a winning pattern and limit together began during practice and included some major adjustments and strategic decisions.
Smith found a group of high-quality fish, which he knew he could win with, well up the Middle Fork arm of Greers Ferry on the Wednesday before the tournament. They were in a foot of water, well out from willows and buckbrush, which were high and dry on a flat. He could catch the fish readily with a Heddon Super Spook Jr.
The lake level was rising about a foot daily, which was escalated by major rains that occurred on Thursday. By Friday, his area had turned to chocolate milk, and his fish would not come up to feed. He decided he’d have to concentrate on other (smaller) fish well down the same arm of the river, where the water was still relatively clean.
It was in that area that Smith made the morning switch to a Zell Pop and began catching fish; however, after two hours, he still had two small spotted bass in his limit, and he couldn’t seem to cull them.
"I decided I needed to gamble and run upriver to my bigger fish, hoping I could still catch a couple on a crankbait and cull those two spots."
As Smith expected, the water soon turned muddy as he began upstream, but to his surprise – and delight – it began clearing right before he got to his key area. And while the area had changed dramatically, with a foot of water now being between the inside edge of the buckbrush and the bank, the bass were in that narrow zone, and Smith’s Zell Pop was exactly the right lure for bringing them out.
Because the fish were behind thick cover and the water was still somewhat stained, Smith used 20-pound-test Silver Thread Excalibur. He used a 6-foot, 6-inch medium-heavy action All Star rod and a Pflueger President reel.