What sounds like a motorboat as it churns across the surface? What popular bass fishing lure looks more like some kid's idea of a model airplane than a real fishing lure? It's the buzzbait.

Kissing cousin to the spinnerbait, a buzzbait is a premium topwater bait for a variety of situations in which the angler wants to make a lot of noise and disturb a lot of water -- and a lot of bass. It's a mystery: Does the buzzbait anger bass into striking it, or does the turbulent water and noise simply convince a bass that a good-sized something is trying to get away? We will probably never know, but it's an effective bait that should be in every bass angler's tackle box.

Spinnerbaits look odd, but there's not much in the bass fishing inventory that looks as ridiculous as a buzzbait. There's this big hook hung on the end of a hunk of stiff wire bent like a long L. It's partly concealed by a skirt of some plastic or rubber stuff, and out in front is this big propeller. Some models even have two propellers. Whatever a buzzbait's makeup, it's a strange fishing lure that you would swear should frighten every bass in the lake. The fact that a buzzbait not only works at all but works well just goes to show that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Far from scaring bass away, buzzbaits often draw bass from a considerable distance. Sometimes when a churning buzzbait leaves a big V-shaped wake on a lake's surface, you'll see a second wake converging on the buzzbait as a big bass homes in on it from several yards away. One thing is sure: Bass don't just strike a buzzbait, they assassinate it.

By design, a buzzbait has two main bass-attracting features. A big propeller blade produces a lot of noise and vibration, and the skirt gives the bass a good, bulky mouthful of color and movement to home in on. Plastic or pork trailers added will increase the size of the offering, and perhaps add their own song of vibration to the general uproar going on at the front end of the lure. The whole thing is nearly six inches long, and you would expect a bass to retreat to its lair with a severe headache after encountering something like that roaring across the surface.

It's great for slop fishing. Lily pads, weeds, brush and even solid wood stump fields are prime buzzbait country. So is a long stretch of riprap or any shoreline feature that lends itself to parallel casting. A buzzbait may look ungainly, but the design is essentially weedless, and you can run a buzzbait through some of the toughest cover without a hang-up. It is also a lure that covers a lot of water in a very short time. Pro anglers often use them to locate the most aggressive bass in a lake and quickly put a limit in the boat.