Loooooove throwing topwaters in the summer -- specifically, black buzzbaits. I've found that throwing them in lower light conditions (before dusk, after dawn) have yielded the best results for me, but I won't hesitate to throw one at high noon either (although you'll find that to be quite an unpopular opinion among most other anglers). Haven't used any other buzzbait than the 3/8 oz. black skirt/red blade Cavitron buzzbait for a while now... unmatched in squeak/sound, bubble trail/turbulence, and lift, aka minimum speed needed to maintain its position on the surface and to keep the blades churning.
Would love to throw more reaction-type baits like cranks and spinnerbaits, but unfortunately the bodies of water I fish all get wayyy too weedy during the warmer months. I've always had consistent success with weightless Texas-rigged senkos and flukes however, along with more finesse techniques (straight tailed finesse worm paired with 1/8-1/4 oz. jighead or drop shot rig) when the bite gets tough.
Been experimenting with creature/beaver style baits this summer as well, and I'm liking the preliminary results thus far... 3/8 oz. tungsten bullet weight, glass bead, and a snelled 4/0 Trokar TK130 straight shank Flippin hook rigged up with a Berkley Havoc Pit Boss, Missile Baits D-Bomb, or RI Sweet Beaver 4.20 in that order. The brush hogs/baby brush hogs in my tackle boxes haven't seen water in a while :wink: . I still have a lot of confidence in them to get it done, I think it's just more of a honeymoon phase I'm having with the aforementioned three lures. It's also worth noting that I'm fishing these like a Texas-rig; I've never done much flipping/pitching nor are the ponds/lakes I fish very conducive to such techniques anyways.
** As an addendum: if you like throwing poppers, give the Gary Yamamoto Shibuki Popper a try if you haven't already. I've always been hesitant to try out Yamamoto hard baits, and truth be told, I still really haven't with the exception of the popper. But it is a great topwater and the castability of both the 60 & 80 sizes is superb!