Sometimes it is the technique more than the bait that helps you make a differance between a good day and a great one. This is my big fish technique with a spook.

BE PATIENT. Throw it next to and into the thickest cover you can get it in. A grass line is the best for me. Let the spook sit and sit and sit. Twitch it two ever so slight of movements. It is more like a quiver. This is a part that practice in a pool will really helps. I call it the dying quiver. 90% of my big Bass have come at this time of the cast.

DYING QUIVER. You almost have to witness a big Bass knocking a shad out and it doing the dying quiver on the surface to know what it looks like. Three of the largest bass that I have ever seen in my life did just that. They knocked it out and while it was quivering on the surface, circled it then swalloed it. I was all over those fish but each one was zeroed in on that action and not my bait.

SIT AGAIN. After the quiver let it sit again. Start your retrive walking the spook as slow as it will go. Letting it glide to the right and then to the left. Never stop the bait even if you get a blow up. Most of the time she will come back and take it within a few strokes.

THE SWITCH. Then leave it sitting and pick up a pinch weighted Fluke to follow up just past where the spook is sitting. I have a quick clip on my butt seat bag and keep my Fluke rod standing right beside my pole seat. I just pull the rod out of the quick clip and make the cast. You don't have time to lay your spook rod down and fumble around and pick up the Fluke rod off the deck. This has to be done quick. That follow up cast with the fluke will get her everytime.

EXCITED BASS. The spook's action is exciting the Big Bass that are close by on every cast. You may not ever realize this is taking place. You are not getting any blowups or even given any signs of it; but it is happening.

PARTNER DOES THE CATCHING. As I bring the spook past a bush, I have my partner throwing to those bushs with his Fluke and belive me it works. When you think they are not bitting topwater and want to go to something else DON'T DO IT. Follow that spook with the Fluke.

TOURNAMENT WIN. Practiced for a tournament on Amistad. We found the top water fish in a 100 yard stretch the morning before the tourn. We caught 2 keepers and a 4lb. Bass right off the bat on the spook. Tourn. morning the spook did not catch a Bass. They were blowing up on it but not taking it. My partner followed up behind the spook on every bush and put 5 Bass over 5lbs. in the boat. This technique has accounted for several wins so have fun trying it.

That's an awesome write up. I could visualize it happening when I was reading. A spook is my favorite top water.

Good info Donald! The Fluke after a topwater blowup is a killer technique!!!!

Nice write up!!! (even tho I wish you kept some of that stuff under wraps! )

The "quiver" as you call it... is probably one of the hardest things to master - just because you kinda have to get a big blow up on it to finally help you realize if you're doing it right, but once you get the action down right and gain a bit of confidence in it...

But then again, some of the most exciting strikes I've gotten have come while working a spook as hard as I can as slowly as I can. Those fish just exxxplode on it... but they're typically smaller fish, in the 6 lb. range or under.

try a 6 inch leader to a 2/0 hook with a fluke behind it or even a road runner...

Good info! I love to fish topwaters especially a Spook Jr.

Enjoyed the read. Thanks for the info.

Do you guys remember the flat fish thing? It was also made in the frog. When you jirked the string attached to the nose of the lure the flat tail vibrated ultra fast and sent it skittering in a circle. Well that is the dying Quiver. I bought one at a yard sale and took it to Ivie. It was right after I had a heck of a day on the spook down there so I knew where the big girls were hanging out. I caught two in the 5 lb. class and then threw it back in some thick stuff up the river and that it the last I ever saw of it. The biggest Bass you ever seen went South with it.
I bought the bait because of the three huge fish I had seen at Amistad knock a fish out and watch them come back and get it while it was quivering in a circle.

+1

The two step technique 'the bass likes to Dance

Good read

Thanks for the info. Sounds fun.

Great info

Thanks for the advice, great write up

Nice article