I customize Spooks and wanted to share my thoughts on fishing one of the oldest top water going. Sometimes it is the technique more than the bait that helps to make a difference 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 help. 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 swallowed it. I was all over those fish but each one was zeroed in on that action and not my bait.
My Tweaked Spooks all have the largest cup washer on the tail which works as a drag. When I quiver the rod tip I can make the bait do a 180 degree turn. Then let it sit. Quiver it again and it turns back the other direction 180 and the blow up occurs.

All my Bass over 10 lbs. on my Spook have come while doing the dying quiver. The biggest bass I have ever had on at Lake Ivie was on the Jerk String Minnow with the flat tale which vibrates at a fast rate of speed pushing the lure in a circle. The blow up was half the size of the boat and that is the last I saw of that bait.

SIT AGAIN. After the quiver let it sit again. Start your retrieve 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 quickly. That follow up cast with the fluke will get her every time.
Let me explain keeping the Fluke rod in place. On my butt seat bag I have one of the bullet nose potato chip clips to hold my rod in an upright position beside my seat. It is held in place with a large split ring attached to one of the lopes on the bag. No time is wasted reaching down on the floor and recovering the rod. I do not leave it there while traveling down the lake. Just open the jaws and clip the rod in it. When a blow up occurs simply reach over and pull it out of the clip and it is that quick. Fast-Draw-McGraw.

Fixing The Clip: Drill a key ring size whole in the Chip Clip handle. Insert key ring to Clip. Attach the key ring to one of the zipper rings. Finished and ready to hold your Fluke Rod in place for the back up cast.

For those that don't have a butt seat bag; sorry but you are missing out on a great piece of equipment. It is the most time saving device I have on the boat.
Here is how you fix it without a butt seat bag. Attach a small lanyard to the poll near the top just under the seat and attach the potato chip clip to the lanyard.

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 bushes with his Fluke and believe me it works. When you think they are not biting top water and want to go to something else DON'T DO IT. Follow that spook with the Fluke.

Good stuff, thanks Donald!!