Frog, Popper, Plopper... Yes. Spook... Nope

[Manly Studson]

I can get strikes on many top water lures, but not a walking one. I can walk the dog, but no fish notices. Tie on a popper or other top water lure, and the fish react. Anyone have enough success with spook-style baits to keep one on hand? Any suggestions for me? I mostly fish for smallmouth in streams. Thanks for the help.

[JediAmoeba]

I walk the dog with poppers quite often.  Lol

 

I find that spook style baits need to be worked a lot faster than other top waters to illicit a strike.  On those I am almost burning it across the water with a pause thrown in here and there.

[Shimano_1]

I'm just the opposite.  Ive fished walking baits every way possible and I can't get a bit if I'm walking it fast like most people do. Ive had more success with a slower twitch 3 times..pause..twitch 2 times pause approach.  Definitely not my preferred topwater tho ive had more success on frogs than anything 

[snake95]

4 hours ago, Manly Studson said:

Anyone have enough success with spook-style baits to keep one on hand?

I love fishing them.  Often I will get fish on other topwaters even after trying walking baits though.  Have switched to poppers and ploppers after fishing walking baits and got bites when walkers weren't generating strikes.

[Heartland]

5 hours ago, JediAmoeba said:

I walk the dog with poppers quite often.  Lol

 

I find that spook style baits need to be worked a lot faster than other top waters to illicit a strike.  On those I am almost burning it across the water with a pause thrown in here and there.

Being in touch with how the fish want the bait presented is a big part of being good with any technique specific bait.

[Bluebasser86]

I walk them as fast as I can for smallmouth. Largemouth usually like a slower retrieve. WTD baits are a must have bait without a doubt. They tend to catch bigger than average sized fish for me.

[Manifestgtr]

No kidding huh? Walking baits do really well for me when there’s an energetic topwater bite. My main issue with them is that if there’s the tiniest bit of vegetation anywhere, they suddenly become grass magnets haha

[Bankbeater]

A zara spook has been by top producing topwater bait this year.  Most of the time the strike comes as I am bringing the bait close to a clump of surface vegetation.

[scaleface]

I have a terrible hook up ratio with spooks . So much so that I havent thrown one in years .

[frogflogger]

Spooks are a known big bass bait - sometimes other topwaters work better particularly for smaller fish - in heavy vegetation we had excellent results with the boze zz walker (sp) it was soft plastic rigged with frog style hooks.

I try to not look at a spook when retrieving but wait until I feel the pull after the splosh.

[Heartland]

3 hours ago, scaleface said:

I have a terrible hook up ratio with spooks . So much so that I havent thrown one in years .

I  have fished the spook baits for years and I hear this comment made once in a while.  It makes me wonder what two people fishing the same bait can do differently and end up with vastly different results.  One of my favorite top water baits.

[scaleface]

1 hour ago, Heartland said:

I  have fished the spook baits for years and I hear this comment made once in a while.  It makes me wonder what two people fishing the same bait can do differently and end up with vastly different results.  One of my favorite top water baits.

Dont know other than I might zigzag it too much . I walk the dog with a Dalton Special and catch them .It doesnt have as much sashay . 

[Manly Studson]

Thank you for the replies and suggestions. The popper won out again today. The water was clear today, so that I could see what fish did before striking. They swam away when I fished the lure aggressively, but they came closer to investigate when I fished it subtly. Maybe smallmouth are a little weary of the vigorous zig zag of spooks right now. I’ll try them again though.

[NavyVet1204]

On 7/4/2020 at 11:02 AM, Shimano_1 said:

I'm just the opposite.  Ive fished walking baits every way possible and I can't get a bit if I'm walking it fast like most people do. Ive had more success with a slower twitch 3 times..pause..twitch 2 times pause approach.  Definitely not my preferred topwater tho ive had more success on frogs than anything 

Same here. I even use your style you mentioned with a whopper plopper and get more strikes than just using a straight retrieve. Actually now that I think about it, I use that same technique on just about all top water I use.

[papajoe222]

I'm a Spook freak and can say without a doubt that there are situations where it isn't the ideal topwater to be throwing.

Turbulent water is one of them and with creeks and fast moving rivers, that is what you normally encounter, even in the eddies.  There are walking baits that make more commotion that are better suited for that and many guys like to walk a ChugBug for river smallies.

[RoLo]

 

I've had good days & bad days dog-walking, so I hear what you're saying.

I"ve also found that when the topwater bite is unenthusiastic, my hook-up ratio tends to suck.

 

Roger

[DitchPanda]

Spooks are a bait that I've done well in and I have a box of them...but they are rarely my first choice. Normally I reach for a buzzbait first. If I need a more subtle bait I'll walk a frog. If I need a smaller bait I throw a pop r.

[Heartland]

23 hours ago, scaleface said:

Dont know other than I might zigzag it too much . I walk the dog with a Dalton Special and catch them .It doesnt have as much sashay . 

I fish the baits at a good pace but generally make sure the bait has the opportunity to finish it's glide before I pop the rod, in my experience the longer the bait the longer the glide.

[Jleebesaw]

A super spook jr in baby bass is my favorite topwater lure. Not even a close second. 

   I walk it fairly slow with lots of pauses most of the time. Funny thing is, a friend of mine uses one all the time and doesnt seem to have that walking down very well. Ive thought about trying to get him to walk it better, but he still catches fish, so who am i to tell him hes doing it wrong. He foesnt walk it so much as just kind of tugs it along without pointing the rod tip back at it. It gives it a very erratic movement that seems to work. Ive thought of trying to mimick it actually.

[the reel ess]

It changes for me from time to time. I hired a So FL guide and he had me walking the dog all day with a lot of success. The first day I ever used one I caught bass after bass, then nothing for a few years except the occasional striper. A fast retrieve seems to work best for me. It seems fish like for it to be fleeing. It's also a very warm water, mid-to-late summer lure for me. I'll sometimes give it a try early in the day and if it's not producing with 15 minutes, switch right on over to a Chug Bug or Pop R. Same with a Whopper Plopper. 

 

But...when you get a bite on one of these bigger baits it tends to be a good one. Bites from some of the biggest bass I've caught on topwaters tend to be very subtle. The bait just disappears.