The Famous Zara Spook...

[Al Agnew]

It will work with the Zebco, but the biggest drawback to the 33 is that it is so slow on the retrieve. In fishing any topwater lure, you want to work the lure through the strike zone, but then reel it back in as quickly as possible once you are through the fish-holding area. Seldom will you actually work the lure more than halfway back through the length of your cast.

The trick with walk-the-dog lures is to keep a bit of slack in your line as you twitch the rod tip. Larry's advice is right on, but when you take up the slack line between jerks of the rod, don't take up quite all of it. After each jerk of the rod, the lure should be turned far to one side or the other, and if you take up so much slack that you start to straighten it out, it won't walk right.

Once you get the knack of it, you can vary the speed of retrieve from jerk-pause various lengths of time--jerk, to jerk--jerk--jerk as fast as possible. Often, I jerk it on a cadence as fast as two times a second. You can also vary the length and violence of your jerks, from a hard jerk that makes the lure glide several inches off center, to short, gentle jerks that make it zig zag without actually moving sideways. And once you're REALLY good at it, you can alternate hard--soft--hard--soft, which makes the lure go several inches sideways on the zig and only pivot on the zag, which allows it to actually veer far to one side or the other during the retrieve. You can walk it right under an overhanging limb, or around an emerging snag that way.

Fun and effective lure to fish, but can be frustrating because some days you'll get a lot of blow-ups on it and few fish hooked, no matter whether you wait to feel them before setting the hook or not.

Lots of walk-the-dog lures available these days...you can go high dollar and get some Lucky Craft Sammies or Megabass Dog-Xs, go a little less high dollar and get lures in a whole lot of shapes and sizes that all walk-the-dog. I tend to stick mostly with Sammies these days, but also use the Super Spook Jr. and a couple of older wooden lures. Each makes a different sound. The Spook Jr. has a very loud, hard, knocking rattle, the Sammies have more of a swishing rattle, the wooden ones don't rattle. Some days it makes a difference, other days it doesn't.

[techo]

Charlie Campbell will tell you about the Red Fins too. The action isn't quite as extreme. but similar and a whole lot easier to work. It might work a bit better on the Zebco 33 reel too.