Zara Spook - How It Got It's Name

[abkeenan]

I'm a bit of a history nerd and thought I would share. Funny how things come to be.

 

> ...Pensacola was an active seaport in the early 1900s that brought sailors to town...helped support a thriving red light district. Biggs said the houses of prostitution were located on Zaragosa Street and remained in business until World War II.
 

> One of the [fishing] store's regular customers was a man named Angelo Capaduca. Capaduca carved a wooden fishing plug that worked well on the speckled trout.... He gave his handmade plugs to other regulars at the store.
 

> "All the artificial lures in those days were called minnows. One of the regulars, a Greek who spoke heavily accented, broken English, used the minnow. One day, after a good catch, he said, 'That minnow, it do the hoochie coochie, just like the girls on Zaragosa Street.'" The hand-carved plug thus became the Zaragosa Minnow.
 

> During the Great Depression, a representative from James Heddon & Son Lures in Dowagiac, MI called on the Pensacola sporting goods store. Hearing about the Zaragosa Minnow...the Heddon salesman took one of the lures with him. It wasn't long before Heddon was making its own wooden Zaragosa Minnow.
 

> When Heddon began experimenting with plastic lures in the 1950s, the lures were called "spooks" because they were transparent. Thus the Zaragosa Minnow became the Zaragosa Spook. The name was eventually shortened to Zara Spook.

[96 CHAMP]

I'll be darn. Good story. I reckon I was fishing close to history as we used to go to Pensacola quite often when I was a young fellow. WE would camp across the bay at fort pickens and fish the point for reds & blues & crabs.  Thanks for the story.

[fishinwrench]

Does anybody remember the "Zara-Gossa" bait ?

It was a jointed hard bait that acted kinda like a Sluggo.  It never really took off. 

[176champion]

Use to fish heck out of the Zara spook on the grass flats in Florida...use to put a little 1/16 feather jig on the back of it..I have a Zara spook as a key chain now for my boat key..., it's probably 45 years old....lol

[Mitch f]

There was a lure collector in STL that named his daughter Zara...I wonder if he knows this story?

[Guest]

Since we're on this topic, does anybody still throw a Mann's Super George?

Its a bigger version of the Little George, but its hollow with a lead one knocker & little tailspinner. Its a rare bait that nobody throws anymore. 

I caught my PB fish of 2008 during a Ranger tournament at Dardanelle. I won big bass on that lure @ 7.75lb, hopping it down an offshore road bed 40 yards off the bank. 

I havent tried it at Beaver, but it should work on bluffends?

[Champ188]

Be careful about applying logic to Beaver.

[Hammer time]

Thanks for the history of the spook, great reading! Please unlighte us on any other knowledge you can provide. 

Much appreciated!

[Donna G]

I love that story.  Champ188 actually told me about it first.  He used to live in the Pensacola area.