Zara Spook Modification

[Rebbasser]

This morning Flyrod and I fished our favorite electrics only lake and there was a lot of surface activity and bass schooling. They were not very cooperative, but throwing a small walking bait-an Excalibur Spitting Image-made me think of a modification I do to all my original Zara Spooks.

The hooks are attached by passing the hook hardware through the eye of the hook and then holding them on with a couple of screws. While this holds the hooks on extremely well, it does have one drawback: the hooks are not truly free swinging which can allow the fish to get some extra leverage to throw the hook. So, whenever I get a new Zara Spook the first thing I do is remove the hooks and add a split ring. Then I reattach the hooks and am ready to go. The addition of the split ring lets the hooks swing free thus eliminating the leverage the fish can get resulting in more fish in the boat.