Turn Your Topwater into a Walk-the-Dog Torpedo

Have you ever bought a new Skitterwalk, Zara Spook jr, or She-Pup, headed to the local watering hole, tied on and cast out, and not have the lure walk just right. You know, when it's more of the plunk-plunk, rather than the more fish-inducing tic-tic-tic. The reason is simple: the eye of the lure is positioned vertically. So do the math. If you pull up and down on something, which ways are the predominate motion of the object going to go? That's right: up and down.

The old method to increase your walking the dog potential was to tie loop knot to the eye, but have the following events ever happened to you and your beloved loop knot?

1. The lead hook catches in the loop negating any walking the dog?

2. After a morning of grinding the loop is weakened and roughed up from the dynamics of casting and retrieving and you find yourself retying after every fiftieth cast or so?

or
3.You lose a fish because he decides to roll and roll, eventually twisting the loop to the breaking point?

If you answered yes to any of these, why are you still using the same old method? With the exception of Bomber's new Badonk-A-Donk, which comes with a pre-packaged split ring in the horizontal plane to maximize lateral motion, chances are the Skitterwalk, She-Pup or He-Dog, or Zara Super or Jr. Spook don't come pre-rigged to maximize walking the dog capability. No, sir. It's going to take a bit of work from you.

So, to get your doggie shaking try this. It's much like the method of adding a split ring to a jig head, but this one just requires a pair of split ring pliers and a split ring.

1. Open the split ring with your pliers.
2. Work the split ring around the eye of the lure until the split ring closes.
3. Tie on using your favorite cling knot.
4. Go catch some fish.

The dynamics of changing the mechanical motion of the lure will benefit in the longterm by increasing your catch. Once the split ring is added to the lure, you can virtually make the lure walk in place by simply twitching the rod tip. You can now use the most three common topwater methods: the dead stick, where you do a few slow twitches and let the lure lay; walking the dog, where you make the lure bounce back and forth; and the plunk, where you pull the lure a few inches each retrieve.