I've been using a "new" way to rig soft plastic flukes that's been working great with my UL spin gear. The idea comes from Matt at TacticalBassin and is based on underwater video showing how bass almost always take their target at the head. Matt's video is here, and jump to the 3:00 if you want to go straight to the technique.
https://youtu.be/4uwhq68FbZc

Normally if you nose hook a soft plastic Zoom (or other brand) fluke, it's going to tear out. The trick here is to screw an Owner CPS (Center Pin Screw) into the fluke and then put a circle hook through the eye of the screw. This method improves the hook up ratio over traditional Texas rigging with an EWG hook since the lure doesn't have to be turned around in the fish's mouth for the hook to set. When the fish takes the lure, the circle hook pivot's to the right orientation even though the fluke is still head first in the mouth. The downside is that you can't fish this though cover as there is no protection from snags. I've been fishing this with 4# mono and have taken largemouth, yellow perch, crappie and even pumpkinseeds.

Owner CPS in three sizes but figuring that out is a little tricky since most sites only list the product number and not the size. I use smalls and mediums for UL. Pro packs are also available with 50 in each. Don't have the number handy for those.

5124-029 sm
5124-039 med
5124-049 lg





That's a Zoom Tiny Fluke in the pic above. The hook is too big for this size fluke but it was all I had at the moment.

You can nail weight the flukes if you want but the action is better without it.

Even with cold water immediately after ice out I was able to catch a couple nice sized bass with the normal sized Zoom flukes and more recently a rainbow and crappie on a Tiny Fluke.






As you can see with the rainbow, the over sized hook was not a good thing, risking harm to the fish.

Knotty,

Many thanks for photos and details,,,, I will be using Gamakatsu Octopus hooks, light wire sizes #8 & #6 with the Owner CPS rigging.

The ZOOM Tiny Fluke is under 3" long and should be great with UL spinning gear.

Smallmouth are in trouble with this set up.

Regards,
FK

Linecaster, if I get you right, what you're suggesting results in the same setup. Quite often when you bring a fish in, the hook is in the mouth and the fluke has slid up the line. You just slide fluke/CPS combo back over the eye of the hook and it's ready to go again.

FK, both the regular and tiny flukes cast well on UL. I'd avoid the jumbo size.

Joe, luckily rainbows are bad with numbers so that one didn't realize it wasn't a size 18 hook.

Reading all this again, I believe linecaster is trying to address the problem of snagging with the exposed hook. Didn't get that originally. There might be a way to do that but you'd probably lose one of the system's key benefits, which is the high hookup ratio. The hook needs to be exposed so it can rotate without resistance and be in the right position for the hook set.

linecaster, if I'm misunderstanding or you can make this work, I'd love to hear. Thanks.

Soft plastics are killers on larger trout. I hook a size 10 or 12 Owner Mosquito through the nose of a 3" trout worm in natural color. Even native brook trout can't stand it.