Eddie Chambers chuckles every time he hears another story about a fisherman getting hooked on the Zoom Horny Toad.

Chambers is operations manager and one of the owners of Zoom Bait Company, a family-owned business in Bogart, Ga.

“The Horny Toad is selling like crazy,” Chambers said. “I get a lot of calls from fishermen who say they’ve never had so much fun catching bass.”

There is a catch to fishing with the soft-plastic lure. The toad’s bulky body makes it difficult to hook largemouth bass that bite the lure, despite strikes that are sometimes off the ferocity scale. The No. 1 question Chambers gets from fishermen: “What kind of hook should I use?”

Zoom has just shipped its first batch of Horny Toad Hooks, heavy-duty 5/0 hooks with a 60-degree bend and an Oldham screw lock on the eye. The screw lock holds the head of the lure into position on the hook and should result in the 50-cent plastic lure catching more fish before being rendered useless.

Zoom lures are made from a soft-plastic formula, which fish like. The soft plastic tears up easily, however, making more money for Chambers and his family but costing successful anglers an additional hit in the wallet.

The Horny Toad has enough weight that it tends to slide up the fishing line when a hooked fish jumps and shakes its head. The lure can sometimes be threaded back into place. It’s often damaged beyond repair. Luckily, the lure’s action is the same, whether it is rigged upside down or right side up.

Fish with the Horny Toad when you think bass will bite a topwater lure — primarily early and late in the day or during cloudy, low-light conditions.

Lure color doesn’t seem to make much difference.

Use an offset, wide-gap 5/0 hook. Bury the hook point in the soft-plastic body to make the lure almost totally weedless. If you’re fishing in relatively open water, expose the hook point more to get better hookups.

If you can’t find screw-lock Horny Toad Hooks, try using Super Glue to secure the lure head to the eye of the hook.

When a fish bites, try not to overreact, which is easier said than done when the bite is aggressive. Bass will hang onto the lure for several seconds. Let the fish have the lure for a second or two.