The 9 inch bait is the bait that I use. I have caught fish on the smaller bait but my confidence is in the larger bait. As far as ratio... that's a tough one to call. For those that use swimbaits and have years of experience, you know that bass will hit a swimbait with their tail or even a closed mouth out of pure frustration. Most people count these swipes or head-butts as "bites". I have seen many times, fish both big and small charge the bait and ram it with a closed mouth. I, like Fish Chris beleive that if a fish wants to eat a bait, it is going to eat it. When I first started throwing swimbaits back in the mid 90's, I would be so frustrated that I would put up to three trap hooks on the original Optimum swimbaits because I would only catch say 2 out of 10 "bites". Even after putting all of those trap hooks on the baits, I still wasn't catching all of the fish that "bit". Back to the Stocker Trout. You must use a single trap hook under the chin of the bait. 75% of the fish that I catch on that bait come on the stinger hook. I see a lot of guys using a trap hookeither on the top of the bait back on the tail or under the bait back on the tail. Your hook up ratio will go up on this bait if you crimp a 2/0 Gammie treble or a 1/0 Owner Stinger and run it under the chin. I use A5 wire sleeves with 60 pound coated sevenstrand wire. I crimp it to the eye of the bait and run it about two inches back.

Fish Chris... your reels are on order. I will call you when they ship.

SWMB8R