There were some good ones in that article. Mark's thing with the teaser rig is legit. Mike L's thing with the crankbait lip and the hook masking was interesting. Turning that crankbait lip idea into something useful is gonna require a lot of baits and a lot of tweaking. Probably something most people won't take the time to mess with. That's the real secret in stuff like that. Taking the time to do it.

You want a swimbait secret? I'll give you one. If you want to catch the really big ones, pick out only lures that look like trout. Really huge fish want trout. They'll take trout over anything else. Bluegill type baits and thin profile minnow baits will catch more numbers of fish, but full on trout baits will catch the giants. Out of those baits that really look like trout, pick out only baits that have two hooks on them. Then out of those baits, invest your time into the hardbaits. The baits where when you get whacked, you're putting the fish in the boat 9 out of 10 times. That way when you do get the one in 10,000 casts hit, you actually catch the fish. I'm not giving this tip as a tournament tip, I'm giving it as a trophy bass tip. I get very few bites these days on swimbaits, but when I do get bit, it's probably gonna be something big.

There was a comment in the mag about getting toward 90% on hookup ratio. You can't do that on rubber baits. It's simply impossible. Anyone who says they can get 90% out of a rubber bait, I would love to hear about it. I'm gonna pick on Fish Chris for a second cuz I know he can take it :) and say this also. Some guys don't feel like the swipes and bumps count as bites. I saw, screw that. I wanna get those fish too! I've caught quite a few fish outside the head, especially on the Slammer. That's fair game in my book. If a fish bumps my bait or nips at it, I want a super sharp hook with the leverage of a hard bait to get the hook in the fish. I haven't caught any giants like this YET, but I'm sure it will happen at some point. I almost put the hook in a 15 at Poway last year that rolled on a rubber swimbait I was fishing. If that had been wood, I probably would have got the fish. No telling if I still would have got the strike, but what if?! You wouldn't throw a rubber crankbait would you? What about a crankbait with only one hook on the front? You probably wouldn't throw that either. That's my food for thought for this post.