"Lost a moderately better one when the swivel failed on a well worn Gibbs pencil."

The above was taken from a post by Numby and it brought a memorie of a fish lost by me due to failure of a swivel. Upon hookup at the ditch, I had a good fish break off taking a 3.0 hook with it. I first thought I had my drag too tight, but when examining the plug I found the swivel failed. It was on a well used plug also.

My question is - how many change the terminal stuff on the plugs you fish?

If its a Gibbs it gets changed b4 fishing to one with :musc:

I would change the terminal tackle on plugs that got beaten up during the season over the winter. For example, I did really well on one atom jr this spring. After the fall I will probably change the swivels and re-wire it for season. Hooks I change frequently.

If its a Gibbs it gets changed b4 fishing to one with :musc:

I'm not in the habit of paying $20 for a plug and then having to rewire it :doh:

Yankee and Gibbs are the only plugs I ever suffered barrel swivel failure with.

Oddly enough--I've never had a problem with the screw eyes on a Gibbs darter.

For stripers and blues, I usually don't change any factory HW with the exception of often changing trebles out for a single Siwash style hook (usually use VMCs).

Last year when I started the tuna chase, I got sound advice and changed out the rings, swivels (when applicable) and hooks on most every of the small selection of lures in my "tuna box" - deadly #^&#^&#^&#^&s, diamond jigs, yo-zuri poppers and swimmers.

I also made darn sure that the yo-zuris were models that were 100% thru-wired.

Some of the local plug builders put out stuff that I woul be 100% comfortable tying on right out of the package, but not the mass-produced stuff, even the higher-end big manufacturers.

Paul

Swapping out hooks and split rings is one thing. Swapping out swivels means you are basically taking the lure apart and rewiring. I think that's a lil too much for your average angler.

Yeah unless theyre bluefish bait, I re-wire all of my Gibbs before use. I ussually put in 150lb billfisher barrel swivles.