Plum,
One of the biggest mistakes in SW fishing, especially to the relatively new, is making things more complicated than it really needs to be. Keeping things simple with the least amount of terminal tackle will reduce the trouble you can have. "Terminal tackle" is everything at the end of your line: hooks, leaders, swivels, fishfinders, snaplocks, duolocks, beads, and on and on and on...
Develop a standard rig for your bait fishing:
I used to do a fair amount of chunking and this works perfectly fine - For chunk bait fishing for bass: 20# Big Game (I only use green) with a fishfinder tied to a good regular no snap swivel and a 24 inch heavier mono leader (I use Big Game mono leader material) tied to the hook. If you use 50 pound clear leader material, you are less likely to be cut off by a bluefish if they are in the area and still not spooking the bass if they are "steel leader shy" like many feel they are.
If you are chunking bait and there are a lot of both bass & blues, you can use steel leader instead of mono to be safe.
If bait fishing, only use the standard barrel or bearing swivels, if you use a snap swivel instead, you are only creating an extra possbile point of failure, especially if you get into a big fish. Remember to keep it simple. Wouldn't it just kill you to hook onto a 40 pound bass and the swivel failed? Just make sure your line has no nicks, your swivels are fresh and not corrroded, and your leader material has no nicks. The one other recommendation is to make sure that your hooks are sharp.
Line -> barrel swivel -> leader -> hook - total of 4 points of failure.
Line -> swivel -> locking part of swivel -> leader -> hook - total of 5 points of failure with that lock part of the swivel a big weak and unnecesary link...
Steve mentions the Hi-Lo rig - that's fine too. No need ever that I can think of for a snap or coast-lok swivel - just use a barrel.
If you are using any kind of plug, plastic, or eel - never leave the fishfinder on. If blues are around, the will see it and bite it off - doesn't matter if it's black, white, clear, red, green or whatever nightime, foggy, or a high-noon in August with no clouds in the sky. Just a simple step to remove the fishfinder, take off the last few feet after you check for nicks and retie without the fishfinder... This is when you would use a quality locking swivel, only to be able to quickly change the plug or lure and only to add some different action to the lure because it will swing easier in some conditions (that was a generalization
). You never want to more pieces than you need to. Often when I'm plugging a nice section of clean beach, I'll tie my 20 # line directly to the plug - just 1 point of failure - my knot...
Just keep it simple. Too many people try to overanalyze their rigging and wind up losing fish. Sure, there is a time and place for a complicated rig but that's only in 5 percent of the fishing so why make things complicated? It would really bit to lose a nice fish to too many points of failure, each point increasing your chance of LOSING the fish....
Just my 25 cents...