A friend reduces the angle between the water and his swimbait tails (Big Hammer, etc.) by slighly pinching the tail toward the belly and placing a toothpick through the top rear of the swimbait and slightly into the tail, then clipping away the visible part of the toothpick. Since seeing him do that and catch good numbers of rockfish, lings, and even some surf stripers I have gone to several tackle shops and have seen that the angles of the tails do vary across named brand swimbaits as well as no-name swimbaits. He believes that the less the angle of the tail with regard to the water the more action the swimbait will have. This makes some sense, but I am not convinced about the toothpick idea. I would like other opinions about this.

Bob