Trap rigged swimbaits - this is something I never thought would have worked. I fished a trout tournament about a month ago at Cachuma. The trout were in a trolling mood and my partner Larry did very well pre-fishing the day before. My other partner Matt called me up the night before and told me to bring some stuff to play with besides the typical Rapalas and spoons. Of course I grabbed some Hammers. Seconds after I put the first one out it gets slammed - miss! A few minute later - same thing. I asked Larry if the trout are always hooked on the back hook of the Rapalas and he said, "yes". Matt suggested trap rigging the Hammer. After searching around the boat I found a suitable hook and gave it a shot. BAM! fish on!! Matt then rigged one up and the rest of the day we had 2 Hammers and 4 Rapalas out and the Hammers outfished the Rapalas. It was the coolest thing, no playing around with the lip to get the thing to troll straight. No untangling treble hooks from the net and the swimbaits didn't get torn up at all. In fact, we used the same two all day. When a fish gets on the stinger hook the tail of the swimbait slides up the line and is out of "harms" way. I have a picture but it isn't scanned yet. I will try and remember to post it here tomorrow. I was hoping to get out to Cachuma again and experiment a bit more before writing an official "article" about this type of fishing but I haven't had the opportunity.

By the way - the same thing happened with the perch that were hooked on the stinger hook - the swimbait slid up the line and didn't get messed up at all. The largest perch was caught on the main hook - all the rest were on the stinger.