Pro Tips Weekly: Dion Hibdon

Snell knot improves soft-plastic hookups

Nowadays when I’m flipping soft-plastics in heavy grass, I use a little trick that Peter Thliveros showed me. I tie the hook to my braided line with a snell knot. It doesn’t slip at all, and it changes the way your hook behaves when you set the hook on a fish. Because the line passes through the eye the way it does, the point goes up into the roof of a fish’s mouth for a more solid set. Guys like JT Kenney and Terry Scroggins are also doing this when they fish heavy cover. It’s improved my catch rate from about 50 percent to 90 percent.

If you don’t know how to tie a snell knot, go to one of the knot-tying websites (www.animatedknots.com) and learn. It’s an easy knot to tie, but it takes a bit longer to tie than most other knots. The results are worth the time you spend tying it though.

— Chevy pro Dion Hibdon of Sunrise Beach, Miss.