I've had the same problems with the swim bait. I recently started throwing swimbaits and the LMB and I thought for sure all of my favorite sticks for throwing plastics at Calicos would be awsome for fishing the swimbait in freshwater. Man was I wrong. It seems that the stiffer sticks do make it easy for the bass to spit the lure when they jump. Just like you mentioned I also wind the fish on by habit. I do swing on fish that eat the swimbait on the fall but with out current it doesn't hard to hold it the strick zone so most of bites come on the slow retrieve. When I get bit I crank harder just like fishing iron in saltwater. What I have learned is when it comes to LMB it's not a bad idea to scale the weight of the lead head down so it's not so heavy making it harder for the bass to spit the bait. The only draw back the lighter head is less control and it's harder to keep you swim bait swiming straight. This is specially true on the faster grind. If it's centered correctly when you rig it then it should be fine. I also decided to change over to a salmon rod (8ft Lamaglas) One piece casting but It has a much softer tip then say a calstar gx8/ Gf900L, or- phenix/Loomis 965 or even a 1054 but it looks like it will load up pretty good. I'm hoping it will give more and cause less fish to shake the hook when the jump or make runs. Oh well I'm going stick on the drying rack and try it out either this weekend or next week.

JerryG