Most swimbaits and bigbaits are best fished when you tie your line directly to the bait.  No need for a ring or snap, but not always.   It can be difficult to find good solid terminal tackle that matches the physics of bigbait fishing.    Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings are super high quality split rings that miraculously filled a void in that department, and have been a staple in my swimbait fishing for years.   Now, with the addition of the Hyper Snaps, Owner has stepped up to the plate in providing super high quality stainless steel, superior strength crosslock snaps.   The Owner Hyper Snaps are rounded and reasonably balanced/symmetrical, which is important because who wants unbalanced stuff, when given the choice?

When are snaps are good idea?  It comes down to some personal preferences in how you fish, the retrieves you choose, the baits you throw, and your style of fishing.  For me, snaps come into play when:

• Night Fishing.  I like to use snaps on my Slammers and Nezumaa Rats at night, because I have less vision on my bait, and like the sloppier swim a snap provides me at night.  I feel like there is more clack and play in my slower moving wake and topwater bigbaits with a snap.
• Finding Mrs. Right.  Snaps give you the chance to go fishing and not have to waste time re-tying in order to change size, color, or bait.   So for example,  when I head out to Okeechobee and have a hardbait on my mind, and I’ve spent months preparing (ie, acquiring the baits, changing hooks and split rings, making modifications to them, etc)  to take that bait and put it work, I’ll use snaps to fish the baits and see which ones perform best, which color looks the best in unfamiliar water (the black water of Okeechobee does bizarre things to how the color of your baits appears in the water), which ones are most buoyant, and just have the chance to make efficient decisions because snaps allow you make quick changes of your baits.  I’ll have an open box and keep throwing 3-6 different sizes and colors of the same bait until I find one that matches what I want it to look like and do.
• Fixing Lemons.  Some of your swimbaits and bigbaits just don’t swim well. It happens.  Snaps provide you a fall back to try and see if you can make your bait swim or perform better.  For example, you can turn a MS Slammer that perhaps doesn’t slow wake or swim super well on the surface into a good topwater twitch/pause bait, or adding a snap to an MS Slammer can turn a wake bait into a super shallow cranking bait.  So, use snaps when you have a bait you aren’t 100% happy with how it performs, and need another something to try and see how it fishes.  Snaps typically loosen up the swim, make your bait a bit more sloppy.