I heard to take the o ring off of your crankbait and just use a Norman speed clip. Can anyone tell if they do that and what's it for.

I don't use speed clips - I use cross lock snaps and I keep the O-ring on the bait.

I do believe it gives the bait better action (especially any lipless bait like a trap). I don't use a cross lock with a deep diver, topwater, or hard jerk bait

You can fling very expensive cranks and swimbaits right out of the speed clips, don't ask me how I know .

Yes, take o ring off of your mid to deep cranks, I leave it on my squarebills. I've never slung a crankbait using speed clips. One tip I can give you is to re-tie and also change the clips out every so often, I feel they lose there spring street hard use.

I use cross lock snaps and take the split rings off all of them including top water.

never had a single issue losing a bait off a speed clip and I've used them for years.

My bad......It was the fast snaps I was thinking of. Speed clips are ok but I retie often and its easier for me to just tie direct........except for top water I'll use a cross-loc.

I hate to tell you guys this, fish don't care if you are using a speed clip or tie directly. It's all about reaction not action when it comes to crankbait fishing. I use speed clips just for easy bait change. Top water is a little bit different. Then it depends on the style of bait

I have used most of the clips out there. Even tied directly to the bait itself, minus the split ring. It depends on what the fish really want. If you use a split ring or cross lock, you might get the hooks fouled in it, every so often, because the bait can tumble during casts. I do NOT agree (all the time) with WmSmith. A LOT of times, I crank very slowly and pick up a lot of bass in open water by pausing the bait, so it is NOT a reaction strike, more like an none action strike. I use my CB's in a lot of open water and catch a lot of fish there, so I am the odd wad out, thinking outside the box almost always, but it pays off for me in more/sometimes larger fish. I cannot tell you when to change from the split ring to something different, I just do it and it normally works well. ESPECIALLY on highly pressured lakes. I just get a sense that what I am doing is not working as well as it should and then change things up, sometimes a shallower/deeper diver of a different color, or taking the split ring off and tying a speed clip or cross lock on it, or just taking everything off the bait and tying direct. Let the fish tell you what they want and pay attention to it. It takes a LOT of TOW to get this sense to change, but it works for me, most of the time and it often lands me more/bigger fish, too. So pay attention to what the fish are telling you and try to experiment from there. Hope this helps.

Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

Thad Rains

Not a speed clip fan

Loop knot

I use crosslock snaps on almost all of my crankbaits, Jerkbaits, Spooks, Jitterbugs etc. The lighter more finess topwaters like, Rico's, Splash its and Yellow Magics, I tie directly to the bait with the repala loop knot. I do however, make the tow loop a bit rounder on the cross lock snaps, with a pair of round nose pliers. and make sure there are no flat spots on the loop. I want it as round and as cymetrical as I can get it.

That being said, I remove the snap rings because I don't like my line getting pinched or nicked in between the grooves on the snap rings.

I believe that is the most common reason for changing the split rings to reliable cymetrical clips, and not so much to try to get a better action.
Robert G.