DALLAS — Like most fishing fanatics, I have a tendency to jump on the bandwagon for every new craze that comes along. I've had a tough time getting on board with soft plastic swim baits, despite testimonials from some of the best and most honest fishing pros I know.

I like the way swim baits look in the water, and I'm convinced they catch fish. Maybe they catch bigger fish.

So far, I've had three problems with swim baits. One is the price. Two dollars for a soft plastic lure is a little hard for me to swallow.

I'm more inclined to pay $20 for an articulated hard plastic swim bait that, at least, will survive repeated attacks from aggressive gamefish.

I've messed up too many soft plastic swim baits when setting the hook on the first bite. That's problem No. 2.

And maybe $2 a fish wouldn't bother me that badly if I caught every fish that bit. That's the third problem I've had with swim baits. My hookup-per-bite ratio is dismally low.

That's why a new swim bait hook from Creme Lures got my attention. It's called The Change Up. It looks like a joke, but it works pretty darn good.

The Change Up is the go-to pitch for Tyler fishing guide Eric Pottkotter, a member of Creme's pro staff. Like me, Pottkotter was looking for a way to maximize the fish-catching ability of swim baits without damaging the expensive lures.

Creme is the original soft plastic lure company. The Tyler, Texas-based company maintains archives of prototype fishing rigs in its warehouse. Pottkotter found a Change Up prototype first conceived in 1997 as a hook rig for the company's Lil' Fishy soft plastic lure. He worked for a year to fine tune the concept, now available from www.cremelures.com.

The Change Up features a weighted or unweighted double-hook rig reminiscent of an H&H spinnerbait. It attaches to the nose of a swim bait with a screw lock, like you might use on a surface frog-style lure. A metal pin is then pegged to the swim bait's soft belly to keep the exposed hooks in the correct position. The twin hooks face backward, which allows them to slide over vegetation without hanging up but doesn't seem to reduce effectiveness.

"We made the Change Up so the hooks can be interchanged," Pottkotter said. "We encourage anglers to try whatever hooks they prefer. I sometimes substitute a treble hook or even a single hook when I'm fishing in thick cover."

I've fished with the Change Up hooks twice, once for largemouth bass and once for hybrid stripers. I caught about 15 or 20 bass on the same Yum Money Minnow swim bait rigged on a Change Up.

Interestingly, you don't have to set the hook with this rig. The fish hooks itself. Even without setting the hook, I caught 80 percent of the bass that bit the Money Minnow. Using the single hook that Yum recommends for its lure, my hookup ratio has been less than 50 percent.

On open water hybrid stripers, where I expected the Change Up to shine, it didn't save as many swim baits. The hard-fighting hybrids repeatedly stripped the swim baits off the hook. I'd still catch the fish, but the $2 lures were history.

"What happens with schooling fish is that the swimbait on a Change Up rig winds up outside the fish's mouth and another fish grabs the swimbait," Pottkotter said. "I've seen them do it repeatedly. I don't know how to solve that problem and I'm not even sure that it is a problem. I kind of like the idea of fish fighting over my lure."