I use the 4/0 to 6/0 gami or owner unless I can find the hooks in the black packaging with red lettering. I don't know what they're called but they are sharp, really sharp and made of a thinner diameter metal, which I think helps with my hook-ups. I like texas rigged plastic for flipping. During spring I like lizards (black and char), then as the water warms and the craws come out I switch to Tubes and Worms when shallow or flipping some off shore structure. Then when it gets really hot I switch to flipping the edges with texas and drop shot rigs. Nothing like flipping a ledge in twenty feet of water. I'm sure it looks stupid flipping a ten inch worm in the middle of the lake but it works. Really really well. Then fall hits and I gotta go for the jig flipping. But all of this above depends on the lake, temp, season, baitfish, etc etc etc. I love bass fishing, I gotta get back into it.
I have a question for the slab chuckers, those of you fishing the big swimbaits. When you find a honey hole do you simply cast the swimbaits in and around the area a few times and call it good. I look for pockets and fish mostly pockets when I'm after large mouths so I rely heavily on the flippin stick. I've pulled twenty bass out of a hole the size of my kitchen. 10' x 10' of water held twenty bass. The biggest was three pounds so maybe you don't look for these areas because your looking for fives and up but whats to say they aren't there. I've heard of holes with threes, fours and fives schooling up in it. You catch ten of those and you and your pardna are winning the tourney. I don't think you can find these areas with a run and gun swimbait tactic. Any thoughts???