Hmm - so folks don't have any problem figuring out how to fillet and cook a fish but learning to tie a line to line knot is just too much for them to remember so they best carry along some swivels? Okey dokey.

And yes, flash sometimes does attract fish - that's the principle behind spinners, spoons, and a variety of other lures. Still not a good idea when baitfishing, though. If someone is concerned that they are going to miss catching a fish because bait doesn't work, instead of swivels it would probably be best to carry a few inches of x-mas tinsel to tie to the hook. That way the fish will hit at the hook, instead of the swivel.

Oh and what are folks going to do if they have to tie a shoelace to paracord or something? Should they carry along some titanium o-rings so they can tie two terminal knots to it instead of trying to remember how to tie a line to line knot? Sorry for the the snarks, folks, but all of this smacks of after the fact justifications of why people carry around a bunch of swivels in a survival fishing kit.

I mean the two reasons people give for having swivels is that they will prevent line twist/breaking and allow hooking lines together just don't make sense. Like I said, when I used to run trotlines I lost far more fish to bent hooks than I did to broken lines. So this isn't a theoretical concept to me. I mean if people have experience losing lots of fish to twisted line when running unattended lines, I'd like to hear it. Just doesn't happen in my experience. (And, here I am talking about freshwater fish.)

And a note to ironraven - sorry if I caused you offense. I just try to be a plain-spoken as possible and I assume (perhaps mistakenly) that people would prefer blunt honesty.

Good fishing folks.