Your fine panfisher your not stealing anything. The more we can help each other out, the better off we'll all be. 2Aces no we do not tip our blades with anything, the thing that we have noticed, is that it takes away from the vibration that the blade makes when you jig it up. In fact every time that your blade doesn't seem to be vibrating right if you pull it up there will probably a zebra mussel or the blade if fouled with the line. The blades we use have the 3 holes on them, we have always used the center hole. Good luck this weekend if u go, I too hope to make it over there this weekend.