These are the top five things that will make you a better swim bait fisherman.
One: actually throw it. People buy a big glide bait, throw it for five or six minutes, and go back to a jig. The more time you spend with a glide bait, the more you see, the more you learn, and the better you get. Dedicate real time to it - take a couple of swim bait setups, leave everything else at home, and learn where fish are positioned and how the bait swims. You throw these in the same places you're already catching fish; you just see a lot more of what actually lives there.
Two: learn to use angles. Watch how other boats fish a piece of structure - almost every one of them takes the easiest route: down the outside, flip the outside, a couple pitches inside, done. They're not repositioning to present a bait from an angle fish haven't seen. If fish are used to seeing a spinnerbait come down a laydown the same way every time, they'll wise up to it fast. Come from the opposite direction and it reads as more natural. Switching up your angle is critically important for these baits.
Three: get a proper setup. Learning on a flipping stick to save money is fine at first, but leveling up requires the right rod for the bait size you like to throw (there's a real difference in setup between a 7.25" bait and a 9.25" bait), and a powerful reel - a fast, lightweight 100-size reel gets bullied by a six-to-eight-pound fish. A 300-size reel lets you control the fight instead of the fish controlling it, which is one of the single biggest factors in not losing fish on these baits.
Four: do your research on the water. Figure out the primary forage in your lake and match it - bluegill or crappie profile where those are dominant, blue-back herring profile where that's the forage, and so on for shad or trout. Water clarity matters too: in clear water, go darker and more natural (baitfish in clear water actually get darker from sun exposure); in dirtier water, go paler - bone tends to excel there.
Five: don't get hung up on color. Elaborate stenciling and paint detail don't make nearly as much difference as anglers think. Shade matters far more than intricate patterns - keeping it simple with something shady and something bone white covers most water clarities. Getting overly focused on paint distracts from what actually matters: where the fish are, the action of the bait, and the mood of the fish that day.