Proven baits that don't produce, perhaps.

[TnRiver46]

I can't believe there have been multiple votes for paddle tail swimbaits. The number of fish I've caught on sassy shad type baits is far too many to count . Anything from creme to keitech will produce if the tail moves. You do get a dud every once in a while, use those to drop on crappie and hold still 

[the reel ess]

Monster worms, dropshot, Senko, jointed swimbaits.

 

I will occasionally wacky rig a stick worm to sight fish or toss them at bedding bass. But just as a lure on its own merit, it doesn't do as well for me as it seems to for the rest of the planet.

[JediAmoeba]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

I can't believe there have been multiple votes for paddle tail swimbaits. The number of fish I've caught on sassy shad type baits is far too many to count . Anything from creme to keitech will produce if the tail moves. You do get a dud every once in a while, use those to drop on crappie and hold still 

I have tried so many times with Keitechs from the 3.3 to the 4.8 and bigger on swimbait heads, underspins and jigheads, in all colors imaginable and every brand imaginable.  They are the worst producing bait, BY FAR for me.  I catch more on everything else.  I creep them, I burn them, I jig them...they just dont do it for me.  And they look so good in the water just don't catch fish.

 

They do make great trailers though.

[RB 77]

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I can't believe there have been multiple votes for paddle tail swimbaits. The number of fish I've caught on sassy shad type baits is far too many to count . Anything from creme to keitech will produce if the tail moves. You do get a dud every once in a while, use those to drop on crappie and hold still 

 

Seriously! If I could only have one single bait for freshwater bass fishing only, it would be a t-rigged worm. However, if i could only have on single bait for ALL fishing (fresh and salt , all species) it would be a paddle style swimbait by FAR and its not even close. 

[FrankN209]

I'm more of a power fisherman. I love my chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, buzzbaits, and others. But this year I'm forcing myself to use more worms and jigs, ned rigs. And I'm getting into swimbaits also.  But I hate drop shotting. It's about the only thing I don't like doing. 

[Tanner1Wilkerson]

On 3/11/2020 at 10:49 PM, Loochy88 said:

I was with you initially.  I came back to it again and now I'm obsessed with them.

Sameee. I’m in NE Texas though and am usually fishing stained water with soft silty bottoms which I think plays a big role in my struggles with it

Umm jerkbait. Man I’ve tried and tried and have never gotten on a pattern with it. And a shaky head maybe I haven’t thrown them enough to gain confidence. Side note, I’ve caught more fish on a Texas rig than anything else. My go to plastics are a rage menace, baby brush hog, and prob a ultravibe speed craw, casted a speed craw out one time for a girl I was with and she pulled in a 7 pounder. 

[MIbassyaker]

8 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I can't believe there have been multiple votes for paddle tail swimbaits. The number of fish I've caught on sassy shad type baits is far too many to count . Anything from creme to keitech will produce if the tail moves. You do get a dud every once in a while, use those to drop on crappie and hold still 

6 hours ago, JediAmoeba said:

I have tried so many times with Keitechs from the 3.3 to the 4.8 and bigger on swimbait heads, underspins and jigheads, in all colors imaginable and every brand imaginable.  They are the worst producing bait, BY FAR for me.  I catch more on everything else.  I creep them, I burn them, I jig them...they just dont do it for me.  And they look so good in the water just don't catch fish.

 

They do make great trailers though.

 

A few years ago, I could have given that as an answer.  But I started using them more on occasions where I thought they could be a solution to a problem, and they proved their worth. Like needing a moving bait in moderately-thick, early-growth prespawn vegetation iwhere a chatterbait or spinnerbait would hang too much....the solution was a 4" fat bodied paddle-tail rigged weedless on a weighted EWG. Or wanting an action-tailed plastic of some kind to put on an 1/8-1/4 oz jighead that could both swim and bounce the bottom on the same retrieve, and discovering no grubs had made it into my bag when I left the house.

 

25 minutes ago, Tanner1Wilkerson said:

Sameee. I’m in NE Texas though and am usually fishing stained water with soft silty bottoms which I think plays a big role in my struggles with it

Umm jerkbait. Man I’ve tried and tried and have never gotten on a pattern with it. And a shaky head maybe I haven’t thrown them enough to gain confidence. Side note, I’ve caught more fish on a Texas rig than anything else. My go to plastics are a rage menace, baby brush hog, and prob a ultravibe speed craw, casted a speed craw out one time for a girl I was with and she pulled in a 7 pounder. 

 

In the north, we have the tradition of the "jigworm", which is any worm around 4"-7" on a jighead, often used to probe weedlines vertically. When I first heard of a shaky head, I thought, "that's just a jigworm, isn't it?"  Turns out, not quite -- shaking on the bottom is a different technique than dropping and hopping along a weededge.... but the baits and tackle are practically the same, which made shakyheads easy for me to understand, and pretty much effortless to adopt and be successful with.

[TnRiver46]

12 hours ago, JediAmoeba said:

I have tried so many times with Keitechs from the 3.3 to the 4.8 and bigger on swimbait heads, underspins and jigheads, in all colors imaginable and every brand imaginable.  They are the worst producing bait, BY FAR for me.  I catch more on everything else.  I creep them, I burn them, I jig them...they just dont do it for me.  And they look so good in the water just don't catch fish.

 

They do make great trailers though.

I tend to use one under 3” . I’ve even used the 1” for panfish and a big smallmouth always seems to find it. I use them on round jig heads with open hooks 100% of the time 

[EWREX]

22 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Spooks work a hundred times better than ploppers in my watershed

i threw both last year fun fishing and through tournaments probably equally, and i caught maybe two or three on a spook compared to a TON on the plopper. don't know what it is!

[Primus]

    I've had sporadic success with Blade baits in cold water, I know others who are very successful with this presentation so I know I need more time with it to improve my consistency. 

[Bluebasser86]

I can catch fish with both, but I hate fishing a fluke or a C-rig. I'd about rather just go home than fish either of them.

[MGF]

These days most of my fishing is in a local river where the water is fairly "skinny". I go through "stages" where I using whatever my most recent urge dictates but I think I've done well on just about everything that's suitable for the shallow-ish water. 

 

For the last several years I've been fishing a lot of wacky worms and ned rigs. Before that it was jerk baits...they get too expensive when pike keep taking them. Before that it was a count down  or floating repala. I do a lot of skipping and throw a lot of swim or ball head jigs too.

 

Last year I picked up a couple of whopper ploppers and caught a bunch of fish.

 

Last fall was the first time I got serious about fishing a fluke. Specifically, a double fluke rig was hot for a few weeks. I even got my first double. That was a crazy few minutes. I had two hooked at once and another 4 or 5 chasing it all trying to get hooked.

 

If I had to pick one that hasn't worked for me it would be the spook but I'm pretty sure it's my fault. I'm just not good at walking for any length of time and I don't throw one all that much. I need to make a point of putting some time in with one.

 

 

[Cgolf]

The 1.5 and 2.5 SK KVD square bills have caught less than 5 fish for me while I have caught hundreds on bandits and other baits. 
 

The 1.0 SK KVD square bill on the other hand has been a great river bait. No idea why the other two are such epic fails for me. Even the 8.0 version catches bass for me, go figure. 

[Angry John]

9 minutes ago, cgolf said:

The 1.5 and 2.5 SK KVD square bills have caught less than 5 fish for me while I have caught hundreds on bandits and other baits. 
 

The 1.0 SK KVD square bill on the other hand has been a great river bait. No idea why the other two are such epic fails for me. Even the 8.0 version catches bass for me, go figure. 

The 1.5 in bluegill is magic and 1.0 is devastation on trout for me but not one fish on a 2.5

[Phil B]

I think for me it has to be crank baits and jerk baits. I fish a lot of pads and super clear water and for me, my favorite has to be a T- rig and a frog. 

[Boomstick]

On 3/11/2020 at 9:08 PM, MassYak85 said:

I catch fish on them but for me it's a crankbait. Most of my local waters get choked with weeds and rule them out completely in the summer for the most part. Usually a spinnerbait or chatterbait or just a swimjig are my go-to "search baits" because they can come through heavy cover better. I should start using cranks on some of the deeper lakes around me though. 

I definitely have some lakes like that as well, where fishing a crankbait is either impossible or extremely annoying picking out all the grass, but when you got the right spot in the right conditions, the crankbait bite can be amazing!

 

Which part of MA are you from by the way?

[twigss]

Crankbaits for me. Maybe because I fish from the bank a lot of the time. I hate when I have downtime, whether that is picking out a backlash or retying after a breakoff, treble hook baits just make me anxious. 

On the other end of the spectrum, I forced myself to learn frogs last year and wow am I glad I did, caught my PB on a rage toad from a kayak.

[Boomstick]

I can say that I've not caught nearly as many fish as seemingly everyone else has on a chatterbait. Even fishing the same spot as someone else on a chatterbait, they're getting bit left and right and I'm not. Then I put on a spinnerbait and start getting bit left and right. So I tend to fish spinnerbaits a lot more often. Similarly, I don't catch nearly as many on a T-Rig as I do on a jig, not that I don't catch them on a T-Rig, but again in fairness, I do tend to fish jigs more often, especially when I rent a boat because they're so versatile.

 

I'm sure there's others -- probably better examples to be honest, but I can't think of them right now.

[MassYak85]

10 hours ago, Boomstick said:

I definitely have some lakes like that as well, where fishing a crankbait is either impossible or extremely annoying picking out all the grass, but when you got the right spot in the right conditions, the crankbait bite can be amazing!

 

Which part of MA are you from by the way?

Hopkinton originally. I live in VT now but come back to visit frequently. 

[Chris186]

Whopper plopper. I bought one when they first came out, what 7-10 years ago? I have thrown that d**n thing every season and not even a sniff. I even bought a smaller size last year and nothing. But I have no issue with any other top water. My buddy seems to catch a lot on the plopper though.

[MGF]

I think a lot of this is what you have confidence in. It's hard to catch a fish when you don't have confidence in what you're doing.

[GreenPig]

Sorry I can't help out. I fish and enjoy all bass lures. If I speak ill of any lures I get hit.

[Kdizzle]

Drop shotting has never worked for me.   I've tried every bait I've seen recommended and ran the gambit from lightest to heaviest weights but nothings come of it.  I've found that if I use Zman drop shot baits on a split shot rig I get the same water column coverage, and catch many more quality fish as well as just numbers in general. 

 

As a finesse oriented fisherman it kinda makes me feel incomplete since I can't get any success whatsoever on THE most popular finesse tactic in the sport, but I've pretty much abandoned it.  I use my drop shot weights for texas rigging tubes now.

[t_bone_713]

Still have never caught a fish on a senko. Wacky, weightless, T-Rig, skunk city.

[garroyo130]

Whopper Plopper = the new Banjo Minnow