Popular baits you have given up on

[Captain Phil]

I have to agree with you on chatterbaits.  I never fished one until a friend gave me one and told me he was killing bass on it.  I caught some bass on it, but it doesn't have the attributes or the flexibility of a spinnerbait.  If the fish are biting a chatterbait, I believe they will most likely bite most anything. 

[Hower08]

Chatterbait and whopper plopper. I'm way more efficient with a spinnerbait in place of a chatter and a buzzbait in place of a plopper. Did catch my 8 pound lm on a chatter but I sight fished it and fished it like a jig and not fishing it like you should so I just say a jig when people ask me what I caught it on 

[Cgolf]

39 minutes ago, Captain Phil said:

I have to agree with you on chatterbaits.  I never fished one until a friend gave me one and told me he was killing bass on it.  I caught some bass on it, but it doesn't have the attributes or the flexibility of a spinnerbait.  If the fish are biting a chatterbait, I believe they will most likely bite most anything. 

Up until this year, I would have thought the same about spinnerbaits. But when cranks and plastics stopped working and pretty much only thing they would hit was a spinnerbait, it taught me a good lesson this year, that it can be a post frontal bait too. Now I have to get my wife to throw one, she always refused because she thought it made fishing too easy lol. 

[scaleface]

43 minutes ago, Hower08 said:

I'm way more efficient with a spinnerbait in place of a chatter and a buzzbait in place of a plopper.

I view it the the same way.

[Team9nine]

Saw this one mentioned in another thread and thought it was worth adding to my list: underspins. They seem best in clear water and with schoolies, two things we don’t have much of in the reservoirs around here. Not a single bass yet on one.

[RoLo]

 

I can't say there's a lure in my box that never caught a fish, 

but many lures in my tackle box have not earned their keep.

My least favorite baits are probably chatterbaits followed by hard swimbaits.

 

Hard swimbaits are exciting to fish, but have only accounted for a modest number of true hawgs.

When trophy-hunting, I can't tear myself away from heavy cover, and therein lies the dilemma.

I've moved almost entirely to 'weedless' soft-swimbaits, which account for most of my best fish

 

Roger

 

[Rpratt]

See ya later Ned Rig and Wacky Worm. It's not that I don't catch fish here and there, just tired of always being hung up. 

[Hower08]

6 hours ago, Team9nine said:

Saw this one mentioned in another thread and thought it was worth adding to my list: underspins. They seem best in clear water and with schoolies, two things we don’t have much of in the reservoirs around here. Not a single bass yet on one.

Cold water in spring time is key to this. I'm talking high 30s to 50 degree water is the trick here 

[Fishin' Fool]

6 hours ago, Team9nine said:

Saw this one mentioned in another thread and thought it was worth adding to my list: underspins. They seem best in clear water and with schoolies, two things we don’t have much of in the reservoirs around here. Not a single bass yet on one.

Come up to Lk St Clair in the spring like late April/early May and put the small fluke on as a trailer. You'll have a new appreciation for an underspin.

 

I can't catch fish on a jerkbait. Maybe i don't work it right but I'll frequently tie one up fish it for about 10 minutes put it down and not pick up back up.

[Bass Rutten]

Frogs. I hate them. They hate me [ribbit]

[Bluebasser86]

15 hours ago, Teal said:

Dbomb is a one of my favorite flipping baits or punching baits.   They are aggravating a jig trailer but perfect as a HEAVY t rig with a straight shank hook for flipping.  John crews has pretty good.luck with them too! 

They stunk it up for me, but just like everyone on this thread it seems can't catch fish on a bladed jig or plopper, 2 of my most productive baits, if you don't have confidence in it then it probably isn't going to work.

[ww2farmer]

D-bombs have stunk for me. Catch way more on Reaction innovations beavers and Berkley pit bosses. 

 

Stick baits that are not GYCB senkos, or yum dingers have never produced well for me.

 

Strike king products

 

Whopper ploppers and R2S products in general.

 

Anything from zman that's not a jackhammer, or TRD.

 

Zoom products

 

Keitech Fat Impact's....catch way more on the regular swing impact.

 

Bandit, Bomber, and Norman crankbaits

 

Rapala, Storm, VMC products

 

Owner and Trokar hooks

 

Jackall products

 

For soft plastics pretty much all I use are Yammamoto, Berkley, Yum, Robo worm, NetBait, homemade, and Reaction innovations stuff.

 

Terminal tackle I'm a gamakatsu, mustad, swagger tungsten, and Zappu fan 

 

And for hard baits/jigs/frogs/spinner baits, I like Spro, Lucky Craft, Booyah, War Eagle, Berkley, and homemade stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bluebasser86]

Man, @ww2farmer reminded me of those awful Trokar hooks. Don't know that I've ever seen a more highly touted product that was so terribad as those hooks. They're sharp, for a minute, until they hit something and then they're dull. While they're sharp they're slicing up your baits and cutting big holes in the fish's mouth making it easier for them to toss the bait. Even on sale, not interested.

[Hook2Jaw]

I had a fantastic day on spinnerbaits this past weekend, the first time in my life I can say the spinnerbait was the bait of the day.  If that hadn't happened, a spinnerbait would be the first bait I would list.  The cloudy sky and a slight breeze on the water turned the fish onto it in the middle of the day in 90 degree heat.  I'm patiently waiting for another opportunity to fish them.

 

With that said, I've caught a whopping two fish on the original chatterbait.  Gross.  All hype, no substance.

 

Rage Tail plastics are another bait I feel are terribly overhyped.  I've out produced every Rage Craw I've ever fished with a YUM Craw Chunk.

[browne762]

10 hours ago, Bassjam2000 said:

Frogs. I hate them. They hate me [ribbit]

Same here. I keep bringing them with, but never want to use them. End up hurting my wrist after walking the dog for a couple casts. 

 

Was going to give up on chatterbaits, but after using the Jackhammer I was finally catching and catching a lot. I now never will use another model. 

[papajoe222]

Chatterbaits.

IMO, there are enough options to cover where they perform best, that adding another to my vast tackle assortment would just add possible confusion. They do offer the fish something different, but most guys use them more as search baits. 

22 hours ago, Captain Phil said:

 I can't think of anything more useless.

     

I caught many a pike and even some bass trolling these and similar plugs in my youth. I still use the big ones, occasionally, trolling for musky. 

[waymont]

On 7/19/2020 at 8:13 AM, Bluebasser86 said:

YUM Bad Momma and Woolly Bully

The Yum Bad Mamma, and Wooly Bug are two of my favorite baits, and some of the least expensive out there.

As well as the Yomomma. I started using these because of the lower price, and never missed out on anything.

[Captain Phil]

56 minutes ago, papajoe222 said:

I caught many a pike and even some bass trolling these and similar plugs in my youth. I still use the big ones, occasionally, trolling for musky. 

I am happy to hear that.  I suspected it worked somewhere or they wouldn't have sold so many. Everything in Florida bass fishing changed when plastic worms came out.  My first decent bass on an artificial came on a Creme worm with a spinner on the front.  It weighted about 3 1/2 pounds.  I was so proud of it I put it in our home freezer so I could show it off.  My Mom wasn't pleased.  ?

[NYWayfarer]

Flukes of any kind/brand. I have not had any success with them.

[Hawkeye21]

On 7/18/2020 at 8:43 PM, cgolf said:

I have 4

 

Zman baits for me, mostly because of storage issues and the finesse TRDs and TRD tubes were big  a disappointment to me. That leaves me with, individual baits in various colors, 145 1/2 Zinkerz (some already cut in half), 101 finesse TRDs, 15 Big TRDs, 27 TRD tubez, 60 split tails, and 38 other Zman baits. I was obviously a huge fan at one point.

 

Rage Menace this year, I have hardly fished it at all compared to years in the past. I hope this is temporary because this has been my favorite bait.

 

Strike King square bills, are still drawing a blank for me.

 

Chatterbaits of any brand still also a big zero for me, just can't figure out that bite, so it must be the WI bass lol.

I find myself giving up on other brands of plastics and strictly going with Z-Man because I get tired of going through a bag of plastics in half a day.  The Z-Man products last so much longer for me and I like that they float.

 

I always have some sort of jig tied on but I never have luck with it.  I keep trying but I sometimes think I should just give up on it.

[Hower08]

28 minutes ago, NYWayfarer said:

Flukes of any kind/brand. I have not had any success with them.

This is extremely shocking to me. If I had to pick one bait and one bait only to fish all year I'm talking 12 months a year it would be a hard toss up between a fluke and a jig. Really you can fish a fluke like a jig so it would probably win. I've caught literally thousands of bass on flukes. Think senko or weightless worm when you fish one

[frosty]

Crankbaits. Flatbill, big bill, no bill, doesn’t seem to matter, I just can’t seem to make it work. 

[RoLo]

 

 

The Helin Flatfish was my dad's favorite lure for Chain Pickerel. Back then, the eastern chain pickerel

was voted New Jersey's most popular freshwater fish (Due to the fact that Jersey set 2 pickerel world records).

On the other hand, my dad's favorite bass lure was the Garcia Eelet (very worm-like). 

 

Roger

[NYWayfarer]

2 hours ago, Hower08 said:

This is extremely shocking to me. If I had to pick one bait and one bait only to fish all year I'm talking 12 months a year it would be a hard toss up between a fluke and a jig. Really you can fish a fluke like a jig so it would probably win. I've caught literally thousands of bass on flukes. Think senko or weightless worm when you fish one

I knew it would be shocking to most people. Please understand it's just as shocking to me when people say Whopper Plopper on this thread. The Whopper Plopper is my number 1 producing topwater lure. I fish areas with no surface grass.

 

The only times I have caught anything on a Fluke is when I put it on the back of a jig or chatterbait. As a soft plastic jerkbait it did not produce. I have used white, baby bass, shiner colors. Believe me I gave them a fair shot.

 

 

[Bankbeater]

Mine has to be a beetlespin. I just cannot catch anything using those baits.