We - or at least I - still have to boil water to get the baits back to the shape they're supposed to be. I can dig through the whole row of whatever plastic but there's rarely a pack that is 100% intact. It gets to be frustrating. Paddle tails are by far the worst offenders.

 

Is there not a way to make these more secure?

I can only speak to Yamamoto baits but they put their Heart Tails in molded clam shell packaging and I've never seen one deformed.  If you look at packs of Senko's on the retail pegs, you will never see any out of place baits inside the bags.  It's part of their QC process.  No bags of baits leave the factory with any of the contents not perfect in the packaging.  I've been to the factory and all of the Yamamoto baits are hand packaged.  If there is a bag on the pegs that has baits askew, it's because someone opened the bag.  

For paddletail baits I like the Strike King Rage Swimmers. Depending on size there are 6 or 9 in a clamshell pack. The pack is clear so all baits can be examined before purchase. I have yet to get a pack with a tail out of place.

 

Zoom, one of my favorite bait companies is one of the worst offenders in the bent tail baits category.

Just curious, what brand?  As mentioned, GYCB, Ragetail, and Keitech are a few that seem to always get this right.

I hate the clamshells and avoid them when I can.  I have never noticed any real action difference from paddle tails fresh from a clamshell vs ones that have been laying in a plano box for weeks/months/years. 

Z-man does an excellent job with clamshells, 6" Swimmerz, TRD Hogz, Trick Shotz for example.

Considering the deformed, injured or sick prey are often targeted first you may be discarding the best baits in the pack...

 

oe

7 hours ago, fishwizzard said:

I hate the clamshells and avoid them when I can.  I have never noticed any real action difference from paddle tails fresh from a clamshell vs ones that have been laying in a plano box for weeks/months/years. 

Same here although I do like the clamshell packs. I've had plenty of deformed or bent finesse worms, trick worms, swimbaits, and ultra vibe speed worms and its never stopped me from catching fish.

9 hours ago, J Francho said:

Just curious, what brand?  As mentioned, GYCB, Ragetail, and Keitech are a few that seem to always get this right.

It was actually my search for a good pack of Rage Swimmers that triggered this post. There wasn't a single pack of 3.25" that all had good tails at BPS or my local store. 

5 minutes ago, PaFrogThrower9 said:

Same here although I do like the clamshell packs. I've had plenty of deformed or bent finesse worms, trick worms, swimbaits, and ultra vibe speed worms and its never stopped me from catching fish.

I've gotten a couple packs of Trick Worms that were permanently zig zagged. I attributed that to prolonged heat exposure in shipping or storage.

9 hours ago, J Francho said:

Just curious, what brand?  As mentioned, GYCB, Ragetail, and Keitech are a few that seem to always get this right.

I also had to stick the tails of each and every one of those Berkley PowerBait Swim Shads in boiling water to fix them.