I am doing some cleaning of gear. I found several packages of a bait I thought..."oh, this is gonna kill them!"  but nope.  I will still try occasionally, but my confidence in the bait just isn't there.  

 

the Jackall Bounty Fish.  hahah..  I rig it with some 5/0 EWG hook, and I have ZERO bites.  

 

the big benefit of the experience is that I dont jump on any bandwagons anymore.  any news on how the Sleeper Craw is doing?  I also thought, "oh, that is gonna kill them!" 

I get good bites on them, but they aren't durable, at all. Not sure if I'll buy any more. As far as the Sleeper Craw goes, I forgot I even bought some up until a few days ago. ?

I absolutely love the Sleeper Craw. It is a fish catching machine. The action is great and I love that the hook is concealed. One thing I've seen on here and other sites, is that the plastic is bad and appendages come off easily. Well I bought one when they first came out and Im still using that same bait. I have some backups but so far haven't had to use them other than color changes.

I think everyone has had a bait or two like that. When you get a day that is not going so well and fish are not cooperating, revisit it. 

They are a bunch of fun with the right hook and a good top water bite.  The skip like a dream as well.

 

I will second that their durability is just not there at all though.  If it's an aggressive top water bite, not just slurping them under I easily go through 1/fish and at their cost it's just not worth it.

I feel like the bass are so dialed in seasonally here, it would be super easy to get to thinking something wouldn't catch fish until you figure out when and where it works.

 

Thing is, do we have time or patience to glean that information when we can catch em on every cast on an old standby?  Probably not.

 

Buzzbait is slowly becoming like this for me.

 

I KNOW these things catch BIG fish in my state and nearby states this time of year.  I know I'm fishing it well technique and location wise.

 

I just haven't figured out the timing /conditions I need to be looking for on my lakes.

 

Will I ever figure it out?  Gosh I hope so.

There's plenty of baits that "can" work.  I think one thing that makes a difference is fishing pressure and what others are fishing with.   Everyone, their brother, and their sister throw buzz baits, whopper ploppers and berkley's whopper plopper copy.    I don't even try these here.   

 

One bait I laughed at, but tried was a A-rig.   It felt like a joke casting it.  I caught a bunch of bass on one last winter.    

 

Decades ago my Mom gave me a frog that had a string your line hooked to, with a kinda wind up mechanism.   You could twitch/pull the string and it's legs would start kicking.   Me and my friends laughed at that thing.   For some reason it was killer for pond bass,  but reservoir bass ran from it.   Usually pond bass are the ones that spook easily.