It may be that a lure that's the most visible, the most irritating or most intrusive is the best bait at any given moment. It might be that the silliest looking lure in your tackle box is the one that will win the tournament on any particular day.

A few years ago, a certain famous lake was drawing legions of anglers from throughout the nation because it was producing so many bass of 10 pounds and bigger. Several of the best bass guides there began using a lure called the PHish Stick. It looked like something a dog might leave on your lawn. Anglers referred to them as "cigars," "bubble-gum cigars," and a few other names that we can't repeat here.

There was no way you could ever confuse a PHish Stick with anything that swam in that lake: It was just a thumb-sized piece of plastic in which you could hide a hook. Then you could fish it, weedless, as a surface lure. It worked really well for fishing the tops of matted hydrilla or other vegetation, because the hidden hooks allowed it to be worked without hanging up or gathering big globs of algae or hydrilla. You could even walk it like a Zara Spook once you got the hang of it.

The bass loved it. I caught numerous bass on several trips I made to that lake using those fantastic PHish Sticks. I fished them at other lakes, in farm ponds and elsewhere, especially if there was matted vegetation on the surface. It frequently produced results, even though it was the most non-lifelike looking lure I could imagine.

I could cite other examples of silly-looking lures that outperformed more realistic lures, but the point's already been made: Matching exactly the "natural" foods that a bass might eat in a given body of water isn't always the best way to catch fish.

Sometimes you just have to try the brightest, shiniest, gaudiest and/or noisiest lure in your tackle box. It may not look real -- but the results it gets can be!