This is a Matt Peters / Cameron Smith question right here :)

For me the answer is that burning baits has not worked well for me at all. When Cam got my head all souped up a few years ago to try it I went around to quite a few different lakes and tried it (much like I tried deadsticking when you got my head souped up on it Mark :) ).

The result was catching a whole lot of nothing. I burned Eagles and Hudds over places where I knew fish could see it and they did not react to it. I don't know if it's a water temperature thing (like water up here is colder and fish are less likely to bomb fast moving topwater) or if it is some other intangible. I did try burning baits quite a bit during the hottest summer months.

The only fish I can think of in the last 8 years that ate a burned bait for me was a 4 pounder at Clear Lake that ate the original Castaic Baby Bass hardbait as I was burning the bait in because I thought I was fouled up in weeds. Clear Lake bass love deflection though, so it may have been the fact that I was burning my bait through weeds and getting good deflection that really triggered that bite.

Anyway, I hope everyone goes out and burns the heck out of their lures in Nor-cal to see if works :)