Jared,

I've caught fish on the Soft Platinum trout and gizzard shad. When you get one that swims right, they get bit and catch fish. My problems have been with baits that do not swim straight, and baits that tear in half.

It's a complete crap shoot on tearing them on fish. A 2lber is very likely to shake and jump and rip the lure in half. A bigger fish may swallow it and you get the lure back in one piece.

What's a huge bummer is when you have say a Platinum Bluegill that swims perfect and you snag it on a tully and pull on it and not only does it rip in half, it rips in half right through the foam head which detaches the wire line tie in the nose from the wire that holds your hook on. Once I saw that I just couldn't use that lure any more because I knew if I got a giant fish going on it - that would be the likely outcome.

All these Castaic baits have potential, what they need is tank testing and a test where you tie a piece of wire to the screw eye and put the hook in a vice - then pull to see what breaks first. All of the swimbaits that stand the test of time like the Hudd, Slammer, Triple Trout, etc can take the abuse. $15 disposable baits that might break in half and cost me a fish are too hard to stomach for my taste.