Right more often than you know!I have read where that fish always eat all the time and you just have to know where and what to do to get them to bite and I don't know if this is really right.
Competition strikes even from a mixed school is hard to prove. If many fish are concentrated in an area, it's almost always a no-brainer to catch fish after fish and even fish of different species. In this case more lure types work. But, I would think that most crappy anglers on this forum prefer soft plastics when other lure types aren't working - which for me is most of the time. Soft plastics are more versatile than any other lure types : under a float, drop shot, casting, vertical jigging,... to name a few and a large range of speeds from the pause to a medium rate of retrieve.
So, what lure characteristics do I select that have proven to be effective 99% of the time because of an inherent versatility, from April to Nov. (and even under the ice in Jan. and Feb.)?: vulnerability (ease of attacking and biting) and subtle lure irritation (for when the bite is slow at first).
I've caught pan fish on most lure types you can think of and in some cases on larger lures pan fish don't usually hit, but for the slow bite and the search bait that searches for fish that can be provoked, I can't think of anything more effective.
Maybe it's the waters I fish, but I rarely come home catching only a handful. Sonar helps a great deal to find structure but the right lure does the rest as it does for all of you most of the time.
BTW, we all would like to improve our catch rate and therefore are open to suggestions that can do so. Simple is a simple does and overthinking what or why fish strike contradicts that. I'd just as soon use one lure in one color for the rest of my life, having full confidence in it's ability to do as well or better than any other most of the time. Guess what - I have! Now it's just a matter of finding them!