Outside of the canal fishermen, I find few guys fish bucktails. I even asked in the tackle shops and got a not-too-may guys fish them here. The charter guys troll them on wire but few others use them. It is a shame because it is a very productive way to fish deeper waters or strong moving water. Last spring I was invited on a inpromptu trip to fish dusk on a friends boat. I always bring my own rod, reel, small-med soft tackle bag, and life vest and foul weather gear when I go on anyones boat. (have to have my own stuff..)
I convered 4 others just how effective bucktails can be after boating my 6th to their 0th. All had white curly tail grubs or if there are blues around I will go to porkrind. The key was the depth and position in the rip, once you got the jig in the right spot it wasn't long before on nabbed it.
You can control the depth and sink rate with different heads and tail combos. It really is a bit of an "art" to fish them. When you find the right head/tail combo, along with the right retrieve rate, you can keep the jig at the perfect depth and you know it is there. It is a lot of fun to fish them.
The next time I went out with that fellow later in the season, I noticed he had a big LOAD of bucktails and a bag of curlytails
Where I live you don't loose as many as the way you guy fish the rip-rap ladden canal. I would like to see the canal drained just to see whats snagged on the bottom. Must be a million # of lead.