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I'd say that the percentage is low, especially with the amount caught on pogies and eels from boats. Even if limited to percentage of 40s in the surf, I'd say the number would be low, say around 5%. Eels, chunks, soft plastics, needles and finish swimmers would all take more large fish IMO.
That being said, and as others have said, there's just something fun about fishing them. I had a bass of 35-40# follow a yellow troublemaker danny the whole retreive on BI last fall, coming up right behind it and dropping further back, only to hit when the plug got pulled back by the undertoe. The hit was in so close that I really didn't have a chance to fight the fish and lost it to pulled hooks pretty quickly. I'll never forget watching that fish stalk the plug though. That's why I love and continue to fish metal lips even though they are a "heartbreak" plug as someone else said. Largest fish I've manage to land on was in the upper 30# range.
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