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They work well in the rips esp on sandy bottoms... from MV to Race Point they are effective. You can troll them with braid too. Wire is not really needed unless it is really deep. They tend to "kite" downward slightly. Like emgred said the dive, and in general you can get buy with a lighter jig and rod which is really nice, however, you have to find the sweet-spot of boat speed and jig weight as when it gets mismatched (ie too fast for a light jig) they tend to go a little unstable but that can be tweaked by adding pork. So you have to experiment a bit. Get a range of sizes. They are not as straight forward as a smiling bill which has no wings on it and is stable in flight at all speeds.
I came across the original head like this called the snapper slapper (which came from Texas) and was developed for fish like cobia...when I was taking a captains course a number of years ago and one of they guys in the class was swearing by these things for bass so I sent away for a few.
They work, I just don't think they are the ideal surf casting bucktail for most guys because they will swim nose down and tend to kite downward and dive. But I always have them on the boat. Last year I fished them a bit out at the hooter on lighter tackle and they consistently hook up with small to mid size bass out there. But that is about the only time I used them though.
Over the winter I created a few molds for a related type of jig that is only for surfcasting and is designed to be fished horizontally not vertically like most bucktails are. I have a few prototypes and they swim as I want them to but I have not really fished them yet. They resemble a squid, cast like a rocket and you can easily control the depth they swim in at. As soon as I actually catch something with it i will post a photo up but until then it is just another brain burp from my workshop and I'll keep it to myself. But it was this squidhead that got me thinking about making one that works better from the surf.
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