I think you're on to something. Lets take wire trolling as an example. I charter captain that I know once told me that a man agressively jigging a parchute jig will out fish a person jigging more subtly. He attributed this to the fact that agressive jigging creates more noise which aggitates the fish more so that they'll strike. Taking this in to consideration, how many bass over 50# do you know of that are caught on a parchute jig? I can think of one, and everybody thought it was a sign of the apocolypse. I'm not sure of the reason for this, perhaps it's because as a bass becomes older it relies on hearing less, or maybe it becomes more sensitive to noise. Note: these last two things stated are my own personal slapped-together on the spot theories.
Now one would assume the same could be applied to a rattle trap, seeing is how booth make noise.
And like you said needles are a fantastic plugs, and like you said, epecially at night. I would attribute this to the fact that a needle is pure action, no rattles, bells, or whistles, and the fish must see the plug/sense it using lateral line, and at night a bass sees in crystle clear night vision.
and you thought you were the nutty bass fisherman
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