Matt, there you go again making too much sense. I feel the same way as you do. A couple of years back someone comes over the radio and says "Running copper harnesses 45 back on TT40s". I didn't have any copper, but I moved my gold and firetiger harnesses to 45' and pulled 8 fish in an hour after only managing 4 walleye and countless trash fish for the first 4 hours. It's not about the shape, color, action etc. as much as it is about getting a bait in front of the fish. Does all that matter? Sure, it can and often I feel like it does. But it doesn't matter what you're pulling if you can't put the bait in front of the fish.

To the OP and anyone else that's reading this with the same question, here's the dilemma: You're investing a lot of money to get to the lake, run the boat, licenses, hotels, meals, ice...Why would you NOT spend a few extra bucks to have the ability to duplicate the presentations that others are saying are working? You don't have to buy the custom painted baits for $12-15 apiece. I'm not saying you can't, and I can tell you that they do work, but like Matt said, if 90% of the baits in the water are the same color and type it stands to reason that they'll catch 90% of the fish.

Good luck and have fun. Don't feel like you MUST use all the baits that everyone here discusses, just know that when you see people saying that Perfect 10s at 30/30 are catching fish day after day after day, it's a lot easier to get a Perfect 10 to the same depth than it is to get a deep diver there when there's so many variables to consider.