The Baby Bass debuted around Christmas time 1995. This is an injected polystyrene blank with a floating agent added. Most of the Baby Bass that I have seen float, although the one that I own actually is more of a slow sinking suspending bait. The bait is so close to neutral in general that you can modify the sink rate by going up or down in hook size.
This is a super realistic bait and the paint jobs are really stunning. There are even a few smallmouth versions of these baits out there which are probably sitting mostly on collector's shelves and not in tackle boxes. The real question is, does this bait catch fish? And the answer is yes.
The Castaic Baby Bass dives down 5-7 feet and has a medium kick about like a broken back Rebel minnow to offer a point of comparison. I've only caught a half dozen or so on the Baby Bass, but I still break it out from time to time and it fishes great every time I tie it on. The paint is excellent and the stock hooks are decent.
The main problem I had with this bait was that the fins dried out and cracked after several years of sitting in my tackle box. It wouldn't be a problem except that you can't get replacement Castaic Hardbait fins any more, so you have to jerry rig some fins if that happens to you.
The other thing that is interesting about this bait is that if you change out the hooks, the weight of the hooks can really affect the buoyancy and action of the bait. It seems to fish best with smaller lighter hooks vs. heavier hooks that dull the action and make it less buoyant. Other than that, these are really great durable well thought out baits. Resources The Castaic Baby Bass is no longer in production The best place to look for one would be on eBay.