Regardless of what many people say there is a technique to fishing rattle baits, and if all you are doing is casting and reeling you're not fishing. You may hear people say its idiot bait, and anyone can catch fish with it. Well I beg to differ, yes the right time and the right conditions it can be easy, but with the right conditions any bait can have a time where it's easy.
The key to me is staying mentally in contact with the rattle bait; being aware of every movement that the bait makes while you are retrieving it. The mental part of fishing rattle baits is more important than many other types of bait you have in your tackle box. In fact in my opinion rattle baits must be fished with precision and confidence, so that every movement of the bait is a calculated movement made by the fisherman. You want the bait to do many different things while presenting it to a fish and your movements must be presented so it causes a strike.
The truth is that there are many different presentations you can use, from speed reeling to dropping, stopping pulling it parallel over the bottom. You yo-yo it, you pop off of cover, you let it drop to the bottom and go slack, and I could go on and on; in fact I believe I could come up with 25 or more ways to fish it. None of them would be fishing it with little to no thought or awareness of the baits movement. The fisherman make the bait what it is today, that being a well rounded fish catching versatile bait that fished correctly covers an enormous amount of ground and causes reaction bites when worked correctly by the fisherman. So the next time you tie on rattle bait, put some thought to it and you'll catch more bass.