I've tried bait springs with less than great success. By adding a center pin to a bait spring, I can align the spring perfectly, every time to make a straight running, durable and fish-catching jerk bait, shad, or frog.
Here is my home made center-pin bait spring. It takes about 15 seconds to make the bait spring.



Attach the bait spring to any hook by screwing it onto the hook eye.



Push the center pin into the head of the lure then screw the lure onto the spring. A bunch of springs also shown in the pic below.



Here are some baits rigged.



There is a little trick to making the center pin spring that eluded me for a while. All early attempts looked like they were done by a 3 year old. I had to make a simple tool for winding them. Most likely you have the necessary part for the tool in your desk drawer.

I gotta sell a few books before I send the next one in for publishing.