Bigger bait, bigger fish?

[unipsychofishman]

I have always, and likely will always, beleive that a larger bait will select for larger fish. As a result, my tackle box has been seeing an ever increasing number of large lures for pike and walleye fishing such as my recently accuired super shad rap and storm giant flatstick. However, there always seems to be a number of times that just go against this mind-set. Here are pictures of the first fish I caught on each.

[keesvanderlaak]

Pike will attack baitfish up to 65 % of it's own bodysize. so this is not so strange.
I have caught perch that were smaller than the bait they were hitting.

But the way of thinking is correct. you are more likely to catch a big pike using big lures.
This just does not rule out the smaller ones.