My experience has been if your fishing shrimp and not catching anything then you likely will not catch anything on a lure. If you are fishing shrimp and catching dink trout, gaftop, and other assorted trash, then switching to a lure will weed out some of the undesirables and allow you to catch better fish. Again this is just my opinion, but if you get a norton tequila gold bull minnow within eyesight of a trout/red you have a good chance at a hook up.
Not stepping on toes, but I have seen it done many times and have done it myself many times; having caught many more trout on lures(specifically topwaters myself, soft plastics by others) on many occassions when others fishing amongst us with live shrimp weren't catching the numbers or size of fish we were. As to the original question, if lures are something you want to try, give it go. As far as what lures to use, that is a matter of personal preference. It's all about which ones you have confidence in. If you're not confident that you will catch something on the specific lure you are using, there's a pretty good chance that you won't. For trout, you can't go wrong throwing a soft plastic or a topwater. For reds, a quarter ounce gold spoon or topwaters. Can't give any advice on flounders. I don't catch those seeing as I pigeon hole myself. I use nothing but topwaters. May not catch as many fish as the bait or soft plastic chunkers, but those blow ups sure are awesome.