I have a few lures of different types. I am thinking about increasing my options by purchasing several more to give myself a larger variety. There are so many lures out there though. Where does one start when increasing their collection without making unintelligent/random purchases?

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My custom baits have been very good to me for the 50 years that I have been Bass fishing. Go here to view them: Thanks for looking.

http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/9225840/Custom_and_Tweaked_Tackle

Purchase lures you have confidence in and catch fish on. Buy 3 you're not familiar with and use those when the others don't produce.

There are a ton of baits that work well so it depends on what you already have, and how much you want to spend. You need to be a little more specific with your question. What baits do you like throwing best? Everyone has their favorite so that is a good place to start. If you don't have a favorite yet, then it could get costly with all the suggestions of all the hard baits and soft plastics that work. I love throwing jigs and have a couple brands that I really like but I have spent a lot of money over the years sorting through many different jigs out there.
Some of my favorite baits are jigs, naturally, Santone, Viper XP, All Terrain, and MPact jigs.
Soft plastics, Zoom super fluke, swimming fluke, finesse worm, speed craw and Zoom chunks.
Yum dingers
Net Bait paca craws
Xcite Raptor craws
Grande Bass mega claw
Rattlesnake and baby snake
All Lake Fork tackle stuff
Berkley power worm 7 and 10 inch
Strike King crank baits and lipless baits
Storm swim baits and Huddlestons
DD22's
H2O crank baits
Gammakatsu and Owner hooks
Invizx fluorocarbon
Mean Green - co-polymer line
I could go on and on. I am a tackle nut and my list could go on forever.

Don't purchase anymore! Turn back now while you still can! This is a horrible addiction and you'll never stop just getting a few more.

I agree with Trangler this can be a very bad addiction . Side effects are ; headache ,new boat fever and even divorce

I normally make unintelligent random purchases. I think I spent $300 during the ice storm sitting on the couch and shopping at tacklewarehouse.com. Cant wait for some decent weather so I can try my new toys. Rkangler may be right, Very addictive and very expensive. Like someones signature on here says, I hope when I die my wife doesn't sell all my fishing stuff for what I told her I paid for it.

Take up another hobby. I started out buying 1 or 3 lures .Fishing is expensive I spent least 25k to 3k a year on fishing items. Been fishing about 15 yrs now. It's like crack can't stop using.

In my view, the first thing you should consider is where and how you fish. If you mostly fish from the bank versus a boat, or fish rivers versus lakes or ponds, or fish stained water versus clear water, then you should be looking a baits that are good for that particular type of fishing. For example, if you fish from the bank, it would be unusual (not impossible, just unusual) for you to fish water deep enough to actually need a DD22 or 10XD.

Another consideration is, what technique you want to learn or do more of. When I decided to learn to jig fish (it's still a work in process), I did some reading on the TFF from people that I believed knew what they were talking about, exchanged a few PM's with them, and bought a few "starter" baits. After some time (and success), I now have a separate jig box. Or, if you already have technique you like to use, expand on that with different bait colors, sizes, or brands.

A third consideration is, what time of year you primarily fish. Most baits can be used year-round, but some are more effective at different times of the year. For instance, personally, I tend not to throw a lipless crankbait in July, but I throw it a LOT in the fall and early spring. Do some reading about what baits work best at the time of year you fish the most.

If you primarily fish one or two water bodies, you should be able to determine a few techniques that work well for you on that water body most of the time. Expand the bait selection for those techniques by selecting some additional sizes, colors, or brands. Or if you fish with someone occasionally, pay attention to what they use that is successful, and buy a few of those baits. That's how I wound up with a separate box of topwaters and frogs.

I think most of us picture ourselves as a B.A.S.S. or FLW tour pro that should have an arsenal of baits for any fishing situation, when the reality is we most likely fish a limited group of water bodies on a regular basis, and our bait selection should be geared for those water bodies, not for the one time a year we go to Falcon, or what we saw some pro on television using on Okeechobee in March.

My brother-in-law lives on a private lake in east Texas. When he and I go fishing, he takes two rods and, if he wanted to, he could carry all the baits he will use in his shirt pocket. Over the years he has figured out that a black or chartreuse Roadrunner will catch big fish on that lake under any conditions, so why would he carry a box of other stuff he'll never use. When we go at night, he carries two baits: (1) a buzz bait, and (2) something to CRig. That idea is contrary to what we see on television or read in B.A.S.S. Magazine, and, frankly, how we're geared as guys. But it makes a ton more sense to buy what we will use and be effective for us, than to own a bunch of stuff that will never see the water on the off chance we'll "need" it one day. One of the "trends" I've seen on the TFF over the past two years is the number of guys that fish A LOT that have been narrowing their bait selection by limiting the number of colors they own and the type of baits they throw to what actually works for them based on when, where, and how they fish.

This is just my non-professional under-informed .