Are there any synthetic materials that provide the type of movement that marabou or rabbit fur does?
Craft Fur, Polar Fiber, etc. I'm sure there's other's I'm forgetting about.
Just wanted to let ya'll know, bass lures don't need to pulse. Look at the selection of conventional bass lures....metal spoons, hard crankbaits with 3-4" long plastic bills thicker than my windshield, jerkbaits with 6 hooks dangling unhidden off the bait, ect, ect. Only thing that might pulse would be a spinnerbait skirt or a jig. Rest of the baits are hard...and they catch plenty of bass....last I checked.
Bass fishing is mainly location, location, location. IMO.
Bass aren't like trout. They feed very differently.
I think you missed my point -- I never said anything about "pulsing."
Every example of a conventional bait you mention has a specific movement action. Cranks and Jerks have a plastic bill which displaces water and gives them that wobbling motion. Spoons are basically a piece of metal that provide resistance in the water and flutter through the column. Fish aren't attracted as much to the "pulsing" of a spinnerbait -- it's the blades. These and other conventional lures work because of their action. Take that away, and you'll catch drastically less fish.
The same concepts apply to flies, we're just "building" action with different materials, which is what I was talking about. The end goal is to create something with the right color, action, profile etc. Baitfish swim. There's a ton of ways to create a swimming "action" in a fly as it's retrieved, one of those is selecting materials that create a swimming motion when retrieved. EP doesn't do that well with it, which I why I choose to use other materials on the rear of my flies. It does great at creating a realistic profile and bulking up enough to push water, so I do use it sometimes to build bulk in the front. Johnny King's Kinky Muddler is a good example of the concept.
And of course location is important. And obviously bass aren't trout. But that's not really the point of this thread.