If you just want to catch bass, nothing beats live smaller fish to catch live bigger bass.
Otherwise, on a year-round basis, just to catch bass, my vote would be for a plastic worm.
But I don't enjoy fishing as much with anything other than top-water.
Much of my top-water is with weedless frogs, in large part because nothing else will work as well without hanging up on moss, weeds, lily pads, etc. Where there's less to hang up, I like buzz baits, sometimes including top-water lures like a Whopper Plopper, but rarely use any lures with treble hooks.