Your lure just doesn't have a chance at getting away. Another good example is perch fishing in the spring. Small yellow wet flies and pieces of garden worms work well on these early season fish. What these examples show is that the key to ultralight is your ability to tease a fish into biting out of instinct with no hesitation at all. To do this you need to toss out a very small offering and work it back with just a bit of the right action.
Lets take a look at matching ultralight tackle and lures to the fishing conditions.
Freshwater UL rods have become wonderful tools in the past fifteen years. The cost has decreased too. In the early eighties a good ultralight graphite stick cost about a hundred dollars. Today you can find that same quality rod for about forty. You want that very soft tip to cushion the line on the cast and to give you the feel of the lure at a distance.