Axolotl mate selection?

Has anybody experienced female axolotls rejecting a male ? I put two 10"-11" females in with an 8" golden male, he was being very friendly to them nudging them about dropping spermatophores on an almost daily basis but they showed little interest despite being heavily gravid and cooled over winter. After two weeks I gave up and returned the females to their original tank with a 12" plus male, they both laid four days later. I had been talking about this in chat and had jokingly said that the females didn't "fancy" the smaller male, I now think this is a distinct possibility having spoken to another axolotl keeper who has seen the same thing happen a few times over the years, this is of course anecdotal but is there any evidence to show that females will reject particular males even if no other male is available and they are ready to lay ? On a side note I placed the 8" male in with an 8" female and they are going through courtship now and I expect eggs within the next couple of days if not sooner.

I haven't had this happen before.

It's interesting because I do the opposite of you.
I always put the male into the female(s) tank.
Mainly so that she has nothing new except the introduced male to be distracted by.

Maybe they didn't like his housekeeping

I've spoken to you about this before as well... I had a female melanoid, a female albino and a male melanoid in the same tank for around 6 months+ and no matter what I did (lowered temps, increased feeding, removing and re-introducing the male etc) the females did not show any interest whatsoever in him. I recently had a tank shuffle and put the female albino in with another male melanoid, and now have more eggs than I can count!