Two more rats and a hunting shad
By mark poulson
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These two rats are the same as the black and grey I posted earlier, except the brown has glow in the dark 3D eyes (thank you Nathan and BobP).
The shad is 2 1/2"X 1"X 7/16" ( 2.5 bait profile), weights 14 grams fully dressed, with a 3 gram integral weight belly hook hanger, and a single moving sst ballast ball, weighing .5 grams, and moving side to side about one diameter. I wanted to use two balls, but they filled the entire side to side hole.
It is a flat sided bait, and has a bill that's 3/4" wide, so it has a very flat, no roll wiggle, which is why I went to the narrower bait with the narrower bill (thanks to all here who suggested that). The line tie is a little more than 1/3 of the way from the bait to the tip of the bill. I bent the 1/8" Lexan bill up a little to help it dive faster. It hangs nose down, dives to about 6' (the water wasn't too clear, so this is a guess).
The ballast hole is just about where the shad dot is located, slightly above the centerline drawn from rear hook hanger to front line tie, and just slightly behind the belly hanger centerline. It is actually directly over the belly hanger when the bait is resting, or being retrieved. I didn't do this on purpose, but it works.
It moves from side to side pretty quickly, as opposed to the fatter baits with the larger X ing, that move from side to side every 3-4'. I think this is due to the flat sides, and the thinner profile and bill.
It is PVC trim board, glued up with gap filling super glue, including the bill placement and line tie anchoring (with the help of accelerator on a drip wire thanks to Ben).
I made this bait to see if it would work and it does.
I made the moving ballast shad baits to see if I could get and easily reproduceable hunting action, and I can.
I don't know if it can be done as easily with a wood bait, but I suspect, if you use a piece of plastic drinking straw to line your movable ballast hole, it shouldn't be too hard.
It seems to me that, as long as I don't put too much of the ballast up high in the movable section, this method works. I've gone as high as a 3/1 ratio, but this one is 3/.5, or 6/1.
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