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Weedless Rat version 2 (wordy and pic heavy)


Mountainryan
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Hey SU, so in my last post I was molding a real rat. Gross but pretty cool until I wrecked the master mold. Again I am no artist but I think my ideas are good ones so I took a different route. I commissioned a coworker who is a great sculptor but not a fisherwoman to make me a "stylized rat". This is what she gave me:

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Its epoxy clay and funky but awesome. Goal of this project is like the title says, a weedless big bait along the lines of a giant hollow body frog. Throw it into pads and wood and slop where the big girls live all summer up here in the northeast. Places where no big treble hooked baits go. This summer I had been sticking fish on a baby possum literally casted into this stuff and stuck, just twitching and the bass would hit it while it was stuck. (not an efficient technique). 

 

I love frog fishing but I love big baits more so the slop rat idea was born.

 

I took my master and did a two piece mold process using smooth on mold star 30:

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 Then I poured some master copies using feather light resin so i could tweak and remold and the mold came out really clean. (tan is copy)

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I wanted this lure to be light and soft so I used smooth on soma foama which is an awesome silicone expanding foam. Its great but challenging to use. Its too soft to hold hardware (think slightly tougher than plastisol but ultra buoyant) so I needed to make a replicatable harness that would be the same every time. I used square wood to make a master then molded.

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This mold was then used to pour resin harnesses (not fully worked out, resin is either too brittle or too stretchy so i am remaking with thicker stock and playing with different products).

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Yet another challenge is making the bait as weedless as possible and still getting hookups. Frog hook is out due to size. A possible answer came from Ceaser from toxic baits rat video and my own fishing. Most of my rat fish seem to hit the rear hook like the bass are keying in on them like "legs". That and seeing the cool dual assist hooks Japanese guys are using. My idea is an offset weedless dual assist hook possibly molded into little rat legs (moved forward from current location).hook size ect all to be worked out but this is what i had to show concept.

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Here she is moslty together just for a proof of concept (slight under pour so the harness is sticking out) I am removing useless material from the top of the back and maybe making it narrower. its about 7 inches in the body and 6oz without hardware i would like to get to 5oz max. (eyes will be added). I also am playing with the idea of a paddled tail that would kick on a retrieve like a rat swimming.

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I would be stoked on feedback as this has been and IS quite a process. I also plan on pouring with color and painting hair with silicone but need the basic function done.

Tight lines,

Ryan

 

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Dude... I'm speechless. That is such a great idea. I know how you feel about needing a giant frog type lure for that super heavy slop. The way youre going about it is great too. The harness and stinger hooks are a great idea. I bet if you narrow it a little bit and take a little off the back you could get it to around 5oz . Im kickin myself for not coming up with this idea myself. Way to go

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks guys. I'm still playing with design, waynem, I was debating going two sets of the assits for two pairs of legs, just depends on how weedless they actually end up. Brandon l, that's a good idea I just grabbed some ish off my shelf to mock up.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Ok SU, managed to make the harness strong enough now working on some other aspects. First is some “legs†to keep the assist hooks in the most weedless position and give the fish a target. This one has a through hole to pull silicone skirt though and the white is just to see if it work. It’s a little derpy but works. Should keep the hooks off the bait and the weeds. Next I thinned the whole rat down because I was up to 7ish oz and that won’t work through the thick stuff well. So I changed the shape and will have an internal sectiona that will be poured in a different ultralight hard foam to make it weigh about half as much.post-29121-0-81959000-1517697900_thumb.jpeg

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