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Wooden Rat Tips


willlliw
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Over the summer I made myself a rat wakebait, the body was about 7 inches long and it killed it where I fished. Id like to make another one that will be more stable and consistant in action. I want to use 3 joints that don't have a huge range of motion because that created a good loud noise on my past one. From head to end of wooden section it had about a 90 degree turn with 3 joints. My old one fished well but it got beat up fairly quick and no longer swims correct. Does anyone have any baitmaking tips for Rats?

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so i make a lot of rats, round in shape to start out with then i flatten the bottom on the belt sander which helps a lot, i also use weighted hook hangers which help keep it stable. (weighted hook hangers are from lure parts online) 

the lip shape plays a big roll and the gap in the joint vertically 

i made a bunch of rats last season, almost all with a square lip, very stable, crankdown subsurface. i made a few with round lip and you get a lot of roll (think pb rat style swim) and one 3 piece with a coffin lip, which swims insane, stays super straight and only wakes, plus the noise is epic. made some bigger two piece with coffin lips and they swim awesome, nice knock and very stable  

another thing that plays a big factor is the joint construction, one screw eye on each side, gives more roll and wiggle, again pb ray style. a tighter single connection like  a nez is more stable and has more side to side action and less roll. my two piece rats use one screw eye on each side and my bigger ones with the coffin lips use two on each side which makes them very stable 

ill post some pics of mine and some videos if they'll load 

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I also used a coffin lip, the bait was fairly stable and would crank down a bit but wasn't great at high speeds. I think ill try a flatter bottom on this bait too. I used a single joint similar to an MS slammer, which seemed to allow more rotation between joints, not sure it that helped the noise. Ill post some pictures of the joints and a video with the noise in it. I kind of BSed the first one and it still caught fish so I figured id spend a little more time on this one and save the money.

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Not the greatest sound quality but you can kind of hear it here

 

It was pretty janky, I rigged the hooks to the hook hangers on 10 pound breakaway line and the hooks were secured to the front of the bait with heavy braid. I want sure of the hook hangers would hold a large fish so it would breakaway from the bait on a hook set so there wasn't too much pressure on the wire hangers

19A1F1AC-5606-459A-BB69-0F180874E64B.jpeg

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26 minutes ago, chefchris said:

swims nice man

if you knock the edges off the lip it will make coffin style and will also add some stability 

Thanks for the information. I'll be putting the bait together soon, just need to find open water to test swim it.

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7 minutes ago, willlliw said:

Thanks for the information. I'll be putting the bait together soon, just need to find open water to test swim it.

if you need some weighted hook hangers or some hardware send me a pm.

 i'm in RI so i feel your pain about open water! 

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21 minutes ago, chefchris said:

if you need some weighted hook hangers or some hardware send me a pm.

 i'm in RI so i feel your pain about open water! 

Thank you very much for the help

 

Crazy, 2 weeks ago my best lake had zero ice, now it has 6 inches of ice

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2 hours ago, willlliw said:

Thank you very much for the help

 

Crazy, 2 weeks ago my best lake had zero ice, now it has 6 inches of ice

yeah man same, hoping one of the outflows at the reservoir is open so I can go swim some baits, supposed to be 45-50 here tomorrow and rain all day

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On 2/5/2021 at 1:50 PM, Grizzn n bassin said:
On 2/4/2021 at 7:03 PM, chefchris said:

Those slots are super clean! I made a bunch of rats this summer and some wakes. I had a problem not being able to get those slots symmetrical 

Did you use a drill press? I was doing it will a drill then a dremel. 

23155A47-D154-4898-9A01-880A635AA9A9.jpeg

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drill press with a forstner bit, then cleaned the edges with 80 grit then 220 

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