Brian O'Connor " Mayor of Crane's beach fishing (self proclaimed, but a great guy) introduced me to the Smack It made by Stillwater lures 3 yrs ago. see his incredible web site just updated for 2009
http://www.brianmoc.com/
So after having great results with the plastic Smack-It that has an amazing rattle and throws a lot of water as you pop it on the surface (plus it casts so well due to the sliding rattle/weight) I decided to make my own version with 5 mm stainless steel BBs and a similiar profile. I have never cracked open a smack it to see what the rattle is but I think it is a ~15mm plastic ball
I have made about 6 of these wooden smack its and they have been incredible for surface action.
The secret of making these is to drill out the front section with a 5/8 fortsner bit then add your BBs or round lead balls and then to glue in a hardwood "dowel" with good waterproof glue (titebond 3). Then turn the body to mirror a 5 1/2 inch smack it. I like to flatten the rear section (canal style) and eyes are optional. The depth of the initial drilling is about 3/4" past the belly hook position. Then the dowl plug fills in to just in front of the belly hook. So the center of the plug is hollow and this is where the BBs move around - I put in about 10 stainless steel beads. We use them as milling beads in biological labs to make tissue lysates prior to isolating DNA or RNA.
Here are 3 examples I made last year - sorry for the bluefish scars. These were made before I moved to e-tex coating.
The plastic Smack it is on the far right.
FUN lure to make and it fishes "really well". My friends including Brian love them but Brian is afraid to use his much because he does not want to lose it...
chris
Blond Terror
Threaded Mode