haven’t been a part of most
tournament anglers’
repertoires.
And until
the last few
years, the big-bodies
Spro BBZ Rat
in particular
haven’t gained
wide acceptance,
but that’s gradually
changing.
Indeed, the folks at SPRO looked more than a bit
askance at Bill Siemantel when he came to them with
the idea for a topwater lure that best resembled – in
size and profile – a big city sewer rat. They resisted
for years, but ultimately the burly California firefighter
won out and now they’re producing his BBZ-1 rat in
three different sizes, from the “field mouse” sized 30
(3.25” body with a 3” tail) up to the “homeowner’s
nightmare” sized 50 (5.25” with a 4.75” tail).
“It’s absolutely a forage,” Siemantel said. “I’ve
watched field mice and rats get eaten. This thing is
bigger than bass. It’s worldwide. My buddy has
snakes so I’ve studied rats and I know that they
can hold their breath and go down 10 or 15 feet
underwater.”
The best feature of
his creation, he
said, is not just
that it’s a “bad
ass wakebait,”
but that it fulfills
the roles of so
many different
lure categories.
“You can walk the
dog with it better
than a spook.
Before you had
to have a spook,
a buzzbait and a
wake bait on the
deck. Now I have a
50 and a 40 tied on
all the time and I can
walk the dog or use
it as a glide bait. The
only time I have to put it away is
in heavy cover.”
As for the idea that it’s an
unrealistic size for forage, he
counters that the body is
not really any bigger than
a Super Spook. “The tail is
irrelevant,” he added. “It’s
just a fish tracker.”
Because many of these
rats are jointed, in addition
to serving as visible targets and pushing massive
amounts of water, they also provide a distinct
acoustic profile. While Au uses several different
models, including the SPRO, one of his favorites is the
Woodrow which he said not only slithers seductively,
but also has a back end that clacks like a door
knocker. Siemantel speaks of his version even more
poetically, claiming that it has a “killer knock, like the
lion, king of the jungle.”
Of course, one primary difference between many
of the “garage” rats and the SPRO model is that the
former are typically carved out of wood, while
the latter is molded of plastic. An advantage to
plastic construction, of course, is that it makes
the baits more affordable. Siemantel’s designs
retail
for $20-30 instead of three
figures. On certain days, the fish
may show a preference for one
over the other, but either way,
make sure that the one you’re
throwing comes with stout
hardware – quality hooks and
split rings.
Au likes the unfinished look
of the Woodrow models. “They
come in natural wood grain
colors,” he explained. “They’re
lacquered, not painted. They
don’t have any cool graphics,
and they feature Crème tails,
which actually help them
swim just like a rat”.
The SPRO models come
Siemantel with a BBZ Rat Photo Credit Bill Siemantel
in more colors, including natural colors like gray and brown, as well as a chrome
model and the psychedelic
“Morning Dawn,” but
WINTER 2016
45