Ease of Rigging : Following the manufacturer's recommendation of using a half ounce, 10/0 Owner Beast Hook, rigging the slit belly weedless version of the DSS Shad is very straight forward. I did not experiment with alternative rigging options like running the line through the bait's nose to the belly for a bottom hook rig and actually fished this version sparingly.

A look at the open slot belly

There's a channel at the top for your hook point

My primary interest with this bait was testing the pre-rigged, top hook version to see how well that internal harness performs. For this option, obviously, there is no rigging requirement. Just tie it on, toss it out, and crank it back - slowly.

The bait's belly rigged with a hook

The hook easily pops out above when you swing

Quality of Movement : That is the key with any soft plastic swimbait equipped with a wedge tail - how slow can it go. This tail design on both profiles of Dream Smasher's baits (the shad and gill) moves at all speeds. There's even a subtle wiggle as the bait is descending in the water. Pick up the speed of your retrieve and the bait shimmies with a very lifelike swim mimicking a fish trying to escape a would be predator. It does not burn out at medium to fast retrieves, yet the tail still moves when fished super slow. It is ideal in this respect.

The bait's body tapers down quickly at the back towards the tail

Position at Rest : Drop either of the pre-rigged, top hook Dream Smasher profiles to the bottom and thanks to the perfectly balanced combination of the soft plastic's buoyancy and design of that internal harness, the bait will sit on its belly on the bottom. In fact, the gill is designed to sit with its head down and the tail up as if its feeding off something on the bottom.

A look at that wedge

The weedless shad variant does not exhibit this behavior. Rigged with the recommended half ounce swimbait hook, it falls over on its side. If rigged with an unweighted swimbait hook, the shad will still sink and fall on its side once it hits the bottom. I was actually hoping to discover the unweighted shad would make a potentially deadly topwater bait, but it needs a weight of some sort on its belly to act as a ballast for it to swim right. Maybe a wrap or two of lead tape around the hook shank will do it, but I didn't take the experiment that far.

DreamSmashers also makes a gill profile

Hook Up Ratio : I'll be the first to admit soft bodied, wedge tail swimbaits equipped with the jig style hook are probably my least favorite type of big bait to throw because they usually require a slow, methodical approach and lately, I just don't have the patience. But if I have to grind, I will get in the proper mindset and grind. The issue is, I can slow myself down, and slow myself down some more, but when that thump-thump finally comes and I swing, I expect to get that fish in the boat. For whatever reason, soft bodied, wedge tail baits with a single, jig style hook do not afford me the best chances of converting those hits.

The gill features a flattened area just under the chin enabling the bait to sit up on the bottom with its head down as if it were feeding

Not all the criticism falls to this style of bait, however. Part of the equation with any bait, but soft plastic swimbaits especially, is using the right rod and reel combination. Case in point? While iRod's IA784C-H Crusher Croaker is just about the perfect stick with which to cast the DSS Shad, but when it comes time to convert hits with this style bait out at the end of a long cast, it doesn't have the right taper. Given how easily the rod handles this bait on a cast, the thought it might not set up fast enough for me to get a good hookset didn't even enter my mind. That is, until the first solid hit with the bait.

Otherwise, the DSS Gill features the same wedge tail design