The ima Shaker is a two and three quarter long, flat sided, plastic crank featuring a circuit board diving bill and Owner ST-36 hooks. This bait feels like wood, but is stacked right from the get go with current day, top end components. It’s available in twelve different colors and weighs in at three eights of an ounce.

The Shaker looks and feels like a wood crank...

Our primary testing water for the ima Shaker was the California Delta during the late winter to early spring timeframe where water temperatures were in the mid fifties. These are the targeted conditions for this bait.

... and features a circuit board lip.

Baits of this size and profile can often prove problematic during casting. They’re light weight and large side profile make for a projectile that’s easily influenced by the wind. Of course, the Shaker benefits from ima’s own interpretation of the modern day balancing system common with the majority of today’s plastic cranks, so the issue of casting is almost a moot point.

This lip helps the bait deflect off of cover in shallow water.

I fished the Shaker on a variety of rods including the limited edition 2007 TackleTour rod built on the Lamiglas XMG50 EXC704 blank and the new Megabass F4-XXX GTZ cranking stick. Matched with a Conquest 51 spooled with ten pound Sunline Shooter Fluorocarbon, both these rods handled the Shaker perfectly during casts and thanks to the bait’s internal weight system, it really cuts through the air well.

The ima Shaker is available in a host of different color patterns.

Ima handles the weighting for the shaker with three weights. Two are fixed right at the belly, and the third moves from the belly to the bait’s tail depending on whether you’re casting (tail) or retrieving (belly). This weight transfer system is common in all of today’s plastic baits though each company claims to handle it differently.

Fished aboard our limited edition TT rod, the bait is a perfect match.