Reel Choice: For a reel, you don't really need anything too large. Any 150 sized reel that can hold enough length of your preferred fishing line is fine. In my case, I kept it all in the SPRO family making use of their new Vortex-E casting reel in a 7.3:1 retrieve ratio. Note, this is a 100 sized reel, so if you want to do the same, you need to be comfortable with using braid or a braid plus leader line strategy. Otherwise, you want a relatively fast reel when tossing glide baits - or at least I do. Depending on how you work the bait, there can be a lot of slack line situations with glides, so something with a relatively good amount of line pick up is preferable.

The bait comes with a bare line tie (no split ring). I fish it with a snap for easy color changes

Line Choice: I am comfortable with a braid to leader connection and in the case of these tests, spooled the Vortex-E with a healthy supply of Sunline's FX2 braid in 50lb topping the braid off with a leader of 18lb Sunline Shooter. I like a quality fluorocarbon leader with my glide baits because the fluoro has a negative buoyancy (tends to sink) helping to keep the line angle low and mitigate those instances where the steeper angle of a line that tends to float will pull your bait up.

Success!

Castability: Rigged up and ready to go, the Chad Shad 180 is a very easy bait to cast especially with the rod and reel combo I was using. Those unfamiliar with baits of this size will require an adjustment period, but this bait is far easier to sling and cast all day than a more traditional sized big baits. Note that although the Chad Shad 180 is made of ABS plastic, the internal weights are fixed, so there is no sliding weight mechanism to aid in casting. A nice, easy, smooth casting motion is recommended to avoid instances of your bait tumbling through the air and potentially fouling your line during the cast. The bait's hooks are far enough apart from one another to foul.

Swiveling hook ties

Rate of Fall: This is really where I wanted to compare this bait to the original resin because resin baits. Individual hand tuning of resin baits can result in very slow and enticing rates of fall. Just the same, the ABS Chad Shad 180 is weighted to fall perfectly parallel at a rate of about one to one and a half seconds per foot. A slow sink resin bait is usually somewhere around one foot per two seconds. The Chad Shad 180's rate and position of fall is very good for an ABS bait.

Conclusion: There are purists in the big bait world that will never touch an injection molded ABS bait. There are others in conventional circles that scoff at the idea of spending $200 or more on a bait you have to refresh your social media feed not just daily, but by the minute, just to have the chance at purchasing. SPRO and KGB Swimbaits have come together to quell some of that madness by building a bait that blurs some of those lines. Purists will still avoid it. Budget minded anglers will still find it too expensive. However, those of us in the middle, who understand both perspectives but really just want to catch fish, now have the opportunity to fish a bait design and profile that's been, at best, elusive. Now that availability has seemingly caught up with demand, it's time to load up and get to catching!