Here's something I've been working on and I believe I've finally got it right.! It's a Golden Shiner swimbait I carved out of balsa wood. Tricky part was adding enough weight to get this joker to sit just under the surface. Balsa float's very well so it took quite a bit of lead to get what I wanted. It sit's just under the surface. Actually about 1/2in of it's back is out of the water but that's exactly what I wanted. I still have to put several more coat's of clear on it but figured I'd post and see what you all thought of it....It's exactly 8in long from nose to tail..

dang that looks sweet! shape and color look spot on. i really like the tail.

only thing i see that might be a problem is the hook hangers look a little close together. i guess its kind of too late to fix this now (although you could grind those off, carefully drill new holes in the bait and install new hangers) but keep this in mind for next time!

I thought about that when I put them in. Reason I put them a little close together is usually when were's using wild shiner's 99.9% of the time they will eat the shiner head first. I didn't really want to put a hanger in the head section so I just brought the back one up a little. You might be totally right on that and I'll let you know how the hook up is as soon as I give it some wet time..!

oh i don't think you'll have a problem with hookups, the problem i see is your hooks getting tangled up frequently on the cast, which i guess could lead to hookup problems.

Awesome bait. Nice coloring; what material did you use for the tail?

It's just plexi...

Mustad KVD's with their shortened shanks should help prevent tangling. 

That looks very good.  8-)

very nice job i like it

Sweet looking swimmer.

Nice work, I bet it catches fish.