I'm looking for something in between these two. The 175 feels like a training wheels glide, and the 250 is a little rough on the shoulder right now, and I'm not that confident with them yet to throw one that big all day. 

 

While we are at it, I'm likely going to buy a nice rat. Advice on the 'best' rat, or a nice high quality price/performance one? 

 

In both cases I'm happy to cough up for a nice bait if it is actually better. 

 

 

Best Rats are probably Illude, LowBrow, Sneaky and a PB. I would get a 2 piece and a 3 piece since they swim and have different action. The best readily available one is probably the Spro Rat size 50. 

 

There are a lot of custom glides that fall in between the 175 and 250 deps - currently my favorite is a BGC Gen 3 Trout. Honestly I don't like the 175s and how they swim. You could try the milliken draw from 6th sense - it's a very good glide for being a production model. Another would be the Baitsanity Antidote.

 

Good luck.

I like the new iSlide 187