Bait Release
If there's one thing that I've thought about most it is this subject. Commercial bait boat companies seem to be a bit secretive about bait delivery. Some claim "patented" bait release systems but it's very difficult to find out exeactly how each one works. When I started thinking about it I thought it would be fairly easy. All you need is a hatch with some way of releasing it (like a pin controlled by a servo?) but the problem comes when you want to re-seat the hatch to re-load. You don't want to be fiddling around under the boat and playing with the transmitter at the same time...it's just too much faff!
There are probably dozens of different approaches to the challenges of releasing rig and bait considtently but they fall into two main categories. I don't cover the mechanisms in detail here but explain fully my own approach in the BUILD section.