Reviewed
By: Sean Smith
Product Reviewed: SlickFISH Lure
Product Acquired from: SlickFISH Lures, INC
Testing Date: June and July 2007
Testing Location: Three Mile Lake, IA – Zorinsky Lake, NE
Testing Equipment:
- Team Daiwa Advantage 153HST Baitcasting Reel
- Team Daiwa Light & Tough Frog Rod
I am always excited for the opportunity to test new products on the market. So I happily agreed when the makers of the SlickFISH lure contacted me. When I agree to test a product, I take that agreement seriously. With that in mind, here is my review of the SlickFISH Snag Free Lure.
Initial Impressions:
When I first looked at the SlickFISH lure on their website, I was skeptical at first of the quality of the lure, then of the hook setting ability and action of a sub-surface torpedo type bait. I received a very nicely packaged product. This included an assortment of skirts and 2 ‘Semi Floater’ Lures in colors that I had requested. I eagerly opened the package and inspected the goods. My color selection was one White with Red Eyes and one Clear Smoke with Red Flakes and Silver Eyes.
I was expecting to find a couple cheap plastic bodied lures. What I found was a couple of nicely assembled lures made from a quality impact resistant type plastic with a hook activator line tie made of a strong and durable material. I would have liked to see stronger hooks built into the lure, the light wire bronze hooks just did not seem match the durability of the rest of the lure.
On the Water:
I fished with this lure for roughly six hours on three different Non-Tournament outings. Two of them were just for fun; the other was practice for an upcoming tournament.
From a tackle standpoint, I tried this bait on a 6’3” Medium Heavy Baitcast Rod with 15# Spiderwire G-String line. While it casts and fishes fine, I found that attaching this lure to my Frog Rod with 50# Spiderwire Stealth Braided line really brought the SlickFISH to life. This gave me the confidence I needed for hook sets with a lure that I consider to be much like a Frog bait. Be sure to tie a double Palomar knot, as the eyelet is rather thick and this knot holds fast with braided line.
The durability of this bait is first class. I careened this bait off everything from Standing Timber, Rocks and Tree stumps with no more than a few scuffs, never cracking or accidentally exposing the hooks. Only once, on the hardest possible long distance cast did the hooks expose themselves accidentally.
Fishability:
Assuming this lure was designed to be Frog type bait, that’s how I started with this lure. I began by working it through the lily pads, deertounge and various pondweeds that are so prevalent in our Midwest sand and silt bottom lakes.
The SlickFISH Lure casts a mile, settles in the water with the hooks up thanks to a unique bottom weighting system and proved my initial thoughts in the action of this bait wrong. This bait is capable of producing a very seductive action that will produce some enthusiastic attacks from waiting largemouths.
The sink rate of this lure is just right, in my tests; I found the bait to fall less than a foot per second, with a nice nearly horizontal wiggle imparted by the torpedo nose and living rubber skirt. This is a useful presentation when pulling the bait off of weed edges or lily pads and even when flipped or pitched around timber and tree stumps. With practice, you can Walk the Dog on top or fish it like a Slug-Go or a Super Fluke below the surface with an erratic side to side action.
Pitching this bait in heavy wood cover was a benefit I was not expecting, but it flips and pitches well. The lure comes through the wood cover with ease, and can be dropped in the tightest space you’re comfortable pitching into.
The hook activation tension seems to be about right with the SlickFISH lure, but it did fail to engage the hooks on several strikes. During my testing, I had a total of 7 strikes on this lure, all of which were on the White lure with varying skirt colors. Out of those strikes, I did hookup with one nice fish in the 3 pound class who never made it to the boat. On inspection, the left side hook had straightened out about half way which I am sure resulted in the lost fish. During all but one or two of the strikes on this lure, I waited until I felt weight on the line before setting the hook.
If the team at SlickFISH could figure out a way to get a heavy black nickel hook in this bait, I believe it would enhance the hook set performance of this innovative lure. Or better yet, a heavy wire wide gap hook. Another recommended addition to the SlickFISH would be a rattle chamber, something to appeal to those fish in a dirty water environment and give them a way to home in on the location of the bait.
In Conclusion:
The developer of the SlickFISH lure deserves a pat on the back for a well conceived and constructed product and I think this bait would make a great addition to anyone’s tackle box. If you fish in the slop and trash, it’s worth your time to give the SlickFISH a try.
The SlickFISH snag free lure is available from www.SlickFISH.com with prices ranging from $18.00 for one of their wide variety of standard color selections or customized to your liking for $21.00 each. Their ProKit is available for $48.00 and includes 3 SlickFISH lures and a wide variety of skirts to accommodate most fishing needs in the country.
You can also order by calling toll free 1-866-378-FISH
Sean Smith – Competitive Angling Enterprises – Media Contact – Sean@CompetitiveAngling.com