Sluggo Tips

[Matador Customs]

Ive never fished a sluggo before and had some general questions. I have the 7.5 in Alewife color and the 9 inch in rainbow. What size hooks do i need and can i use 1 size for both

the 7.5 and 9 inch. My other question is how do you fish them. Im fishing lakes from the shore in clear water and im targeting stripers.

Any tips are aprecciated

[hillbilly1]

I would use a 3/0 wide gap for a surface bite and for a deeper bite I would use a weighted wide gap in the same size. For a surface bite just jerk it a few times and let it fall. let the fish tell you how they want it if they are active just continues jerks from start to finish if they are kind of slow just jerk and pause jerk and pause.

For a deeper bite just let it fall till your in the zone then just jerk up and let fall and repeat. The bait will fall level and the tail will wag.

[RayburnGuy]

A lot depends on how your going to fish the Sluggo and what you figure your chances are of hooking up with a huge fish. Bigger and heavier hooks will make the Sluggo sink faster and they will also give you a better shot at landing that trophy of a lifetime. If your using a fast twitch and jerk retrieve the heavier hooks probably aren't a problem. Quite a few years ago before every tackle maker under the sun had a hook with the coiled wire bait keeper on it I started building my own just for fishing Sluggo's. I would take a heavy 5/0 or 6/0, 90 degree bend jig hook and install the coiled wire hook keepers in the eye of the hook. One advantage of doing it this way was that when you set the hook you didn't have so much plastic balled up in the bend of the hook. If you use a conventional Texas rig on a Sluggo you end up with 2 thicknesses of the Sluggo jammed into the bend of the hook. By using the method above the coiled wire hook keeper turns loose of the head of the Sluggo and only leaves one thickness of the body in the bend of the hook resulting in a better hook set. This is even a bigger problem when using smaller hook sizes for obvious reasons. The final decision on how the Sluggo should be fished is left up to the fish themselves. Some days they may want the bait barely moving and the above method may not work and then there will be days where all they want is for the Sluggo to be wet. I usually started out with the heavier rig and would only change if it didn't work. When fishing in a location where there is always the chance of hooking into a double digit fish I always started out on the heavier side of things. Heavy line, hooks, rod, etc. If that didn't work then I would start backing off and going lighter.

hope this helps,

Ben

[Braided Line]

Big sluggo....big wide gab hook. 7/0. Need a big hook to penetrate that glub of plastic.

Big wide gap hook only part of the equation. A rod with a little tip and plenty of back bone helps as well. Plus, braided line. Needed when your fishing pads and such which we have plenty of in Fl.