I recently received a package containing several new lures that at best should be described as innovative.  The new lures were the slick fish lure.  These lures are of a hard plastic design, but are nearly 100% weedless.  The hooks of the slick fish are housed inside the body of the bait, and release during a hard hook set.  I found this bait can be effectively worked on the surface down to about 5 feet deep.  The bait has an excellent “walk the dog” action at all depths.  While the bait was extremely weedless, and had great action, I did experience difficulty in hooking fish with the bait.  On several occasions the hooks did not release before the bait was pulled out of the fish’s mouth during the hook set.

All in all, the bait definitely has a unique design and great action, it could use some improvement in the fish hook-up ratio.

The slickFish lure was very interesting and fun lure to test.  This lure has the possibility to be a fish catching bait and the first thing that stood out in my eyes was that it was 100 percent weedless when the hooks were retracted.  It took me some time to get down the proper rod motion to get the maximum amount of action out of the lure, but once I had it down it walked very similar to a Zara Spook only sub surface. 

How the slickFish lure works is that the two hooks are concealed in the torpedo shaped plastic body and then on the end of the bait is a rubber skirt.  This way when you are working the bait through vegetation or other snag filled areas it doesn’t get hung up.  When a fish hits your lure, you of course set the hook.  When you set the hook it pulls the line tie, which trips a spring that sends the two very sharp hooks out of the plastic body and into the fish’s mouth.  If you are fishing open water, you can trip the spring manually by pulling on the line tie and have the hooks already out of the bait, which will increase your hooking percentage since you will not have to worry about getting snagged on anything.

Although I had a limited color selection with me, looking through their very informative website I learned that there are 18 colors available for an angler to choose from. 

The timing could not have been better for me to receive my Slickfish kit – I was heading to Winneconne to pre-fish for the Bassmaster Weekend Series and the slop bite is usually pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised at the packaging with dark and white baits and extra skirts. I have always been somewhat the skeptic when there is a mechanical factor incorporated in a bait, but the hooks tucked away nicely within the body and the trigger mechanism was crisp and true. At this point I must say I always check my knot by tugging on the line - with this bait you want to watch the position of the hook opening in conjunction with your hand if you do that.

I fished the bait for 4 hours on day one of pre-fishing and although I believe it is a super slop bait, it’s true beauty shines when pulling it off of a mat, pads, or weeds. The bait sinks at a rate of approximately 6” per second and when you twitch the rod tip when the Slickfish comes off of cover, nothing I have EVER used mimics a wounded baitfish better! You can “walk the dog” just below the surface – something the fish are not accustomed to seeing but really loved. The first 3 fish I caught with this method took the bait so aggressively, that they were tongue hooked and I hope they survived! I made a slight modification to the bait to remedy the tongue hook by putting 4 Suspend Dots 180 degrees opposite of the hook opening so the bait always rides opening up. The next 4 fish I caught were all hooked in the top lip by both hooks. With 50 lb. Power Pro braid on a 7’ heavy action flipping stick, I landed 90% of the fish that bit. Truly an awesome bait!!!!

When I received the Slickfish Lure in the mail, I was impressed with the kit. The results, unfortunately, were not of the same quality as the packaging. I tested the lure in three separate set of conditions: milfoil beds, slop and open water. The one application that I wish I had the opportunity to test the lure in is river system smallmouth. In short, here are my observations of the Slickfish:

 Pros: The action of this lure was quite remarkable given the lack of biting bass. It is like a cross between a soft jerkbait and weightless tube. A simple modification of rethreading the rubber skirt on backwards to imparts a “puffing” while the Slickfish is at rest. The retractable hooks, also, appear to pull out at the correct tension.

Cons: I didn’t catch a single fish with this lure, even while among active fish. As a result, I could not test how hard I would have to set the hook in order to get the hooks to pop out. The hooks also seem somewhat light-wire for slop fishing. The retractable hooks did, on more than one occasion, “surprise” me when I was tightening the line knot.

I have not given up on the Slickfish yet; I believe it will have a specific application in which it could out-produce other tubes, jerkbaits and topwater lures… I just hope to discover that application soon.