PRODUCT REVIEW- INFEET SLIPPERY DOG

By Darren Weda

Topwater Topwater Topwater! Now who doesn’t get excited by those words. By far the most fun and sometimes most effective way to fish for many Australian species.

Daiwa's Infeet Slippery Dog has always been up there as one of my favourite topwater lures, and now it’s even better with the new TG Tune version that was released late 2020.

The Slippery Dog lures are a traditional style walk-the-dog pencil shaped surface lure. Some of the standout features of the new TG Tune version over its predecessors and other brands is the tungsten weight system, and the addition of trailing stinger hooks. The Slippery Dog comes in 2 sizes, a 65mm and a 80mm, with them being 3.8g and 6.5g respectfully.

The tungsten allows the lure to sit more vertical at rest and dangles the stinger hooks down further in the water column, allowing for a better hook up rate.

Pencil lures like the Slippery Dog are great at replicating fleeing prawns and baitfish, so anything that eats those prey items will be happy to eat one of these.

I’ve been leaning towards using the larger of the two models more recently, as the 6.5g lure casts like an absolute bullet and I don’t feel the larger profile has been deterring smaller fish. 

As with all the lures in the Daiwa stable, the quality of the product and packaging is excellent, featuring the tungsten internal weight and BKK Striker assist hooks.

My technique for fishing these is super simple. Cast as far as you can, give it a few seconds on the water after it has landed, then work the lure for about 1m then pause. At this stage you may see a swirl/boil from a interested fish, or you may even get a bite. I tend to give smaller twitches and longer pauses if I see a interested fish swirling on the lure. The key is to try and work out the mood of the fish and if they want a slow presentation or something fast. Trial and error is the way to work this out. If there is no interest after that first 1m retrieve, I will retrieve for another 1-2m and pause. Repeat until back to the boat, and do it all again!

I use this same technique when chasing all estuary species, bream, flathead, tailor and whiting. Saying that, whiting can sometimes prefer a fast nonstop retrieve at times, so that’s worth a try too.

The Slippery Dog comes in a great range of 12 new colours, giving some great options to imitate your local bait or to suit the water clarity and water conditions, some of my fav colours have been Honey Bee, Clown and Moebi.