Product Review: Infeet Slippery Dog 65F TG

By Mark Gercovich

The past few sessions out on the local have seen me enjoying some sensational topwater action using the Daiwa Slippery Dog 65F TG. The Slippery Dog has been designed as a prawn mimic with the TG tune models now featuring two small plastic rattle beads placed in the head of each lure, emulating the clicking sound of fleeing prawns on the surface. Now despite the fact the estuaries in the Southwest coast of Victoria don’t contain prawns, the local bream and estuary perch population don’t have any hesitation in mowing them down.

There seem to be two distinct ways the lure gets eaten, which is a nod to the Slippery Dog's versatility and appeal to individual fish and their attitudes on any given day. The first is the usual topwater T-boning, where the bream or perch smashes the lure in typical exciting topwater fashion.  However, the other is a more subtle take from underneath, where the lure just suddenly disappears and you're on. It's strange to know your surface fishing, but then to be suddenly hooked up without really noticing any surface disturbance. It would seem that the fish is attracted to the dangling assist hooks and just sucks them in.  This often happens on a long pause, a well-known bream-fishing thing, but perhaps more associated with subsurface jerkbait fishing.

As well as being just super fun, another benefit of using the topwater Slippery Dog is the ability to target some more unfinished banks I usually wouldn't bother with. Gently sloping banks with minimal structure, whilst not as appealing as the other more structure filled or deepwater banks, were proving to still hold plenty of fish. Obvious places where you would normally target specific structure with unweighted plastics or jerk baits can be heavily fished by others. Even though these banks were not as initially attractive, they were perfect for firing off long parallel to the bank casts. On the mornings when the fishing was hot to trot there wasn't many times such a cast didn't get some form of inquiry before it returned near the boat. 

Seeing I was using long, flats style parallel casting, a longer rod was more beneficial than a shorter, accuracy style rod I generally use for casting along the bank. The new TD Zero 722ULXS was perfect for the job of firing off these casts. Its extra fast taper provides a light tip that folds easily, helping timid fish suck in a topwater without restriction, whilst then providing plenty of bottom end grunt in the lower blank to help steer stubborn fish away from dangerous structure. The Slippery Dog 65F TG was then attached to 7lb J-Thread X-Link leader attached to 6lb J-Braid. The extra insurance of having a 7lb leader helps on those occasions when you hook up next to an unseen underwater structure and really need to apply some hurt. The fine diameter of the J-Thread X-Link though does not seem to spook the fish even in clear shallow water.  The clown color was definitely my go-to, who knows what the bream and perch think it is, but they certainly have no qualms about hitting it.

The Slippery Dog range also welcomed two new colours to the range in 2023. The new whitebait and green shrimp colours are dynamite colours and are sure to catch plenty of bream and EP’s this summer. Make sure you have a few in your tackle box and you get out there and spend plenty of time walking the Slippery Dog this topwater season.