Tail hook?
 

HOW important is having the second/ tail hook on the 9" Slug?? Esp. if good Bass are your only target? Joe: do you & Steve both feel the tail hook is completely necessary? Do many Bass come on that one anyway? Does the lack of a tail hook negatively affect the action at all? (doubt it)...

I don't think you'll miss many of the better fish without the tailhook. It is important to wrap the shank of the head hook with dacron, or braid - or something that will allow the glue to bond the hook and bait together. Steve however, I've never heard of him fishing without the second hook - he's very fast at rigging them.
Just make sure you wrap the hook shank with something before gluing. If you glue the hook without wrapping it, the bait slides down the the shank and tears. I have a bunch of pre-rigged sluggos - with two hooks and with one. They're all in a box waiting for me to do photography. The double hooked sluggos are pretty expensive though because I have to pay someone to rig them - I don't have time to rig sluggos.
I'm quite sure their are several viable ways to rig the sluggos. The videos prove that the sluggos have great action and catch fish - that was the major message. Rigging and methodologies are going to vary between regions and fishing styles, just like they do for pretty much everything we use.

Sluggo Rigging
 

I fished the 9" sluggos with a single 8/0 mustad o'shaunessy hook all this season and rarely missed fish, really missed no more than I would have with any other lure plug. I wrap the top inch or so of the hook shank with either thread or braided line (I use braid that's either left over at the end of a spool or already used and ready to be changed) and glue the sluggo to that. I think if you are going to use the single hook, using one with a long shank, such as the o'shaunessy style, is important because it puts the point further back in the body but that's just me.

I'm rigging some up with two hooks now to do a side by side comparison this season. I took some out for a test yesterday and the ones rigged with two gami octopus hooks do have alittle more action, probably because they are alittle more balanced weight wise and because the shank of the head hook is shorter allowing it to pivot more.

The main problem I'm having with rigging the two hook setup is getting the sluggo to slide over the braid after the zap-a-gap is applied. It seams to bond instantly and I can't get the head to come out as good as I'd like. It comes out better if I let the glue on the braid dry, then slide it on, then insert the zap-a-gap into the head using the little pointed applicator it comes with but I don't get quite as good of a bond. Does anybody have any advise on this? Do they make a slower setting zap-a-gap?

pretty sure zap-a-gap has a slower setting glue, my pops use to build model airplanes and had all kinds of different cure times.

clogston, when i rig mine i dont glue anything until its all put together. just open the hole in the sluggo where your hook is protruding and squirt some glue in there and your all set. I also dont do any glueing until i have completed a batch of about 10 or 20. Infact, i do all of the steps in groups. Usually after the 2nd or the 4th sluggo they all come out perfect.

Thanks, I'll try that tonight if I can find some more zap-a-gap on the way home

That Nebe - He's right again.....
:wavey:
Rig it, then push the eye and top part of the shank forward a little to expose the wrap put a little-dab-will-do-ya of Zap on....Presto all done.
Do about 30 dozen and you should be all set for the season.
I'll rig a bunch - then glue a bunch.

sometimes i am right, and sometimes i am wrong.. :huh:

I make things for a living so i am always thinking of how to make things easier and faster.. What would be cool is to build a jig that would hold the sluggo and allow a rigging needle to stab the sluggo in the head and slide perfectly right out the tail where you want it. Kind of like making an arbor press into a frankenstien like sewing machine. Pull down on the lever and the needle goes through the sluggo, hook the dacron on the needle and lift up the lever and the dacron comes out the head of the sluggo... you could do one every 10 seconds.

Joe, I'm freaking out. I need the Quicktime version. pretty please?

must suppress need to fish by living vicariously through these videos...:crying:

Well done! I think you will move some sluggos in 06. All the eel and herring users will be looking for the next best thing and that is probably the sluggo. The reason eel users made so many trips to the B&T shop is they wanted fresh bait and it is easier (and less risk) for the tackle shop to keep them then the fishermen. These guys will still need stuff to fish with. I also predict a black market for eels will be around.
I gave them a serious try this year. While I still think the live eel works better a little easier to fish with (esp from a boat) and is probably a little cheaper, the slugos are easy to rig and require no special treatment to keep alive. They indeed work. Clearly Steve M has perfected using it. I think the rear hook is used just as much for weighting the back end of the sluggo as it is for taking fish.


I just hope sluggos remain in good supply this season. Can you buy a bulk pack of 100 or so at a time with some discount?

You can't buy them in bulk, only in three packs. From what I hear, Lunker City is the most difficult company to deal with out there. Cabelas recently stopped carrieing all lunker city products (what am I going to do with my points now, that was supposed to be my sluggo supply for the year). Lunker City sells them directly from there sight but the price is no different from buying them retail and personally, I'd rather give my money to Joe or mikecc or another local guy than letting Lunker City sell them to me direct without a significant price reduction.

I'd rather you bought them off me too - thanks!
Cabelas has manufacturing capability - they must have some kind of alternative product in the works.

I'm actually surprised that no body has copied them yet, doesn't seem that hard to do and with a subtle change or two you should be able to get around any copy write issues without effecting the action. An 11" or 12" one would be great.

Joe, is the red shad color that you have on your site black over red or just shades of red. The only picture I could find of that color is really small and I can't really tell but it almost looks like black over purple which I'd be interested in trying.

Josh -
http://65.36.235.132/merchant2/graph...osgroup_lg.jpg
Here is a better picture of that Red Shad pattern (and all the others for that matter) and yes, it is more of a deep purple over lighter purple.
Thanks for pointing out the picture quality on that item - because they were not moving that well even though the Red Shad is very popular among sluggo-ch#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g surfcasters and sells well in the tackle shops.

Thanks Joe, that'll probably be in my next order.