REVIEW: Daiwa Slippery Dog TG Tune topwater lure

Now, who doesn’t love topwater fishing?! I mean it doesn’t matter what species it is, in my eyes topwater is by far the most fun and sometimes even the most effective way to target a species. Now I’m not going to go into the reasoning and logic behind that in this article though, but I will tell you about the new and improved Daiwa Slippery Dog TG Tune topwater lure that was released in late 2020 by Daiwa.

The new and improved slippery dog is traditional style walk the dog pencil lure that comes in 2 sizes, a 65mm and a 80mm, with them being 3.8g and 6.5g respectfully. Some of the standout features of the slippery dog over its predecessors and other brands is the tungsten weight system, and the addition of trailing stinger hooks on the rear of the lure.

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

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.

The slippery dog comes in a great range of 12 new colours, giving some great options to imitate your local prawn or to suit the water clarity and water conditions. Some of my fav colours have been Clown, Moebi and Honey Bee.
I’ve been leaning towards using the larger of the two models more recently, as I can cast the 6.5g lure further and I don’t feel the larger profile has been putting off the smaller fish, a surface presentation definitely seems to give even the smallest fish confidence in tackling a larger prey item for an easy feed.

As with all the lures in the Daiwa stable, the quality of the product and packaging is excellent, featuring the tungsten internal weight, BKK Striker assist hooks
I recently had a great morning session at a small east Gippsland estuary where the slippery dog 80 landed me numerous bream, whiting and even flathead, just cruising the flats, casting at any likely spots or where I had seen some bait movement. Such a great way to fish.

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, proceed to 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, and trying to work out the fishes behavior and temperament as I work the lure, sometimes slower is better, sometimes faster and more erratic is better.
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!

Daiwa Slippery dog can be found at all good Tackle stores that Sell Daiwa products, and more info can be found here at the Daiwa website.