anthman Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 Hi all, with all the rat kings about in Sydney Harbour, I'm curious to try some different setups. has anyyone trolled a slapstick/sluggo using a heavy jighead, poor man's down rigger or paternoster rig with any success for kings? If so, what speed would you troll at and what rig and setup works best? Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fragmeister Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 Hi Anthman, I found this article useful. https://www.fishing.net.nz/fishing-advice/how-to/trolling-for-kingfish/ Cheers Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthman Posted January 8, 2019 Author Share Posted January 8, 2019 2 hours ago, fragmeister said: Hi Anthman, I found this article useful. https://www.fishing.net.nz/fishing-advice/how-to/trolling-for-kingfish/ Cheers Jim Very informative read! There is a lot of focus on bibbed minnows, though I'm interested in slapstix given the more slender and subtle action (if any when downrigged!). The other alternative would be a chasebait squid - might be an option! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Spanner Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 They don't like to travel very quickly and will often spin and misbehave if you go too fast with them on a jig head. They seem to go best with a small nose cone style sinker on an offset worm hook (like a weedless rig). The sinker is really just to help it track straight and protect the nose of the plastic from being slid off the hook by the water pressure. Rigged properly they should survive up to about 3-4kts speed so can be run in conjunction with bibbed minnows or stickbaits/poppers or chromies. I run it behind the other lures in a shotgun like position and when one of the other lures gets hit and you stop to fight the fish the sluggo/slapstix will slowly sink down through the school and often get grabbed by one of the other fish. This is why you have as smaller cone sinker as possible so that it doesn't plummet to the bottom away from the fish and to get snagged. You can fish them without the nose cone sinker but they won't troll as well any faster than 1-2kts. You can also do this slow trolling livebaits or downrigging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaddyT Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 Ive trolled them offshore , they are pretty easy to rig to run at speed but hookup rate is very poor. If the kings are around you are better off spinning for them, as long as they are dead straight they will handle speed, the slapsticks also tend to disintigrate after a fish or two, my boat has looked like a plastic charnel house after a big session on the kings, dead stickbaits everywhere! If youve got a downrigger why arent you using livies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthman Posted January 9, 2019 Author Share Posted January 9, 2019 43 minutes ago, PaddyT said: Ive trolled them offshore , they are pretty easy to rig to run at speed but hookup rate is very poor. If the kings are around you are better off spinning for them, as long as they are dead straight they will handle speed, the slapsticks also tend to disintigrate after a fish or two, my boat has looked like a plastic charnel house after a big session on the kings, dead stickbaits everywhere! If youve got a downrigger why arent you using livies? Don't own a downrigger, so looking at alternatives. Might just have livies on a heavy snapper sinker poor man downrigger style, slow troll through moorings <4 knts. What do you reckon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaddyT Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 better than lures Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 I've been using them on kings with better success than both jigs and livebait. The fact they can be trolled much slower than other lures is better for economy, they also catch fish simply freefalling and much slower retrieve s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthman Posted January 9, 2019 Author Share Posted January 9, 2019 37 minutes ago, JonD said: I've been using them on kings with better success than both jigs and livebait. The fact they can be trolled much slower than other lures is better for economy, they also catch fish simply freefalling and much slower retrieve s. JonD, when you say they have better success than both jigs and live bait, do you mean when being jigged/worked or when on the troll? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingie chaser Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 Im not sure what a slapstick is but I have read about people trolling using knife jigs. Havent tried it myself but you would have to play with the weights & shapes over the speed to get the right depth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 4 hours ago, anthman said: JonD, when you say they have better success than both jigs and live bait, do you mean when being jigged/worked or when on the troll? For me I was getting bored constantly driving the boat over shallow reef as my daughter spends hours in the water. These reefs and bomies are 5-6m dropping to 12-15, before finally dropping to 25-30m so not the easiest to fish jigs and baits. I decided to take a light bream outfit (Daiwa black 2-4kg, stradic 3000) to just break my time while drifting close to my daughter. This season I've found kings are going crazy for 7"jerk shad Zman plastics. Literally hooking fish after fish while dozens of boats less than 50m from us are getting very few hits. Due to the fast current I have get my daughter back onboard to take back to the begging of the drift. As I do this I leave her floatline out the back of the boat slowly towing it, at the same time leaving my zman behind the boat trolling very slowly. This is proving to also work extremely well with regular hookups on mostly rat kings, the big kings tend to be under the small ones and are what my daughter is targeting. One boat came alongside after the frustration of seeing me constantly hookup to ask where I was getting my live bait as they had lost theirs to seals. When I told them I wasn't using live bait and to try the zman lures they thought I was taking the. They happened to have some simular gulp lures too and soon had double hookups on mostly small kings 60-64cm. The last trip a few days ago was with a mate wanting to get his lads into kings but hadn't been having any luck. At first they persisted using 80-120g jigs only to lose them to the bottom. As soon as they changed over to the plastics they both started catching fish. The gear they were using was to heavy for flicking, so had to rely on slowly dropping them. A slow drop is hooking the fish quite well, at least when you see the line speed up you can simply stop the lure, give a couple of twitches which almost always end in another hookup. I also took a newby who hadn't ever caught a king or even cast a spin outfit, the first cast showing him how I connected with a legal fish. After a couple of casts without pulling the bail arm back he started getting the hang of it, in saying that most of the kings he caught were from simply dropping the plastics directly under the boat. For me this has been the most exciting fishing I've done in years simply because I'm using such light gear in a very relaxed way, untill you hook up. I'm loosing very few fish even though I'm in such shallow water with plenty of big bronzies often trying to steal the fish. Unfortunatly I let a mate in on the fact we've been getting fish to 130cm from this location and he's been hitting everyday since, infact he's told just about every person on the south coast. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murphy Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 JonD great read mate , would you mind me asking is it the light color Zmen you are getting the king on , it’s just I am trying too get my two young lads into fishing in Sydney Harbor Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthman Posted January 9, 2019 Author Share Posted January 9, 2019 12 hours ago, JonD said: For me I was getting bored constantly driving the boat over shallow reef as my daughter spends hours in the water. These reefs and bomies are 5-6m dropping to 12-15, before finally dropping to 25-30m so not the easiest to fish jigs and baits. I decided to take a light bream outfit (Daiwa black 2-4kg, stradic 3000) to just break my time while drifting close to my daughter. This season I've found kings are going crazy for 7"jerk shad Zman plastics. Literally hooking fish after fish while dozens of boats less than 50m from us are getting very few hits. Due to the fast current I have get my daughter back onboard to take back to the begging of the drift. As I do this I leave her floatline out the back of the boat slowly towing it, at the same time leaving my zman behind the boat trolling very slowly. This is proving to also work extremely well with regular hookups on mostly rat kings, the big kings tend to be under the small ones and are what my daughter is targeting. One boat came alongside after the frustration of seeing me constantly hookup to ask where I was getting my live bait as they had lost theirs to seals. When I told them I wasn't using live bait and to try the zman lures they thought I was taking the. They happened to have some simular gulp lures too and soon had double hookups on mostly small kings 60-64cm. The last trip a few days ago was with a mate wanting to get his lads into kings but hadn't been having any luck. At first they persisted using 80-120g jigs only to lose them to the bottom. As soon as they changed over to the plastics they both started catching fish. The gear they were using was to heavy for flicking, so had to rely on slowly dropping them. A slow drop is hooking the fish quite well, at least when you see the line speed up you can simply stop the lure, give a couple of twitches which almost always end in another hookup. I also took a newby who hadn't ever caught a king or even cast a spin outfit, the first cast showing him how I connected with a legal fish. After a couple of casts without pulling the bail arm back he started getting the hang of it, in saying that most of the kings he caught were from simply dropping the plastics directly under the boat. For me this has been the most exciting fishing I've done in years simply because I'm using such light gear in a very relaxed way, untill you hook up. I'm loosing very few fish even though I'm in such shallow water with plenty of big bronzies often trying to steal the fish. Unfortunatly I let a mate in on the fact we've been getting fish to 130cm from this location and he's been hitting everyday since, infact he's told just about every person on the south coast. Thanks JonD for the detailed post! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 3 hours ago, Murphy said: JonD great read mate , would you mind me asking is it the light color Zmen you are getting the king on , it’s just I am trying too get my two young lads into fishing in Sydney Harbor Brian There's three I mostly use, the white glow in the dark, pink and white and green and pink. These started of as my go to lures for snapper but all work very well on kings, can honestly say all three seem to work equally well. In saying that I rarely change from those colours simply because they work. In the smaller wiggly tailed zman pinks, oil green, and whites have been my favorate. I found that sand flathead in deeper water seemed to mostly like the white ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthman Posted January 10, 2019 Author Share Posted January 10, 2019 1 hour ago, JonD said: There's three I mostly use, the white glow in the dark, pink and white and green and pink. These started of as my go to lures for snapper but all work very well on kings, can honestly say all three seem to work equally well. In saying that I rarely change from those colours simply because they work. In the smaller wiggly tailed zman pinks, oil green, and whites have been my favorate. I found that sand flathead in deeper water seemed to mostly like the white ones. I've also had luck with the 5" zman jerkshad in pilchard (blue/white). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sea Ranger Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 18 hours ago, JonD said: Unfortunatly I let a mate in on the fact we've been getting fish to 130cm from this location and he's been hitting everyday since, infact he's told just about every person on the south coast. Well if you let me know where I promise not to tell a soul 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murphy Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Thanks Guys for your reply’s , been to my local fishing shop and pick up a few new Zman so I will let you guys know how we go. brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murphy Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 Hi Guys Hit Sydney harbor on Friday we had a great day,took my neighbor and his 2 boys out we got 8 rats which put a big smile on the boys faces for the weekend and also took my 2 boys and the wife out today got 2 rats and boy got his first legal kingfish so he is over the moon. So thanks again for all the help guys brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingie chaser Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 On 1/9/2019 at 2:23 PM, kingie chaser said: Im not sure what a slapstick is No answer?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savit Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 2 hours ago, kingie chaser said: No answer?? I guess it is Silstar Slapstix soft plastic which is rather similar to the mentioned Lunker's Slug-Gos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthman Posted January 14, 2019 Author Share Posted January 14, 2019 14 hours ago, savit said: I guess it is Silstar Slapstix soft plastic which is rather similar to the mentioned Lunker's Slug-Gos. Correct. Comes in 6" and 9" size, multiple colour options (plain white is a popular choice). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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