IMHO, 9" sluggos may be the best artificial you can use. Bass and bluefish love them. If you are just starting out, keep it simple.
Buy 3 packs of Black (night) and 3 packs of white (AMs).
You can rig them several ways. My favorites are the following
1. rig them with an 8/O Mustad, through the nose and out the bottom. I wrap thread on the shaft of the hook and add a drop of superglue so the hook adheres to the rubber (PM me for details if you need to), or
2.. the method we know that Steve McKenna uses. (2 hook rigging)
I fish each style a little different from slight sweeps of the rod tip (style 1) to faster constant snaps (style 2).
Oh, and by the way, save your money on buying all those fancy plugs. You'll outproduce them most of the time with sluggos.
I use sluggo's & other plastic baits 60% of the time; flies 30% lures and plugs 10%. Plastics range from 4"-9", mostly white. I use very little weight if any. Add a little weight or a larger hook & let it sink if you want to go deeper. I'm fishing in protected water 8'-25'. If Your fishing days, the brighter the day the deeper you go [but not always]. My retreive ranges from a "stop & go" 4"-12" jerk or snap; to a dead drift; to skipping it across the surface. All work at different times [experiment]. You want your bait to look ALIVE & like it's wounded and, or trying to escape. Throw what ever your fishing with out in front of you and see what it looks like with EACH retrieve. There are very few things that I just throw out and just reel back.
This summer I was puting heat shrink (the kind they use for elctronics)on my front hooks when rigging my Slugs and it makes the crazy glue hold 100%better.
I learned that ripped and broken sluggos can easily be fixed by heating a knife over a flame and pressing it against them. Get it to melt right back together and it is just as strong as new. Do it outside though so you dont breath in the smoke.
I find that bluefish bite right through the 50lb dacron, and leader material doesnt let them swim natural. Anyone got a better material for rigging the two hook McKenna Method
still by the firelight
and purple moonlight
I hear the rusted river's call
The only problem I have had rigging them is sometimes the glue hardens to fast and sort of puckers up the rubber and burns it. I'm going to try the slower setting zap a gap.
I had this problem as well. I'm assuming you're rigging them Mckena style. Try pushing the hook in the head first, then pull it out and add the glue and stick it back in, that way the hole is already there and it goes in much easier.
This is my go to lure at night, I've had great luck with the black 9" rigged and fished Mckena style. Fast retrieve with lots of action, when they hit it they hit it HARD, at least thats been my experience. Go to youtube Mckena has videos of how to rig and fish them on there, helped me out quite a bit. Hope this helps you out.
when i just did a search for steve mckena on utube and then clicked on the first video... a related video was britney spears sex tape.... coincidence???
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