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9" Mike Shaw Slammer (original, single-joint)


FishDr
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There was a member review on the 9" X2 Slammer done about a year ago (thanks Luke!) and Darth Baiter asked someone to review the 9" original Slammer. I've thrown the bait a fair bit for the past 2 years so I thought I'd give it a shot. It's my first serious review, so if you've got feedback on things you'd like to know (or if you just want to tell me to take my keyboard and disable it, please do so). :D

 

 

Specifications and General Description

Here is the bait, as you receive it from the dealer - you can buy it directly from Mike Shaw, or you can get it from the usual online purveyors of crack and swimbaits. Mike Shaw, if you contact him directly, will custom-paint the bait for you. Expect to pay around $42 for the bait, not counting shipping - if you hit one of the 20% off sales, you can get this bait for, well, 20% less.

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Weight: about 2.4 ounces; this varies a bit from bait to bait because they're made from wood, and not every piece of wood is the same. Also, if you start changing hardware (more on that later), you change the weight of the bait. You can throw it on a MH or H rod (I use a H) with no problem, and it casts fairly well.

 

Length: 9" (no surprises there)

 

The bait, to the untrained eye (and many a person who's seen me walking the shore with this bait must have said untrained eye) looks, well, unrefined. It's generally cigar shaped, round in cross-section, and chunky. The hardware on the bait is generally solid, with heavy duty hook hangers and screw eyes holding the 2 sections together. The soft-plastic tail is surprisingly durable, and if you do manage to lose one, you can get more from the manufacturer or you can trim your own tails (a friend uses Big Hammers cut to fit) and insert them.

 

The 9" is the medium-sized Slammer (of the usual bunch), and while it is not much heavier than the 7", it is a substantially chunkier bait - I started using one night when I felt that the 7" was not moving enough water. The 9" moves water in a big way!

 

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Durability and Hardware

The stock hooks on the Slammer are sticky sharp, but they are also not very strong - if you're in the habit of laying wood to your fish, you will, in all likelihood, bend the hooks out after a couple of fish. Friends tell me that if you fish stripers with them, you'll destroy hooks even faster. After bending out hooks on a couple of bass and a pike or three, I've gotten into the practice of switching the stock hooks out for beefier models. I use the ST-41s (size 2/0). Other than that, the hardware is very strong - the split rings holding the hooks will peel your fingernails right off - get some split ring pliers to change hooks.

 

As for durability, my 9" Slammer (see "the Pro", below) has been through it - bounced off the odd rock or dock, non-splash landings late at night (I hate it when the lure goes "thud" instead of "splash" in the darkness), something like 100 bass, and, most damaging of all, hook rash. Compare "The Pro" to "The Virgin" (also below) and you'll see what a NIB 9" Slammer looks like and what a "seasoned" Slammer looks like. No points for guessing which one I'm likely to throw on my next trip. I think you could get in trouble if an errant or over-enthusiastic cast ran the lip into something unforgiving, but even the lip is thick - a full 1/8". So far I've not damaged one, but I could see it happening. I've done minor repairs to the hook rash, mainly just running a thin layer of epoxy over the worst areas, but the main thing I do to keep the lure working in its seasoned state is to make sure I let it dry out between trips. Living in CO where the relative humidity is rarely higher than 30%, things dry quickly.

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Fish Catching Ability

I'll just come out and say it - the 9" Slammer is deadly. I first started using it as a wakebait at night, having forgotten, for some stupid reason, that I caught my first fish on the 7" Slammer by day. Well, the 9" Slammer did nothing to disappoint me (fishing at night) and on that first trip I'd spent about an hour throwing the 7" without luck. I switched to the 9", thinking that it'd make more noise, present a bigger silhouette, and move more water. It did, and the fish went to town on the thing. Since that night, I've had the 9" Slammer tied on more often than not, and it has performed extremely well at night, and, to my surprise (because I'm stupid and can't remember what used to happen to the 7" version), by day as well.

 

Retrieves that work include:

- The classic slow grind on the surface - my number-one retrieve at night.

- A stop-and-go retrieve, especially around cover. Deadly by day, and, if your casting is accurate enough in the dark, deadly if you can drop it into weed pockets at night.

- Walk-the-dog: yes, you can walk the Slammer - it doesn't glide very far but it will make an unholy commotion. Sometimes something swims up and whacks it to make it shut up.

- Cranking below the surface: depending on the lure you have, the 9" Slammer will run from just under the surface, bulging nicely at low speeds, to maybe a couple of feet down (if your rod is high), swimming with an erratic action. I'd best describe the action as that of a typical jointed plug, but with an erratic side-to-side searching action that is completely random.

- Cranking in a kneel-and-reel style: I started trying this in the spring when the water was struggling to get over the 50F mark and it kept catching fish. Having seen the success DSouth has had, this needs more investigation.

- Deadsticking: you wouldn't think that a lure that doesn't have the most realistic profile would get bit when it's just sitting there, but the Slammer does. Not all the time, but often enough that it's worth giving it a shot when you suspect a bass is lurking in a very specific spot.

 

One additional note about the Slammer - for a bait that has two trebles hanging off it, the lure is surprisingly adept at coming through weedbeds. It's not weedless, but it will pull through surface and subsurface weeds without getting fouled on a regular basis - perhaps the big square bill has something to do with that.

 

Here are a few pictures of fish I've caught on it - I know there are some (lots?) of you who've caught bigger fish, but I just wanted to show what it can do in a state that is big bass limited.

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Smallie on a Slammer

 

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Slammer catfish!

 

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So there you have it - the 9" Slammer is an affordable, effective wake and subsurface bait that consistently gets results.

 

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Thanks for the review FishDr! I think you did a kick ass job! This made me want to tie a slammer and go fish right now. :D

Please do more in the future, with reels and rods also please.

 

Great photos as well, specially the last one. Good to see that your smiling in all the photos also, angry fishing is no bueno.

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Great review and articulate write-up. You've got a special knack for the descriptive detail of your fishing exploits that is, IMO, unmatched in this traditionally low-brow arena. In fact, the last 8 months or so every time I see a slammer holding down a retail shelf I think about how I could possibly transform one of my many unproductive nights into a positive fish-catching experience by using a bait like the 9" MS..

 

Patrick

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Great review - thank you!

 

I just wanted to add that Mike recently repaired the bill on a 12" Slammer for me for just the cost of return shipping. So, even though you will probably never need it, the bill can be repaired if you somehow manage to damage it.

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Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Even though I've been accused of being a bit of a knuckle-dragger, I do enjoy writing about fishing almost as much as I enjoy fishing, so I try my hardest to give a good report. I just received my custom CL8 Cranking Possum in muskrat color and I'm dying to give it and it's waking companion a good workout so I can report on that as well. Of course, the day after the cranking possum arrived the morning air temperature was 8F and the waters have this oddly-resistive coating on their surface. I don't think either possum is going to get through an inch or so of ice, so it may be next spring before I can give them a good workout.

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Awesome MS review, my 1st SB LM was on a Slammer that was about 5K ago.LOL.

 

“Cranking in a kneel-and-reel style: I started trying this in the spring when the water was struggling to get over the 50F mark and it kept catching fish. Having seen the success DSouth has had, this needs more investigation.â€

 

It’s hard to find a deep cranking 3-6' Slammer but if you’re lucky to find 1 I want it. :D Your going to like the way the LM attack that Baby Possum, some of the hardest hits I have ever had are on the Possum……

 

Added a few MS pictures from last season and 1 shot of my Possum 7.6.

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