“Fishing in Wisconsin and Canada with Mike Andres and Mister Twister and Mepps”

Part 5: Shhh… Don’t Tell Anyone about the RT Slug

Editor’s Note: Mike Andres from Green Bay, Wisconsin, fishes for bass, walleye and northern pike near his hometown and in Canada. This week, Andres will tell us how he finds the fish and how he catches them.

Question: Mike, do you use any other Mister Twister products to catch largemouth bass besides the Ribbon Worm?

Andres: I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that question, because I don’t want everyone else to know about the Mister Twister Exude RT Slug. I love to walk the dog across the surface of the water with the RT Slug in the spring. I place a No. 5/0 hook in the Exude RT Slug, and my two favorite colors are white and pearl. I use 40-pound-test-braided nylon line because I’ve found the RT Slug is deadly effective when fished around, through and on top of weeds.

We have a lot of milfoil up here in Wisconsin, and that RT Slug comes through that milfoil as good, if not better, than any other soft-plastic lure on the market. I’m fishing in water about 3- to 6-feet deep, and those weeds are really thick in those areas. I like to cast past a hole in the milfoil, drag the RT Slug up to the edge of the milfoil, twitch it and then let it fall in the hole.

Sometimes, if the water’s really deep in the region I’m fishing, I’ll fish a weighted hook because it will sink down into the pocket faster and carry that RT Slug a little bit deeper than the slug will fall by itself. You have to watch your line when you’re fishing this way because the bass will take the Slug on the fall. More than likely, you’ll see your line twitch and jump, and that’s when you need to set the hook.

For the RT Slug to fall properly, it needs to fall on a totally-slack line. When we’re using this tactic in the spring, we’ll often catch largemouths that weigh 3- to 4-pounds each, and those fish really can put up a fight in that thick grass. I recommend using 14- to 40-pound-test braided line to have the power and the strength to pull those fish out of that grass.

Question: Do many people use the RT Slug in your area?

Andres: No, and I’d like to keep it that way. Many people fish cigar-shaped worms, which is the reason I prefer to fish the RT Slug. It doesn’t look, fall or move like the cigar-shaped worms everyone else is fishing. So, I can fish in places where other fishermen have already been and catch the bass they haven’t caught using the RT Slug.

To successfully fish the RT Slug in milfoil like we have here in Wisconsin, don’t fish any more weight on your line or hook than you absolutely need to be able to cast the lure to the holes you want to swim it to and be able to let it fall with a slow fall. The most weight I’ll ever use is about a 1/16-ounce weighted hook. Remember, the slower the RT Slug falls through the hole, the more time the bass has to look at it and make the decision to eat it. Too, the RT Slug has action built into the lure. You don’t have to twitch, hop, jerk or shake the RT Slug to entice the bass to bite.