"New" Slide Swimmer Glidebait, Same Old Song? (continued)

Tuning the New Swimmer: The first, and probably easiest method, of course, is to purchase the accessory nose weight sold by Deps and built to fit right into the slot where the diving lip would have gone had the bait been built as a Silent Killer. Be aware, it takes a dab of super glue gel or something similar to keep that weight in place. Unless you want the weight to be permanent, it is just a dab. Without it, the weight will likely fall out after a few casts. I experienced this first hand. With the weight in, the bait sinks a hair faster, but more importantly, the nose stays down more consistently.

Tuned with new, heavier hooks and ready to go

A second method, and the one I actually prefer, is to use heavier hooks and split rings to tune the bait's performance. By swapping out with different hooks, adding split rings as necessary, you can get the bait to swim and ride more like the original. It will still sink at a slow rate, but it does better staying down - especially if you stick to the pre-retrieve routine of tugging at the bait first, or pausing after the first couple turns of the handle.

Fishing the OG next to the "New" version

Design/Ergonomics: The plus side to going through all the effort to dial in your 250 to sink and swim where you want it is the feature Deps added to the bait with this refresh - the spring loaded knocker in the head. At slow to medium speeds, the New Slide Swimmer is barely distinguishable from the OG. But when you speed your retrieve or give the bait a super hard tug before you pause, that spring loaded knocker will activate sending an alert through the water.

Bait Detail : A feature and dimension breakdown of the Deps Slide Swimmer 250 as detailed by our Swimbait SkunkWerx division

If you've raised tropical fish, you will understand the purpose of this knock with the way the Slide Swimmer glides off and suspends. It serves as a challenge to any would be predators. When fish square off and challenge one another, flaring their fins and posturing, they actually let off an audible knock. I've heard it many times raising some of my larger tropical fish like Angels and Discus. A similar challenge from a smaller fish to a large mouth bass is simply a dinner bell. I'm not aware of another bait, especially one the size of the Slide Swimmer 250 that offers this kind of call (given the number of baits available, there probably are, I just can't recall any).

Another benefit of the new Slide Swimmer is colors. By using an ABS core, Deps can now offer the Slide Swimmer in translucent or "ghost" colors. This was not possible with the solid foam core because the foam is not transparent. Colors like this can be very effective in clear water situations and offer more ways for you to spend your money collecting all available patterns. That is a good thing, right?

Price & Application: Deps's New Slide Swimmer 250 has held consistent at the price point of $169.99 for quite some time. Availability remains scarce and when available still, consistently sells out. For all the talk and pining online about seeking out the OG Slide Swimmers, it's still difficult to get your hands on the current version. That should tell you all you need to know about how effective the bait continues to be.

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