If you haven’t heard of Slik elastic, where have you been for the past year or two? Slik has taken the pole fishing world by storm. When an angler of the calibre of Jamie Hughes says he won’t use another elastic ever again, you have to stand up and take notice! 

I’ve been using it ever since it came out and still have prototype spools in my tackle room from when I was field-testing it. 

I didn’t take much persuading to switch, as it has all the properties I want: It’s super stretchy, durable, extremely versatile, relatively fine diameter, available in a wide range of sizes and it’s got a good lifespan. To begin with it’s nice and soft, regardless of the size of fish you hook, but it’s got power in reserve when the bigger specimens pull back. The extra stretch is the biggest property some people have to get used to, but it really helps to reduce hook pulls. It’s also cheaper than the top hollow elastics out there. 

Another key property of Slik is the way it works in cold weather. Hollow elastic is notorious for ‘locking up’, flattening and doing all sorts of weird things when it gets cold. With no internal core to flatten that’s simply not a problem with Slik. It works equally well in summer and winter, so there’s no need to swap it. 

As I do all sorts of fishing I’ve got a great appreciation of Slik on lakes, canals and rivers. So many people I coach use it, too, so I regularly get to see how it behaves with different poles and top kits.

Here’s my personal guide to Slik, when I use each size, plus a few answers to some commonly asked questions: