Does the Castaic trout draw strikes? You bet. Does the Castaic trout draw big strikes? You bet. The thing you gotta be prepared to deal with is losing a good number of the fish that hit you. How many? It depends a lot on if you have a working trailer hook system. But with no trailer hook, I would estimate you'll lose or never hook around 30 to 40% of the fish that hit you. I have heard so many horror stories of 10+ fish eating the bait, spitting it out, getting hooked and spitting it out, all kinds of stuff. Some guys, and a lot of them are good fisherman, like this bait a lot. They can handle losing some fish and they most often have devised a good trailer hook system. Me personally, I don't even own one. I can't stand losing those big bites and I'm willing to wait it out throwing plugs with two big treble hooks. I may not get quite as many bites, but I catch almost all of them. Since I've moved to the bay area more than a year and a half ago I've only lost 2 fish that hit my Slammer. Both at Margarita and both probably smallish fish. If a fish over 5lbs hits that thing, you're probably gonna catch it.

If I was you I'd try Wes' trailer hook idea with the hook from a snag proof frog, or I'd spend some more time throwing your Slammer. I hate seeing people getting into the trout plug thing and losing a lot of good fish. There's tradeoffs in this deal and you have to know what they are.

Maybe this list will help

High Percentage Hookup Baits:

MS Slammer
AC Plug
AC Minnow
Generic Trout
Z-Plug
TNT Plug
Castaic Harbait

Medium Percentage Hookup Baits:

Osprey
Castaic Softbait Trout
Basstrix

Low Percentage Hookup Baits:

Stocker Trout
Eagle Swimbait
Optimum Swimbait

People will disagree with this, but that's cool. Prove me wrong or tell me about your trailer hook system. I own almost every lure listed on here, and I sure wish I had more confidence to throw a lot of the low percentage hookup baits. I know they'll git bit, but will they put the fish in the boat?