When you make 100’s of casts a trip, it can be hard to shy away from your favourite style of soft baits. But when Berkley produces a new soft bait, our hand goes up straight away, and it’s never long before they turn up in the mail.
At Hauraki Gulf Fishing, we are big advocates of big baits for big fish, and it’s been such a proven method for us, we have difficulty putting away the big baits and using something half the size of what we usually would.
For the spring season of 2021, Berkley produced a series of new smaller 3 & 4″ baits, and a couple that stuck out to us was the Nemesis Prawns. A unique ribbed body design makes vibrations and water movements yet encountered by snapper. I’m a firm believer in sending out new colours, designs and shapes to fish to increase the bites, and I think we all have seen kingfish go-lure shy to jigs to know that fish do recognise lure behaviour. Less of an issue with Gulp! Due to the fish attractant in every soft bait, but none less it is an important consideration. Fish may have tiny brains, but like any animal, they can be trained with food, and they also have a knack for knowing when they are being ‘caught’.
We won’t try to bamboozle you with the science on Gulp Formula (we will save that for another review) other than there is no better fish attractant on the market.
With the smaller 3 & 4″ baits, you have to size your hook to the biggest, a 3/0. and our preference at HG Fishing is the 4″ baits rigged onto a #3/0 Nitro Salt Water Pro Jig Head. However, if we were targeting smaller snapper in the 30-40cm range, we would hesitate to size down again and use the 3″ baits with a 1/0 hook.
Fishing Style: use your existing cast & retrieve style – if anything, slow everything down and allow the lure’s action to do the work for you—Cast ahead, fish the drop with a straight line and then a slow twitch and retrieve. Then repeat
Leader size: you will want to downsize to a 15 or 20lb Berkley Vanish Fluro leader. Due to the smaller lure size. We aren’t overly concerned about a big fish biting through the trace as we are aiming for a one-bite lip hook, and a heavier bite trace will affect the desired lure action of these smaller baits.
Rod action: If you want to take full advantage of fishing lighter leaders smaller lures, go to a longer 7’6 + rod and use a 1/4 ounce jig head to allow for longer casts and more hang time in the drop zone.
In simple terms, the Gulp! 4″ Nemesis Prawns have become a pre-requisite on our boat, and we are fishing them more and more, notably when the bite is slow. New Penny has been a killer colour and is a case of matching the hatch.
