QUESTION....DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER?

Well it's the same old debate, 'does size really matter'? At a recent Gold Coast bream comp I fished with Steve 'The Wizzard' Wilson our wet and miserable day was spiced up when I came up tight on this silver slug.

Fishing a point off Short Island and surrounded by house boats and a dozen or so baities it took exactly 20 min to land. Dizzy was passing just after hook up and decided to hang around to see what one would of called to be a monster Gold Coast flattie of a big ray, lucky it was pre fish day and time was'nt an issue.

Well as I said it took me 20 min to loose my 'Jewie Verginity'. Although somewhat lean it had the length and a massive battle wound to match and could not resist a cut down Camo Sandworm. The rod was one of the new 2-4 kg Pro Tactic 6'9 with a cardinal 802 spooled with the new 3 lb Micro Fuse line and the new 4 lb Trilene Flurocarbon leader and as most know that has become my favorite tournment combo.

I appreciate Dizzy for hanging around and taking some pics and the funny thing was on the next cast with the same cut down sand worm I landed a 3 kg Goldern Travelly, this one did'nt have the same power but made up for it with its speed. All in all it made a somewhat average wet and cold day into a most memorable one.

If you look close you can see the length of the sand worm and then ask yourself, what was this fish thinking or maybe as the story starts 'Does size really matter'

GULP lovin Jewfish!

It is no secret that more and more species are falling to the persuasive aroma and action of Berkley GULP baits.
The following is a recent and factual account of just how yummy fish find GULP.

Noted angling journalist David Green and Gold Coast angler Kelvin Williams have for the months of October and November 07 been having great success on jewfish in the Gold Coast waterways. Some really solid fish up to and over a metre in length have been regularly caught.

GULP baits have formed the core of this fishery and the 7" Jerkshad in white has been a particular standout. Around November 1, Kelvin hooked a solid jew' and after a short time was "done". The leader contacted a submerged snag and under the pressure was unable to stand the abrasion and the fish was duly lost. The bait was a 7" white Jerkshad rigged on a Nitro SW Pro jig with Fluorocarbon leader.

Fish lost, time passes, more days on the water and the memory of that particular event faded.

November 20, another session on the jew' and some good fish are being caught. A solid hookup and Kelvin is tight to a strong fish. After due fight time the fish is boated and Greeny wants to keep this one for the table. After removing the jig, a section of line is noticed protruding from the mouth of the fish and Kelvin goes in for a closer look. There in the throat of the fish is the jig and Jerkshad that Kelvin had lost around the first of the month!

The pictures complete the story. The fish went 98cm and in Kelvins words was a "short wheel base fish", heavy for it's length. The jig and bait retrieved could have been used again but now graces the memorabilia section in Kelvin's tackle shed!

GULP rules!

Dinger.

T-Tail Minnows

Reacting to a need from Bass anglers in the impoundments, Purefishing field staff in collaboration with Matt Fraser of Nitro fame and field staff in our Japan office spent several months in designing, refining and producing an all new Powerbait now known as the 2.5inch T-Tail minnow.

This fantastic little bait was flow tank tested against all competitive baits and has been shown to have the best "swim" at the slowest possible retrieve speed.

The unique tail scallop combined with an ultra thin caudal wrist means the paddle will oscillate at super slow speeds - something that is often required to get a timid bass to bite.

The Powerbait scent and taste is heavily incorporated in these baits and several tournament successes were had in field trials.

The bait was specifically designed to be attached to the Nitro Dam Deep jig heads for deep bombing bass in impoundments but has already found a following for bream and whiting fishing when rigged to a conventional jig.

Currently available in nine colours including three unique Japanese colours, they are Black/Gold glitter, Bronze Pearl, Chocolate Pearl, Leaf Green Pearl, Olive Pearl, Purple Pearl,Candy seed, Pink Glitter and Japanese Green Pumpkinseed.

The 2.5 inch T-Tail minnows come 10 per pkt and are available in stores now. Look for a bigger 3.5 inch model 08.
Dinger

Getting GRUBBY

In the not too distant past, if you wanted to catch bream [and others] on soft plastics, the Berkley Powerbait range of minnows and grubs were must haves in your kit.

Time and the evolvement of GULP has seen a slowing in the use of Powerbait, however, it is still a highly effective product and consistently catches fish, anglers who switch back are amazed at the results from minnows and grubs in the PB formula.

The original 2 inch grub was recognized as a great bream and bass bait. Three new colours have hit the deck in this shape and are set to offer the fish something new to look at! Many of the tournament anglers say that the fish become used to conventional offerings, maybe these little guys will spark some extra interest on a quiet bite?

The new colours are Motor Oil with Red Fleck, Peanut Butter n Jelly and Smoke/Black Glitter.
Each easy open pack contains 20 baits.
Available in stores now.
Dinger.

The Classic is Back

In 1976, ABU Garcia released a reel that would become a true classic in fishing and casting circles.
The reel was the ABU 1500c in gunmetal grey livery.

During it's production life, it went through several cosmetic changes. Two sizes evolved, the 1500 and it's wider cousin, the 2500c.
As lightweight casting reels, they had [and many will say still don't] no peer. On the right rod it was easily capable of effectively casting weights down to 3 grams. [1/8oz] Even by todays hi-tech standards, 3gms off a baitcaster is still a big ask.
By the mid 90's when the production life of the reel had run it's race, anglers had had the choice of the 1500 and 2500c, 1600CIAR and 2500CIAR, these two reels with infinite anti-reverse and fast cast thumbars and the lesser known 3600c, a derivation of the 2500 with a smooth left side palm plate in silver and black cosmetics. Collectors still clamour for original spec' 1500 and 2500 reels.

The lightweight baitcaster market was driven by Japanese anglers and they had many colours and other spec's on these reels that Aussie anglers rarely saw.

Now comes the news that Japan again has asked for the re-release of this iconic reel.

Purefishing Australia will receive in mid December a limited quantity of the original spec' 2500c reel for immediate release to the tackle trade. This 2007 version is a spectacular burnt metallic orange colour and carries the two bearing frame with multi stop A/r as per the original model.

The capacity of this reel is approx 200m/2kg mono, ratio 4.7:1.

Stores will take pre delivery orders and with only 500 reels coming, they won't last.

Dinger.

Dr "GULP"John Prochnow

If you haven't tried the new range of "GULP ALIVE"your seriously missing out on catching more fish. I use heaps of the 3 and 4 inch minnows on my home waters of Tuggerah Lakes and Lake Macquarie for all my estuary favourites such as bream, flathead and whiting. Just before Gulp Alive was released in Australia the Berkley Pro Team were lucky enough to spend some time on and off the water with Berkley's head chemist and father of Gulp Dr John Prochnow.

John started work for Berkley in May 1986 as a chemist, he joined the team at Spirit Lake with a brief to design a range of deodorants, repellents and sunscreens for outdoors men. John quickly applied his experience in formulating cosmetic ingredients into producing scented fishing baits and lures for Berkley. One of Johns first projects was Berkley Power dough followed by the Power Bait range of tournament winning soft plastics. John's very humble about it all, when I asked him how it all happened his reply was, Dr Keith Jones supplied me with the substances that fish liked and I formulated baits and lures using these substances. I often wonder if he knew at the time what he had created and how successful it would be world wide.

Not long after Power Bait was catching fish around the globe Tom Bidell and his father Berkley gave John the assignment of creating a biodegradable lure that would be less intrusive on the environment if it was lost. 18 long years after the Gulp concept landed on the the drawing board it hit the shelves of tackle stores. Along the way there were many design problems that kept John and team at Spirit Lake working day and night to perfect Berkley's dream. John explained that shelf life was a big problem, the baits would get brittle and fall apart or simply melt. Other prototypes were too hard, to soft or too sticky. Any thing you could imagine could go wrong did go wrong but John and his team stayed persistent until they got it right.

The team at Spirit Lake are always on the front foot searching for ways to improve the performance of Berkley products, after another three years of exhaustive work Gulp Alive was ready to hit the shelves and hot sticky little hands of Australian anglers. Gulp Alive has up to 20% percent more scent and flavour by weight than regular Gulp packed into the same shapes and profiles that Aussie anglers have learned to love. One of the things I really like about the tubs is the baits are free floating and nearly every bait is symmetrically perfect, so they swim like champions every time. Baits can also be recharged by placing them back into the tub, Ye Ha!

Checking out Gulp Alive with John Prochnow in the Berkley bunker prior to field testing .

It was pretty cool getting to some time on the water with John and show him the sort of species and techniques Aussie anglers use to catch fish with Gulp and Berkley products

The Dog, Guesty and John with a couple of the first fish to be caught in Australian waters with Gulp Alive

John with a nice Aussie snapper caught on a prototype Gulp Alive profile

John does plenty of fishing back at home in the good old US of A and also gets to wet a line in many locations around the world, he's a fine angler and understands what fishermen want out of their equipment. He fishes, he listens, the angler is his boss, its the creed he lives by and I'm glad, I couldn't imagine spending a day on the water without one of Johns creations on my hook.

Captain

Finesse Jiggin'

Matt Fraser is well known as the brains behind the iconic Nitro jig range. When Purefishing acquired Nitro in 2005, Matt found he had more time to design, develop and perfect new jigs for the Australian market.

The bream pro range has been super successful but anglers still wanted a fine wire jig.
Enter the all new Finesse range.

Finesse jigs are based on a LEAD FREE head with a new design grub keeper. Not only are the heads environmentally friendly but the extra long keeper makes it almost impossible to be pantsed. It also distributes weight more evenly along the shank of the hook.

Finesse jigs are available in the standard bullet head and also torpedos for hidden weight rigging.
Hook sizes ainb both are 2, 1, and 1/0 and the weights are Torpedo 1/50oz, Bullet, 1/30oz, 1/20oz, 1/16oz, 1/12oz and 1/8oz with five jigs per pkt.

Grumpy's New Toy

It's no secret that Pure Fishing are giving away two fully fitted out Stessco 4.45 Renegades this summer, all you have to do is ring this number ( 1900-994-857) and your in with a chance. Pure Fishing Australia General Manager Phill "Grumpy" Coles, liked the look of the boats so much he thought he would throw in an order for one of his own, I managed to prize the keys out of him last weekend to put it through its paces on Lake Macquarie to see if the Stessco could walk the walk as well as looking like a tournament star in its GULP livery.

Once on board there's no shortage of room thanks to a generous beam width of 2120mm, nice wide extruded sided decks also help to make life comfortable. On the water the Renegade gives you a great feeling of security with 645mm of depth, even when your fishing on the forward or rear casting platforms there's plenty of free board and something to lean against to keep you in the boat. Sneaking around the flats and snags is a breeze with the MinKota RT55P/FP bow mount electric, I found the new foot pedal design is much easier to use than the older one I have on my own boat.

Grumpy's Stessco is fitted with a super large split live well that runs on a fully automatic aeration system, the centre divider is easily removed to cater for larger species like flathead. I kept a nice flathead alive in the well for a couple of hours with no problems before I could get a photo and release it.

The Stessco's hull handled tight turns with ease showing no bad habits as we put it through its paces. The hull features a 3.0mm bottom and 2.0mm sides and seems to ride relatively dry, the added weight of the interior fit out also adds favorably to the hulls rough water capabilities.

Just like the rest of the Berkley Pro Team , Grumpy's Stessco is powered by a 60 HP Evinrude E-TEC, this little puppy pushes the Renegade out of the hole with two on board and a stack of gear with no worries. Its quiet, clean and starts first time, every time.

The Renegade's side console is neatly laid out with plenty of room for the electrical equipment and gauges modern boaters need. There's also room left to mount other items such as VHF radios, epirbs or even a set of Berkley rod holders to store those extra Pro Tactic's

Overall I would have to say I was pretty impressed with Grumpy's new toy, its practical, comfortable and a seriously nice fishing platform that's well suited to open bay work or poking your nose out side when conditions are conducive, I certainly wouldn't mind winning one.

Captain

GULP 2" Sandworms

In 2006 Purefishing released to the Australian market the GULP 6" sandworm.
This bait has since become the biggest single bait release to date on the Australian market.

The 6" worm was snapped up by bream anglers who saw the slim profile, realistic finish and proven colours as a new weapon in the fight to stay on top of the finicky bream tournament scene.

However, the 6" worm was not perfect. In use, the worm was broken into two or three smaller pieces. This meant one end was great in profile, [the head end] but the other two pieces were parralel and had no "shape". Bream still ate them, they just didn't look that good.

Now, this problem is resolved. The new 2" sandworm has perfecf profile, look , colour and the smell that has made GULP the bait it is.

The 2" versions come in four colours. Camo, Natural, New Penny and a new colour called Motor Oil/Red Fleck.

The first run of these baits has already sold out, but a second shipment has just arrived.

2" sandworms should be appearing in better tackle outlets now. Go grab a pack or two and see how they go, they look specials for the summer whiting run and even trout are sure to like the look of these little beauties.

Dinger.

Any one seen Royter's Mojo?

The AFC film crew were on hand over the course of the weekends competition at the ABT grand final to film all the action on and off the water. One man that wasn't on his game was a very pale and unusually quiet Adam " Mad Dog" Royter. Is he crook, or has he just lost the Royter "MOJO"? Any one finding The Dogs "MOJO" please try to contain it in a straight jacket and return it to Pure Fishing, things aint the same when the Dog's off his game!!!

Mango Magic

Team Berkley's Mark "Mango" Mangold has topped off another successful year of tournament fishing by finishing 3rd in the ABT'S angler rankings. A win in the Aus open teams event and a 2nd in the Derwent Tasmania round and a 3rd in the Sydney ABT round boulsterd points for a solid performance for the year. Mango also placed highly at many other events including a 6th at the Glenbawn ABT Bass round, a 5th at St Helens, 9th at the Clarence, 7th at Gippsland and an 11th at the Hawkesbury. Mango also holds the ABT's 2nd spot record for the biggest bag of 5 bream weighing in at an impressive 6.120 kg.

When Mango's not out fishing, he's piloting the team Berkley chopper, tuff job he reckons, but some ones got to do it!

Mango and his SKEETER are proudly powered by Evinrude E-TEC

Mango preparing his boat for the next days fishing, many hours of preparation are put in off the water to make sure nothing go's wrong in the heat of competition.

Mango waiting for the start of day two's competition at the ABT grand final, Lake Macquarie.

Towner Finishes 3rd in ABT Grand Final

Team Berkley's Scott Towner has finished 2007 on a high by taking out 3rd place in this years ABT grand final as well as the ABT's number 1 angler ranking. The ever consistent Towner fished against, Cameron Wittam, Stephen Wheeler and Ben Godfrey in a one session shootout contested in four identical Quintrex Hornets, after the two previous days of fishing had decided the top four anglers. Queensland's Ben Godfrey ultimately secured 1st place and towed home a gleaming new Quintrex Hornet for his efforts on the picturesque but challenging waters of Lake Macquarie.

Scotty, in his SKEETER battle wagon ready for action on day two, the calm clear conditions made it tuff for competitors.

Towner's quiver, Pro Tactics, Cardinal 802's and Stren Microfuse

Scotty and Team Berkley are proudly powered by Evinrude E-tec

Scotty was also crowned Tasmanian angler of the year for finishing with the highest accumulated points for the ABT Tasmanian rounds

Berkley Soft Bait Challange New Zealand

Kiwi's were recently introduced to the world of catch and release tournament style fishing in the form of the Berkley Soft Bait Challenge. The tournament was run out of the picturesque water side hamlet of Warkworth, situated around an hours drive north of Auckland. This was basically a trial run for a much bigger event planned for next year.

A stiff early morning breeze greeted a field of keen anglers that consisted of 17 teams with a total of 50 competitors. "Team Westie" took out the champion team award, closely followed by "Team Assassin". The biggest fish of the event measured 730mm and was caught by team Assassin.




Every one involved had a great time and are keen to get back next year to have a crack at winning the champion teams trophy, made by Team Berkley's resident artist Rob Fort

Kayaking on the Coromandel

There's nothing I love better than catching snapper and kings on Gulp, during a recent trip to New Zealand's Coromandel peninsula I jumped onto one of Rob Fort's kayaks for a bit of a paddle and a cast around some of the spectacular inshore islands. It didn't take long for the action start, its quite different fighting larger fish from a kayak as you get towed around trying to land them. Fresh kiwi snapper, scallops, crayfish and a cold beer, hard to beat I reckon.

Rob and his partner Jackie Danton are both part of the Berkley New Zealand Pro Team and run a kayak and guiding business out of Coromandel town on the North Islands east coast. Rob is also a talented artist that spends many hours producing amazing air brush works of New Zealands marine life and fish species.

A nice catch of kiwi snapper that come out of the shallows around the islands, lightly weighted 5 inch Gulp Jerk shads are always deadly around the kelp lined rocky edges. Rob and Jackie's kayaks were perfectly set up for this style of fishing with quality electronics, multiple rod holders and a sea anchor on a handy sliding retrieve system to slow your drift when needed .

When Robs not out catching the hell out them on Gulp, he's in his studio painting or creating something stunning.

Guesty wins Dave Irvine Snapper Tournament

Team Berkley's Michael Guest recently won the Dave Irvine snapper Tournament held on the magnificent off shore waters of Coffs Harbor. Guesty used a combination of 5 and 7 inch Gulp Jerk Shads to land the biggest fish of the event ( 87 cm ) and also took out the overall champion angler trophy. This event was the first of its kind in Australia, introducing catch and release tournament style fishing to anglers that enjoy pursuing larger offshore species such as our iconic bumpy headed reds. Once again Gulp, Nitro and Fireline proved to be a tournament winning combination.