"Outfishes All Other Baits"

I thought it was about time I put the Berkley motto “Out fishes all other baits” which is printed on every packet of Gulp! to the test. The Werribee Bream Classic is a competition held by the Werribee South Fishing Club. The target species is the Black Bream and anyone can enter. The competition is open for people to use whatever means they think will catch the biggest bream. You can use live bait, dead bait, plastics, hard bodies, flies and any other rod and bait combination you can think of.
In an entry list that was close to 50, I was one of only 2 anglers in the field that was throwing lures, I thought this would be an interesting challenge. The comp starts at 12 midnight on Friday night and runs through to 2:00pm on Sunday. There were plenty of ultra keen anglers that had collected their favourite fresh bait and were fishing right through the night to try and make the most of the 3am high tide.
I entered the comp at 11:45am on the Saturday, 15 minutes before entries closed. I fished the afternoon with the intention of not fishing in the comp on Sunday due to prior engagements. The Saturday afternoon session I thought was going to be fairly tough. My first location was the moored boats at the mouth. On the second last boat in a row of 10, I finally got a hit! I set the hook quickly and rod loaded up to a really solid bream. The fish peeled off the drag with ease and broke the 4lb Trilene leader on the barnacle encrusted keel of the boat. What a disappointment! I then moved on to a section of bank that had already been hit pretty hard by a dozen or so bait fisherman. As you would expect the fish were totally shut down and I missed one very tentative hit. Things weren’t looking too good.
I always thought it would be hard work catching fish with 25 plus boats on a 4km river moving spots and dropping anchors here, there and everywhere. And I can tell you that the noise of some of the anchor drops really didn’t sound like the bream dinner bell. I thought about spending some time up river but as I drove around the first bend I was confronted with more boats fishing almost shoulder to shoulder. I decided my best chance was to give the front section around the moored boats a good going over. So I plugged away for a couple of hours, only getting a small touch now and then. A couple of times I had the Camo Worm bitten in half after a quick strike and short run. I figured there were enough fish under the boats but they were extremely shy, so patience was going to be the key.
Using my Berkley Pro Tactic 6’7” rod I made gentle casts within cm’s of the boat hulls and let the camo worm which was matched to a 1/16 bream finesse jighead, sink to the bottom. Incorporating small and subtle twitches, the bream finally started to show some interest. Once I detected a hit, I would wait for up to 10 seconds, always watching the line for any extra movements. When I was convinced the fish had the worm totally in its mouth, I struck with confidence and started to land some quality fish. At the end of the session I went to the weigh master to weigh my biggest fish. I had 2 fish in the well that were similar in size. The first one weighed 1kg and the other was a little heavier at 1.115kg.
As it turned out this was enough to take the overnight lead by over 300grams. Amazingly only 5 fish were weighed in by 8pm on Saturday night. With close to 50 anglers fishing all over the river using the freshest bait available such as; tube worms, sand worm, bass yabbies, crabs, garden worm and even live shrimp, an absolute deadly bait. The fishing must have been tougher than I thought.
The weather turned nasty overnight and a 30kt wind cancelled my original plans for Sunday so I spent the day trying to better my big bream. I launched early however it wasn’t early enough as the only other lure casting angler was already working the moored boat. I decided to leave him to it and headed up river. I found a few legal fish however I couldn’t better my kilo plus fish.
The end result was extremely pleasing. With only 9 fish weighed in for the weekend, my 1.115kg fish took out the biggest Bream. The other lure casting angler came in 3rd with a 980gram fish caught from “You guessed it” under the moored boats. So the Berkley motto definitely held true, and much to the surprise of the local bait fisherman. They just couldn’t believe that plastic lures had OUT FISHED ALL OTHER BAITS!!! “Go the GULP! camo worm”
Hodgey

Brad Hodge is Purefishing Berkley pro in Victoria.
look for more of Brad's informative blogs in the future.

Vertical jigging with gulp

One of the best ways to run a vertical jig is with a Gulp bait! This system is by far the most affective methods ever and it’s so easy it’s almost silly!!

If you’ve ever fished a vertical jig then you would know this scenario for sure.You drop a round over a great looking show on the sounder and you just know your going to be on! After all, the last two rounds have produced fish! In the back of you’re mind, you’re starting to think, when are these fish going to get a little stirred up and shut down? You start the retrieve. You wind your jig past the point where you should have got the big hit. You’ve only got a couple more winds left in you when you get that big ‘donk’ on the line…ON...and off!!This can happen on the very first drop of the day if the fish are not right on the job. I mean hell; I’m not always hungry either!!

When you start to analyse the pros and cons of what a vertical metal jig can bring to the party in the way of total edibility, the only things its got going for it, is that it sinks fast with action and it’s skinny and easy to wind up 100-m! No smell, no taste, no wiggly bits or softness and no bite appeal!!
Bring forth the mighty GULP! All you need to do is slide on a 5” or 7” Gulp Jerk Shad on to you existing assist hook or hooks and you have just completely changed the functionality of you vert jig. It now HAS smell, taste, feel, glow, movement and bite appeal. Your jig now has nearly twice the visible profile on the drop because as the jig sinks the Gulp bait swings up above the jig on your assist and trails it like a super wiggly booger! On the retrieve, the Gulp bait lays along side your jig adding very little profile to disturb your action but exhibits all of those wonderful things about Gulp that we love so much. Not to mention giving your rock hard metal jig some much needed bite appeal!It’s this ‘bite appeal’ that will turn a hesitant grab into a solid hold. It literally takes just this much to turn your day for 2 to 10 fish.
If you jig, you must try this.

Rigging your stuff goes like this –

• A knife jig weighing 100 – 250-g is suited to 1 x 5” Gulp Jerk Shad.

• A knife jig weighing 250 – 400-g is suited to 2 x 5” (on 2 x individual assist hooks) Gulp Jerk Shads or 1 x 7” Gulp Jerk Shad.

• A knife jig weighing 500- 600-g is suited 2 x 7” Gulp Jerk Shads.

• 1 x 5” Jerk Shad will slow your drop speed by 2 – 5 seconds.

• 2 x 5” Jerk Shad will slow you by 4 – 10 seconds.

• 1 x 7” Jerk Shad will slow you by 4 – 8 seconds.• 2 x 7” Jerk Shad will slow you by 10 – 20 seconds

Consideration need to be taken into account with regards to your drop speed. Adding things to your gear reduces drop speed, meaning you need to adjust your release times and your boat position.

If you’re into making your own assists then this little piece of single strand wire is accentual to keep you from being pantsed!

By running Gulp on your vertical jigs you are doing more than just attracting more fish to your rig. By putting this outfit through the water column continuously, you are affectively ‘berleying’ the water with fish feeding stimulant that will entice and motivate even the most shut down fish. Try doing that any other way at 100-m!!!!
If you’ve never trusted me before than trust me on this one! This method will catch you more fish!!

This is roughly how it should look. The double Jerk Shad on a pump/wind retrieve looks so much like a squid you’ll kill yourself laughing....until you get whacked!

Look forward to the reports and photos of the ones that didn’t get away!! Cheers Royter.

MF40 MADNESS

After following the early tests of the new MF40 soft vibes on the Purefishing blog, I was lucky enough to get hold of a few to road test on Victoria’s Black Bream population from John "Dinger" Bell. And it just happened that I was heading to Gippsland last weekend to chase a few bream! I saw some very early prototypes of this lure some time ago, and had waited with interest for their progression. To say I am blown away by these things is an understatement. THEY ROCK!

We headed to Gippsland Lakes and after having a quick search across some flats, we headed up the Mitchell River searching for concentrations of fish. It wasn’t long until we got to ‘The Cut’ and found some interesting schools of fish on the sounder holding off the edges further up the river. Wasting no time, I began casting the soft vibe upstream (and these things cast a mile!), working it back with a fairly standard lift/drop/retrieve technique usually employed on metal vibes.

It didn’t take long, as I was hooked up second cast to a nice school bream of about 30cm. The next two hours were followed by fish after fish, working through several different colours to find a stand out. Every colour I tried caught fish, but natural shades definitely were preferred during the day. The lures sink enticingly, fluttering on the drop and they vibrate well through the rod tip. Other techniques that produced fish were a slow roll back to the boat and also short erratic hops that got absolutely smashed. There wasn’t really a need for long pauses, as the fish hit so aggressively.

One of the stand out features I discovered with this lure is way fish hit it. Nearly every strike was on the lift of the vibe, and the fish were not mucking about, they absolutely creamed it! Traditionally, I have found that the bream in our southern rivers tend to hit vibes on the drop or while paused on the bottom. The hook up rate was also really good, the new Yakiba trebles sticking well and also lasting all day without sign of fatigue. The softness of the lure initially had me apprehensive about its longevity on fish. This thought was soon thrown out, with lures catching over a dozen fish and still looking great and swimming well with minimal wear. Some fish had taken the lure sideways, crumpling the rear section back on itself. The flexible internal wire in the lure was simply straightened and the lure swam like new again!

On the few occasions that fish didn’t hook up, they aggressively struck the lure on the next lift or two, that’s the beauty of a soft plastic, it feels natural! We also fished traditional metal blades of several brands at the same time, with the MF40’s landing significantly more fish and being hit twice as aggressively. If I told you how many more fish these things caught, you probably wouldn’t believe me!

We never landed any monster Gippy bream, but the MF40’s caught loads more fish than anything else and they will be getting a lot more swim time on my rods! Look out for them, because Matt Fraser may have just created the next big thing in southern lure fishing!

Cheers,

Andy




Andy Smith is a tournament angler in Victoria and works in the tackletrade at Gone Fishin Sales, Carrum Downs.
Test product was sent to Andy for pre release testing and feedback. Look for more product tests from Andy in the future. MF40 lures will be available in stores early July.
Dinger.

GULPS IN THE GULF

It had been quite some time since I last visited Weipa in Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria. The place has a reputation for great fishing and it certainly lived up to this for me. While in town, I stayed with a good friend, Mark Ward. Unfortunately, Mark was busy at work for most of my stay. Because he's a top bloke, he offer me the use of his boat and I was soon into the action.

Day 1 and 2

After chasing a few queenfish, mackeral and trevally each morning, the tides became more favourable in the smaller creeks. I ventured a few kilometres up into one of these and put my Abu Revo to work. I fished an assortment of shallow diving lures around the mangrove edges as the tide emptied the system. Day 1 produced several smaller fish and was the practise round for day 2.

On the second day, I headed straight to the productive section of the creek. The action was slow and the tide still had drop the water another foot to get the predators out of the backs of the mangroves. As the water dropped, the action picked up. All hell broke loose for about half an hour as almost every cast was nailed or chased by good sized barra. The biggest fish missed the hooks, on the next twitch a smaller barra had a go and missed then on the third twitch the lure was smacked by a 48cm mangrove jack. My creek outfits consisted of Abu Revos spooled with 20lb braid and topped with 50lb Vanish leader. These were fitted to Pro Tactic and Berkley Dropshot baitcast rods. The outfit and line selection were a key to my success. Casts had to be spot on to get the attention of the barra. Falling water temperatures are making them tougher to tempt so there is no room for error.

Day 3 - Gulping it up!

On Day 3 I headed up the Mission River to the bridge. This is an awsome piece of fish holding structure. The beasts that live on the pylons were my target. As I approached the deeper section, I had my first hookup. After a big run, the hook straightened. This happened two more times before I took it easier on the next fish and it busted me off around the pylons.

An upgrade in gear was neccessary if I was going to boat these monsters of the deep so I picked up my heaviest outfit a 6-10kg Diablo spin rod fitted with a Abu Soron STX60. This reel was spooled with 30lb Code Red braid and topped with 80lb Vanish leader. I opted for a heavy duty Nitro jighead and sorted through my plastics. On the first drop, the 5" Gulp Swimmin' Shad did the trick and a hefty salmon was boated. After a couple more salmon, the fish again started to win the fight. On several occasions I managed to tow hooked fish 30 metres out from the pylons into what I thoght was safe water. But once they worked out what was going on, they screamed straight back into the strucure and busted me up.I did manage to pull some of the smaller fish between re-rigging and bust ups. I hate being beaten and the fish were certainly the winners on the day. Hopping Gulps around the base of those pylons certainly had me hooked. It makes me want to head back and try to teach them a lesson.Hopping Technique

I rigged the Gulp 5" Swimmin' Shads on 1/2 and 1 ounce jigheads to suit the amount of run in the water. The baits were allowed to fall to the base of the pylons and hopped about a metre off the bottom in a sharp rod lift. Even in 10 metres of water, the paddle tail transmitted vibration right back to the rod. I guess this could be why these baits are so effective. If you've even live baited, you would have noticed the rod tip quiver as the bait gets agitated and nervous by the presence of big fish. The same thing happens when jigging bait. The distressed bait makes lots of vibration that draws the attention of predators. I believe the viration of the Swimmin' Shads excited the big fish in a similar way. They were by far the most effective plastic around the bridge.Day 4

Day 4 saw me team up with Mark and we fished a wide range of fishy habitats for mixed species. The highlight was the afternoons fishing in a tidal freshwater section of a creek. Water lillies had started to grow after the wet season runoff. With about half a metre of water covering them, we twitched plastics over the top and watched as barra materialised and scoffed them down. The water was crysal clear and you could see the lure the whole way to the boat but somehow those barra managed to appear as if from nowhere.

A gun lure for twitching and rolling over the lillies and out of the shade pockets was the 4" Hollowbelly. The paddle tail of the Hollowbelly is perfectly suited to a slow retrieve and wiggles away with the smallest of movements. I tried weedless rigging the baits but found I was missing too many strikes without the hook exposed. The solution was to rig the bait on a specially designed Nitro Backbone Jighead. The oversized keeper barbs held the bait secure and I was able to remove the bulk of the weight by cutting off the button at the front of the head. The Powerbait Hollowbelly was then set up perfectly for a slow presentation. with the hook now exposed, several barra made their way to the boat.

Check out some of the action from the freshwater creek on this video.

Scouting a new System!

The Barham River located in Apollo Bay is a small system that I had never fished before. The general purpose for the weekend away was not fishing and when I saw the weather forecast (gale force westerly winds with rain) I wasn’t too fussed. The rods still managed to make it into the car and tides and local reports where checked just in case.
Waking up nice and early on the Saturday I decided to drive to the highway bridge to check things out before my wife woke up. The wind was already blowing the proverbial and the rain was coming in sideways. I didn’t fish much that morning but I did scout around for about an hour checking out all the likely looking spots. I checked out a few snags up river, a couple of creek and river junctions and the 2 bridges that cross the river. Eventually I decided that with amount of fresh water in the system I would target the flats at the mouth when the weather calmed a little.
In the early afternoon I was able to sneak away for a couple of hours. The river was high due to the rain and the semi blocked mouth so I grabbed a packet of Gulp! Camo worms and decided to search the flats. I figured that with the tough weather conditions, the fish were probably going to be finicky, and the Camo worm would give me the best chance of producing some hits. Although the fishing was a little slow, my enthusiasm grew after a couple of consecutive hits produce a nice 30cm bream. Over a 2 hour period I had hooked over a dozen fish including a couple of nice size bream however most were small salmon and mullet. With the tide rising and a massive swell pounding the shore I was a little nervous of being stranded on what was turning out to be an island. Check out the before and after photo below. Miss timing the 30metre dash across the sand would not have been fun.
On Sunday morning I made my way back to the entrance however the tide was low and the proverb “No run, No fun” proved to be true once again. I did manage a couple of fish including the biggest for the weekend, a plump 35cm bream. Having not fished this system before I left feeling pretty happy with a few quality fish landed during a couple of short sessions.
I believe the reason for my succuss in trying conditions was the hour I spent on Saturday morning scouting around in the rain. Although I didn’t make many casts or catch any fish I tried to quickly eliminate the potential spots. At first glance the majority of the river looked very fishy, (and I’m sure it holds plenty of fish at different times of the year) however on this occasion; the edges were flooded which meant the first 2 metre or so of water had thick reeds just under the surface, the dirty water made fishing the deeper snags very frustrating, the bridges seemed fishless at the time and the steep banks were too hard to navigate in most spots. This left a 150metre stretch of sand and reeds at the mouth where I could keep my lure in the water to maximise my fishing time. So the next time you’re out and about, spend some time assessing all the conditions in order to increase your chances of hooking up!
Cheers, Hodgey

Brad Hodges is a Purefishing/Berkley Pro in Victoria. Look for more of Brads informative blogs in the future.
Dinger.

Fishin' with The Wizard!

I always enjoy a chance to fish with some of the other Berkley guys. We all live in different parts of the country and as such adapt techniques to suit our home conditions and species. I was down on the Gold Coast for the weekend and happened to ring Steve “The Wizard” Wilson to tell him I was in his neck of the woods. He mentioned he was heading out for a fish on Saturday morning so I promptly invited myself along for the ride! Although Steve does not live that far away from me (3 hours) he has slightly different offshore structures available to him, and I was keen to check out some of his sneaky tricks!
We headed out from the Tweed at first light and the forecast was for great conditions so every man and his proverbial animal was out on the water. Being that a lot of them shot straight out wide, Steve decided to fish the shallow reef systems that hug the coastline. We were fishing with Pflueger 6 to 10 kg rods and reels loaded with 30lb Stren Sonic braid in the high vis gold. Because we were fishing around lots of nasty shallow structure – 40lb leaders were adopted. The rig of choice for the day were 7 inch Gulp jerkshads rigged on to ½ Oz nitro jigheads and we were ready for action.
We targeted wash zones and the edge of reef systems and cast as far from the boat as possible, prior to letting the plastics drift slowly to the bottom. Once on the bottom, the plastics were hopped a metre or so off the substrate before being allowed to slowly settle to bottom again. The non stretch braided lines meant the moment anything piscatorial picked up a bait, we were quickly able to set a hook and begin to wrestle fish away from their rocky shelter.

Steve was quick off the mark pulling a couple of legal kings that made for some nice early morning pics. His pink shine plastic was definitely making its mark in the new day light.

I finally set the hooks into a 45cm squire that proved even these smaller models can put up a battle that belies their size to some degree. Following the flurry of early action, a tide turn stopped the bite as fast as it had started which prompted a move to a new location.

Steve took me to a section of shallow reef that had us targeting fish in 8 or so metres of water. The action was subdued when we arrived due to the tide being relatively slow to get moving. As we fished however we noticed the bait in the area start to get jittery and then my BBQ Chicken coloured Gulp was inhaled by a squire of similar proportions to my early morning effort. This heralded the start of an active hour of fishing that began with 5 squire in the boat and several left for another day. We drifted with the wind, casting ahead of the boat and allowing our plastics to drift to bottom. Every drift produced fish off the bottom until a cast of mine hit the surface and sank for about 2 seconds prior to something picking the bait up at speed and heading for New Zealand. Steve quickly cast in behind me and was hooked up to a similar model. The small Pfluegers made light work of what were obviously smaller pelagics and before long we had a couple of 6kg yellowfin tuna in the boat.

Following some photos we chased the nervous bait schools around our section of reef and by casting to the edge of the bait and simply letting the plastics sink, we were able to hook another 6 or 7 of these fish. Steve had bought the dropsies with him and prematurely released a few fish (as did I, but I’m writing this story!), however we managed to land 3 of these fish before the bite subsided. It was an interesting observation that as much as we ripped and fast retrieved plastics through the bait, we could not tempt one of these fish to grab one. However, as soon as a plastic was left to sink through the bait, these small pelagics set upon them with vigour. It reinforced to us the value in experimenting with retrieves and fishing with a versatile lure. The beauty of the jerkshad is that it can be fished through all levels of the water column and works as well at high speed as they do by simply dropping through the water like a dead or dying baitfish.
I had a lot of fun fishing with Steve and checking out his part of the world. It’s my turn to repay the favour when he heads my way in July for a deep water fishing session. Being that I devastated his supply of 7 inch jerkshads I will begin boosting my stock prior to him arriving so I can repay any debts... because fisherman don’t forget!

Until next time..
Happy fishing,

Bulky Hawg – Brown Pumpkinseed Fleck

I first saw a 2” Bulky Hawg during my first ABT tournament back in 2006 where I fished as a non-boater and was lucky enough to draw Scott Towner on day 1 and Mark Mangold on day 2. The venue was the Gippsland lakes, a huge expanse of water that holds some equally large bream.
Half way through Day 1, Scott changed from a camo worm to a Bulky Hawg, a bait I had never seen or even heard of before. I watched Scotty skip cast these 2 inch plastics under the overhanging trees and using his trade mark double hop, he completed his bag with some impressive Gippsland fish. After our day of fishing together, or should I say Scotty’s day of fishing (I didn’t land any legals) he threw me a packet of Hawgs to try out. That packet of Hawgs definitely changed my fishing for the better. It took me from scratching around and catching a couple of fish a weekend to catching 10, 20 and 30 fish a day.
It all started while fishing the thousands of pylons that line the banks for the Yarra River. I still remember the first weekend I tried them. It was early October and the fish were starting to wake up from their winter blues. I was sighting heaps of bream chewing on the pylons however getting them to eat consistently was proving really tough. After rifling through my tackle bag I came across the packet of Hawgs. I matched it to a 1/32 nitro jig head and skipped it deep under the dock to where the bream were feeding.
That packet of 12 Hawgs didn’t last the weekend and for the first time I had caught double figures in a session. Skipping those Hawgs under the docks, next to pontoons and hard up against bridges had me catching more and more fish which in turn taught me more and more about how to catch these cunning fish.
After using the Bulky Hawgs for months on end, I begun experimenting with other baits and soon forgot just how effective Hawgs can be. That was until recently, after I spent a day fishing with a good mate and showing him some of the ins and outs of fishing the Yarra. I told him my story about how the Bulky Hawgs had changed the way I fished. The very next day I received a text message with a photo attached of a cracking 40cm fork bream that my mate had just caught using a Hawg on his local water.
Since then I have pulled the Hawg back out from behind the many packets of Gulps! And have begun to reuse this bream catching plastics once again.
Benefits
The large surface area of the Hawg allows for a slow sink rate which I love when fishing them around pontoons and bridges where I’m trying to keep the bait in the first 3 feet of water. Additionally it allows you to skip cast the Hawg deeper into cover with less effort. The slow sink rate also allows the use of a slightly heavier jighead which increases casting distance.
Modifying :
When rigging the Hawg I like to do a couple of modifications. Firstly I cut 2 rings of plastic off the head of the Hawg, then I pull the 2 front curls so that they will flutter when on the hop. When the bream are really finicky I like to trim the large paddles at the back, in order to make a thinner bait which is easily slurped in by any inspecting bream.

Bulky Hawg – Brown Pumpkinseed Fleck

Bulky Hawg – Brown Pumpkinseed Fleck
I first saw a 2” Bulky Hawg during my first ABT tournament back in 2006 where I fished as a non-boater and was lucky enough to draw Scott Towner on day 1 and Mark Mangold on day 2. The venue was the Gippsland lakes, a huge expanse of water that holds some equally large bream.
Half way through Day 1, Scott changed from a camo worm to a Bulky Hawg, a bait I had never seen or even heard of before. I watched Scotty skip cast these 2 inch plastics under the overhanging trees and using his trade mark double hop, he completed his bag with some impressive Gippsland fish. After our day of fishing together, or should I say Scotty’s day of fishing (I didn’t land any legals) he threw me a packet of Hawgs to try out. That packet of Hawgs definitely changed my fishing for the better. It took me from scratching around and catching a couple of fish a weekend to catching 10, 20 and 30 fish a day.
It all started while fishing the thousands of pylons that line the banks for the Yarra River. I still remember the first weekend I tried them. It was early October and the fish were starting to wake up from their winter blues. I was sighting heaps of bream chewing on the pylons however getting them to eat consistently was proving really tough. After rifling through my tackle bag I came across the packet of Hawgs. I matched it to a 1/32 nitro jig head and skipped it deep under the dock to where the bream were feeding.
That packet of 12 Hawgs didn’t last the weekend and for the first time I had caught double figures in a session. Skipping those Hawgs under the docks, next to pontoons and hard up against bridges had me catching more and more fish which in turn taught me more and more about how to catch these cunning fish.
After using the Bulky Hawgs for months on end, I begun experimenting with other baits and soon forgot just how effective Hawgs can be. That was until recently, after I spent a day fishing with a good mate and showing him some of the ins and outs of fishing the Yarra. I told him my story about how the Bulky Hawgs had changed the way I fished. The very next day I received a text message with a photo attached of a cracking 40cm fork bream that my mate had just caught using a Hawg on his local water.
Since then I have pulled the Hawg back out from behind the many packets of Gulps! And have begun to reuse this bream catching plastics once again.
Benefits
The large surface area of the Hawg allows for a slow sink rate which I love when fishing them around pontoons and bridges where I’m trying to keep the bait in the first 3 feet of water. Additionally it allows you to skip cast the Hawg deeper into cover with less effort. The slow sink rate also allows the use of a slightly heavier jighead which increases casting distance.
Modifying :
When rigging the Hawg I like to do a couple of modifications. Firstly I cut 2 rings of plastic off the head of the Hawg, then I pull the 2 front curls so that they will flutter when on the hop. When the bream are really finicky I like to trim the large paddles at the back, in order to make a thinner bait which is easily slurped in by any inspecting bream.
Hodgy.

Brad Hodges is a Purefishing Berkley Pro angler in Victoria. Look for mor informative posts from Brad in the future.

The bait featured is now obsolete but 2" Hawgs are still available in Japanese Green Pumpkinseed, Camo, Watermelon and Moebi.
Camo is very close to the featured bait colour.
Dinger.

Berkley MF 40 smashes Tassy Trout!

After getting some of the yet to be released Berkley MF40 soft plastic vibes I was dead keen to give them a go on some of Tassie’s highland trout prior to the season closing at the start of May.

Up at 4:30am I headed to a mates place to meet up for the trip up to Arthurs lakes. We were on the water ready to hit some pre-spawn trout by 7am! After only a few cast with a silver shiner coloured MF40 I was onto a nice little brown…. They work!

The day was fairly tough for the most part with a bright clear day with little or no wind. Even in these tough conditions the vibes out fished all other lures hands down. We ended up looking deep and by keeping our vibes close to the bottom in 5m of water we were able to get onto close to a dozen fish in the last 2.5 hours of the session. We missed probably 15 in this time too as the fish were not willing to commit aggressively in the bright conditions. Even so throwing other types of lures proved fruitless. We went home happy with our results given the conditions we faced.

The MF40 works both on the drop and the draw. We would either work them like standard soft plastics or hop them along the bottom depending on the depth and areas we fished. I tended to go for a 1-3kg Pflueger Supreme rod as it gave positive feedback when swimming the lure while providing a softer strike on short biting fish as apposed to a 2-4kg version.

The MF40 will be a big fish taker when our trout season opens in August. With word on the street of a MF50 to come later means no trout will be safe!

Pat Sullivan

Vertical Jigging with Gulp!

Whilst on a resent trip to South Africa I had the pleasure of fishing with a very knowledgeable angler by the name of Mark De La Hay. Having both found a love of vertical jigging and soft bait fishing, he had quite an unusual mix of both on offer when we went jigging in the deep! Using 50-lb Whiplash braid over Pflueger Supreme jig rods we where marking on the fish finder what I was told where big Amber Jack. Fish that would normal straighten out the 7/0 hook that’s attached to a 5oz Nitro jig head. So this is how the rig works!



STEP 1 - Get a heavy Nitro jig head (3, 4 or 5oz) and cut off the hook just as it starts to make its way around to the bend. Then you need a large split ring, a heavy solid ring or swivel and an assist hook from a vertical jig. Put the split ring through jig head eye and attach the assist hook cord to the solid ring (or swivel) and then to the split ring as well (never tie your leader to the split ring or jig head. You need to attach the hook directly to either the solid ring or swivel which is directly attached to the assist hook and tie your leader to this point).

STEP 2 -When I was fishing this rig we where using 8” & 10” squid (you can use whatever like you like such as a 7” Jerkshad or 6” Grub). So the next thing to do is get your squid and cut the tip of the hood, back to mach the jig head that will replace it.

STEP 3 -Simply insert the jig head into the bait and you’re almost done.

STEP 4 -Peg the assist hook into the bait so it looks smooth and you’re ready to drop.

STEP 5 -Look carefully at where the leader is tied to. It is tied to the assist hook! You can have your squid and jighead ripped off by split ring failure but you need to be positively connected to your fish by tying direct to the assist hook toe point!

This rig was devised by either Wes Rapson, Rob Carl or Mark De La Hay or all of the above. I never bothered to ask! Either way it’s a ripper way to get a really strong hook into a soft bait and get it to go down past the 100 metre mark with a 5oz jig head.
The big let down about current vertical jigs as far as Im concerned is that they don’t smell, which is a big issue in deep dark water when your lure is moving away from the fish so fast and they are very, very hard to the bite (lack bite appeal) and rarely get a second hit by the same fish. But with this rig you get taste, smell, bite appeal, reasonable sink rate and glow in the dark. This is quite the revolutionary step in jigging and it’s come from a part of the world that needs a lot more attention. The guys that I’ve fished with in South Africa are some of the best anglers you will find anywhere in the world. Very inspirational!!

Anyway, get that into ya!!!

Let me know how it goes for you and I’ll past on your efforts to the lads in SA.
Cheers

Royter.

Simply class!

The Pflueger name has been around in fishing circles since the 1940's.

When you can last that long in an industry that has seen some big names come and go, you must be doing something right.

Todays Pflueger rods and reels are among the best pieces of tackle an angler could consider when purchasing that next new item.

Spinning reels in particular have evolved into machines of function and beauty and the soft plastic boom has seen more and more great offerings that suit light line come onto the market.

The latest Pflueger spin reel is the Japanese derived Mag XTS. Available shortly in two sizes. 2000 and 2500, these reels not only look awesome but are super functional with 9 stainless bearings and infinite A/R bearing, 6.2:1 ratio, ported lightweight alloy spool, magnesium ultra light body, soft touch EVA handle knob on a mochined jandle arm. Ultra smooth drag and precision gear box complete the package.

These reels won't hit the store shelves until end of August and if you are willing to shell out around $350 per reel, then jump into your favourite store an place an order for one now.
These reels will not be available in big numbers so the first in will get the first release qty.

For more Pflueger products, check out Purefishing.com.au and follow the links to the Pflueger gear.

Dinger