Berkley GULP!
Berkley Gulp!
Pure Fishing USA
1.800.237.5539
www.berkley-fishing.com
By Jimmy Fee
After working in a tackle shop for several summers while I was in college, I have a deep-seated hatred for live minnows. I know they’re extremely effective, and I know in some cases they’ll outfish almost everything, but I think I’ve spent one too many early mornings scooping dead and decaying killifish from my shop’s bait tanks to not have my breakfast come to the back of my throat every time I see a bucketful of these small brown baitfish.
When the first batch of Berkley Gulp! saltwater baits were delivered to the tackle shop in the summer of 2005, as much as I wanted to believe the package’s claim that the Gulp! was more effective than live bait, I didn’t quite buy it. With much more visually appealing soft-plastic baits already on the market, I had a hard time believing Berkley’s new product would even outfish them. The early runs of Gulp! had inconsistent shapes and colors that bled into each other.
Many of our customers had the same reservations I had, and they continued buying pint after pint of killies for their fluke-fishing outings. And then came the minnow shortage. For whatever reason, our local distributors weren’t supplying any minnows, and though we occasionally got batches of the baitfish from as far south as Virginia, we often went whole weeks without a single minnow swimming in our tanks.
With their long-time, go-to fluke bait unavailable, many of our regular customers had to find other ways to catch their favorite fanged flatfish. One day, I had with a customer what had become a common conversation about what else he could use to fish for fluke. I went through my usual list of recommendations:
“Squid strips?”
“A squid-and-minnie, without the minnie, I don’t think so!”
“Cut mackerel?”
“So I can catch dogfish all day!?”
“You can try to catch some sea robins or bluefish for strip baits.”
“What if I don’t catch any?”
Several more suggestions were met with the same sort of reply when I finally landed on Berkley Gulp! I explained it was something new, that it stank to the high heavens with a scent fish were supposed to love, and that though we’d been selling a few packs, I hadn’t heard any feedback on them, good or bad. The fisherman hemmed and hawed but finally bought a pack of Berkley Gulp! Shrimp, which he planned on fishing on a top-and-bottom rig. The following morning, when I saw his car pull into the parking lot, I braced myself for a tongue lashing for selling him the fishing equivalent of magic beans. Instead, he greeted me with a smile when he came in, and he walked right over to our Berkley Gulp! display and cleared out the shrimp baits in the New Penny color.
“That good?” I asked.
“Just as good as minnies, and less of a pain in the ass.”
When Berkley’s Keith Jones and John Pronchow began developing Gulp! roughly 20 years ago, that’s exactly what they were setting out to do – create lures that would be every bit as effective as live bait, without the hassle having to keep it alive. The key, they felt, was scent dispersion.
In order to have more scent emanating from the bait, Jones and Pronchow had to branch out from traditional soft-plastic baits. Bear with me, as I’m going to get technical here to explain why. You see, the oil-based resins and PVCs used to make most soft-plastic baits act as a scent barrier, because as we all know, oil and water don’t mix. Some scents do escape, but Pronchow explains that the more that barrier is broken down by fish biting and tearing the bait, the more scent is released. The real power in traditional scented soft plastics, Pronchow said, is the way fish will hold onto them longer and allow for more positive hooksets. Gulp! is different.
The water-based resins used to make Gulp! allow scent to escape from the bait as it moves through the water. This creates a wide trail of scent that will attract game fish that haven’t even seen the bait yet, something other scented soft baits are unable to do.
The Gulp! acts as a sponge for the scent formula, which is the yellowish-brown liquid in the Gulp! Alive containers and at the bottom of Gulp! packages. Since there is nothing keeping the scent from leaving the Gulp! baits, when they are fished over long periods of time, they become less effective as the smell wears off. Fortunately, simply by replacing the bait back in the solution, it will soak up more scent and be good as new again.
One of my first questions about Berkley Gulp! was if the scent was the same for each style of bait. The answer is yes and no. Every Gulp! bait shares a common scent that researchers at Berkley have found to appeal universally to fish. Whether it’s catfish, largemouth bass, stripers or fluke, the scent of Berkley Gulp! will attract each one. Another “layer of scent,” as Pronchow puts it, is tailored to the specific bait. That is, the Gulp! Shrimp has the smell and taste, of shrimp, while the Gulp! Swimming Minnow has the smell and taste of baitfish, while the Gulp! Sandworm – well, you get my drift.
After hearing the old salt’s testimonial in the tackle shop, I had to try Gulp! for myself. My old fishing buddy, Jerry Sullivan, had invited me aboard his boat to fish the reefs for fluke with his dad the next day. Before leaving the shop that day, I grabbed for myself a pack of the 3-inch Gulp! Swimming Mullet and several Spro bucktails. Jerry had gone out and procured some minnows for himself the day before we were scheduled to go, so it would be the perfect opportunity for me to test the Berkley Gulp! package’s claim that it’s more effective than live bait.
When we set our first drift, I trimmed the hair back on my bucktail jig to let the curly tail on the Gulp! Swimming Mullet undulate unhindered as I bounced the jig-and-Gulp! combination on the bottom. On my first drop, a sea bass inhaled my offering before I could bounce bottom twice. While I was sending my jig back to the bottom, Jerry landed a short fluke, and that was the only time for the rest of the trip that natural bait was close to out-fishing Gulp! The single pack I brought along was stretched pretty thin among our crew of four as the new converts fought over the last of my baits after I slid my third 20-inch-plus keeper fluke into the fish box.
Once fishermen got over their initial inhibitions about leaving the bait at the dock and actually tried fishing Gulp! for fluke, the scented baits began flying off the shelves. There’s no questioning the fact that the scent of Berkley Gulp! attracts game fish, and though the range of shapes and colors is relatively limited compared to oil-based soft-plastic baits, Pronchow promises that the team at Berkley is working on creating more and better styles of Gulp!
After that first time trying the baits aboard Jerry’s boat, I permanently replaced live minnows with Berkley Gulp! in my fluke-fishing arsenal, and if anything, my catch rates have improved. Since I retired from the tackle counter after graduating from school, I can happily say I will never have to look at another live killifish, ever again.