Berkley Powerbait v Gulp! v Gulp! Alive

[garryl]

I was wondering what the differences are between them.

I have started fishing a bit with the Gulp! SPs, mainly 5"Jerk Shad for Flathead. Then I came across the Gulp! Alive Jars and thought this was a great idea as it fixed the problem of the leaking not-very-resealable packets. Now every packet I open I throw the unused lures in the jar with the juice. I was lucky enough to get along to a Gary Brown talk and he suggested it was OK to do that and that there is no problem with colors mixing etc.

I was doing a bit of research and on the new Berkley web site found the Powerbait range. I found some for sale and on the face of it they don't come with any juice in the packets whatsoever. So my questions are something like...

- Are Powerbaits made from the same plastic formula as the Gulps?

- Can Powerbaits be put in the Gulp Alive juice jars?

- If so, will they "improve" by putting them in there?

I've also come across the Gulp Bio-dip coulouring jars. I haven't found many references to these through the forums. Does anyone use these Do they improve the strike rate?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Garry

[Matt]

Heya Garry, the Powerbait range is the older range of Berkley Plastics that were released prior to the Gulp range. They are pretty much standard plastics.

I wouldn't recommend putting them into the Gulp juice, I get the feeling they might 'melt' over time or release their colour/pigment into the juice. You can try it though and see what happens.

I haven't tried the Bio-Dip, but I believe it is pretty much the same as the old colouring jars (was it Strike-It?) and they did improve strike rates in certain instances. Certainly worth trying out though.

Hope that helps a bit

Cheers

Windy

[PRED-ATOR]

Hi Mate,

from what ive heard, gulps are made from some form of organic protien. i use both gulp and powerbait and personally, i have caught more fish on powerbait. they have some awesome lures in their range.

I still use gulp alot and have quite a few but if im chasing flatties, powerbait all the way.

Instead of gulp juice on the powerbait, i use x factor.

[adkel53]

Gulps are biodegradable, Powerbait is not. They are much like most of the other sps on the market.

I use a range of plastics for my lizard fishing and alternate between them. Gulps work well and i gravitate towards the 4" jerkshads, 5" crazylegs and 2" or 3" shrimps. Lots of others that would work just as well I think. My favourite colours are nuclear chicken and lime tiger in the jerkshads and crazylegs models and banana prawn in the shrimps. Again, lots of others that will do well.

As for regular sps, my original favourites were squidgy fish in the 70 - 100 mm sizes with blackgold, grasshopper and poddy mullet among my favourite colours. Black opal shads are also very good. More recently I've gravitated towards 3" Zmann Minnowz due to their ability to resist the ravages of chopper tailer which are sometimes about (and provide food for big lizards!!). Lots of colours available. Try new penny, gold rush, smokey shad, bad shad, opening night and rootbeer gold to name but some from their extensive range of colours.

As to dyes, I have used spike It in either pink or chartreuse for a number of years on the tails of squidgies. No scientific evidence of its impact but it certainly doesn't put the fish off in my experience. The gulps don't absorb the dye very well and the Zmanns not as well as the squidgies either.

Ike to use S factor (BS factor my mate calls it!) on standard sps. Again, have not conducted any real tests to see if it makes a difference but it certainly doesn't put the fish off.

My advice is to find a few plastics that you think will be successful and fish with them until you gain some confidence. Good to have a a couple of rods rigged with different ones and alternate between them to find out if any one style is being preferred on the day. Ten casts with each or something similar is a good starting point.

Then there is the question of retrieves!!

Hope this helps a few Raiders.