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We’re fans of Berkely soft bait - this is New Zealand’s most popular soft bait for one reason....it catches fish like crazy!
Berkley Gulp Saltwater Features:
- 100% biodegradable
- Natural ingredients that release 400 times more scent than plastic baits.
- Its scent trail attracts fish and triggers them to feed.
- Out fishes live bait in head-to-head field tests.
- Gulp! Saltwater is the first bait to bridge the gap between artificial and live bait.
- Absolute dynamite on snapper, they are the leading snapper soft bait in the country.
- They also catch just about anything else that swims and eats small bait fish.
- Kingfish, Hapuka, Trevally, Gurnard, Terakihi, Kahawai, Blue cod, John dory and many other species will strike.
- Gulp Saltwater scent and fluttering action attracts just about every fish in the ocean.
- It truly out catches ANY other baits on the market, including live or cut bait.
It’s without a doubt the most effective and most revolutionary artificial bait ever invented.
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Your Soft Bait Fishing Rod and Fishing Reel
The rod and reel you use is important. A light soft tip rod with an even bend provides a smooth action while fish are on. A quality egg beater is a must when tackling big snapper.
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Soft Bait Tackle
Line Weight
Braid 4-8kg Suffix Herculine is one of the thinnest, strongest and toughest fishing lines.
Jig Heads
Preferred jig heads to use: Owner 3/0 5/8th ounce when using 5 inch shads, 5/0 to 7/0 1 ounce jig heads when using 7 inch shads.
Trace
Tie on leader of 2m using 20-30lb Fluoro Carbon; Suffix Invisiline is nearly invisible and super tough.
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Our story below, appeared in Boating New Zealand, June 2008.
Soft Plastics & Marine Electronics – A Winning Combination
Location, Location
Using a GPS Chartplotter will assist you in fishing improved fishing grounds. Underwater reefs, ledges, rises and banks all show up clearly on the chartplotter. These are the best areas to start looking for snapper.
It’s a good idea to look at the chartplotter the night before to formulate a plan for your day’s fishing i.e. on this day we planned a trip to Little Barrier and found some likely areas on the chartplotter to start looking at in the morning.
Not only does it put you in a promising area for fish – it saves you valuable fishing time. When bit time arrives you should be armed and ready on top of the fish.
Find the Fish
Once you have arrived at your chosen spot it’s time to start using your fish finder to pinpoint the schools if fish! By driving slowly over your chosen area you soon see what fish is around. Snapper display as dark brown marks on the fish finder and are usually positioned from hard on the bottom to about a couple of metres above the bottom. It’s always a good sign when you see snapper hard on the bottom as this is where they are feeding, which means they are ready to attack your soft plastic.
If I don’t see anything on the sounder for a good 10 minutes, I move on to the next spot. There’s no point fishing in an area with no fish.
Drifting
Once you’ve located a good school of fish on the sounder it’s time to turn your engine off and start drifting. The track on your GPS chartplotter will soon show the direction of your drift. When you start hooking in the snapper, it always pays to drop a waypoint to mark the location of the fish. Once you’ve moved away from the fish, head back to the start of your drift line and go over the same area again.
This is the beauty of having a good GPS; you can accurately return to the start of a successful drift and go over the same school of fish again.
Soft Baiting Techniques
The best way to think of your soft bait is what you are imitating are fish swimming along the ocean floor taking cover from its predators. When bait fish are being pursued by a predator they either dart away quickly or dive to the ocean flow to take cover. This sharp movement sends out big signals that they are trying to escape and predators like snapper are very quick to attack. By raising your soft bait off the bottom and lowering it back down again you are simulating a bait fish swimming up and away or ducking to take cover.
Snapper will often strike either during the rise or fall to the bottom. Hold on tight because they can strike at high speed and I’ve seen one rod end up in the tide because of this!
Essential Electronics
Onboard my boat is an Eagle Intellimap 502C colour GPS chartplotter and Eagle Seafinder 500c colour fish finder. Both units have made a world of difference to my fishing. Needless to say I catch more and bigger fish as a result. The Intellimap 5032c is consistently used to mark GPS spots and drift patterns. The Seafinder is deadly accurate when it comes to pin pointing fish, it’s so sensitive that you often see your soft plastic moving along the bottom. It’s incredible!
Tackle
The rod and reel you use is important. A light soft tip rod with an even bend provides a smooth action while fish are on. A quality egg beater is a must when tackling big snapper. Daiwa has a wide range of quality soft baiting rigs.
Line Weight
Braid 4-8kg Suffix Herculine is one of the thinnest, strongest and toughest fishing lines.
Jig Heads
Preferred jig heads to use: Owner 3/0 5/8th ounce when using 5 inch shads, 5/0 to 7/0 1 ounce jig heads when using 7 inch shads.
Trace
Tie on leader of 2m using 20-30lb Fluoro Carbon; Suffix Invisiline is nearly invisible and super tough.
Sea Anchor
Essential for slowing down your drift, especially in winds over 10 knots.
A Fantastic Days Fishing at Little Barrier on Anzac Day
With an excellent weather forecast predicted we departed Omaha boat ramp with a waypoint destined for Little Barrier on my Eagle GPS. My StabiCraft 389XR had no bait on board! Just packets of Berkley Soft Baits, a chilly bin containing a salt-ice slurry and three mad keen fishermen.
On arrival to our fishing spot we spent 10 minutes driving around looking for fish signs on the Eagle sounder. We found a good patch of snapper feeding along the edge of some foul in a depth of 10 metres and marked a waypoint. We turned the engine off ahead of the fish and began our drift. We dropped our soft baits down and could even watch the soft baits in the sounder, hit the bottom. Soon enough the snapper appeared on the screen and all there rods were double bent over on good snapper with expert fisherman "Wiremu" Williams landing the first big snapper of the say weighing 6kg. Soft bait fishing can be extremely exciting, it is not uncommon to see all fishermen hooked up at the same time with everyone ducking and diving between their lines.
We went back to our waypoint following our GPS track and repeated the experience for a second time. Using this method I was fortunate enough to land 2 big moochers on this drift. Soon after, soft baits ‘master’ Michael Drumm saw the colour of a big red coming through the crystal clear waters of Little Barrier attached to his line.
We carried out six drifts in total achieving out limit with 4 big snapper weighing between 6-7kg.
On the way back to Omaha we were greeted by a large pod of dolphins and pilot whales, a truly memorable experience that put the cherry on top of a great days fishing. And demonstrating how Eagle Electronics and soft baits can make the difference out on the water.
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