It's now become a tradition – about a month before each Bassmaster Classic, Berkley rolls out a new set of baits designed to help its team attack the Bassmaster Classic water.
It worked last year, when the Chigger Craw factored in Boyd Duckett's Lay Lake Classic victory. Runner-up Skeet Reese caught most of his fish on the Chigger Craw too.
This year, Berkley (in combination with its pro staff) tackled the Lake Hartwell puzzle, and developed baits that it said are well suited to the impoundment along the Georgia/South Carolina border.
In all, Berkley will equip its team with three new jigs, two new worms, a new chunk trailer, and a Basstrix-style swimbait.
Remember that the actual Basstrix hollow-body paddle-tail was a huge factor in Jay Yelas' 2007 FLW Tour Angler of the Year title, so this bait, in essence, gives the team the option of throwing the hottest swimbait style on the market, but with the added dimension of PowerBait scent. They'll be able to talk about it and promote it too, which should help push swimbait fishing further into the national fold.
What follows is an overview of the new baits, each of which should be available to the public soon.
PowerBait 5" Hollow Belly
The price of Basstrix swimbaits has skyrocketed. Some retailers even demand their customers purchase an equal dollar amount of other products just to buy Basstrix. So the demand for a comparable bait is massive.
Berkley's version, as noted, is built with PowerBait impregnated plastic, so fish hold on longer. The paddletail is what creates the deadly wobble, and the hollow body collapses for better hookups.
Berkley offers its Hollow Belly baits in a kit, so anglers can either Texas-rig the bait for cover, or equip it with a treble for open water. The in-pack treble's a size 2. Also included is a size 5 swivel and a split ring for the open-water rig, and a weighted 6/0 wide-gap hook for Texas-rigging. The kit includes three Hollow Bellys.
Available colors total six: ayu, blueback herring, gizzard shad, hitch, Tennessee shad, and trout. Suggested retail price is $9.95.
About the bait, Jay Yelas said: "The 5" Hollow Belly's the finest swimbait that I've seen. The oversized paddletail wobbles the bait while swimming, giving it the realistic action to make fish strike. Fish with it in the open water or throw in the weeds – the Hollow Belly will catch them anywhere."
Gripper jigs: Ike's Finesse (top left), Hank's Football (top right), Jay's Flippin (bottom left) plus the Chigger Chunk.
Gripper Jigs
When Jay Yelas won the 2002 Bassmaster Classic, Berkley released his winning bait as the Jay Yelas Classic jig. It's been a solid jig ever since, but Berkley never aggressively went after the jig market.
That changes with the development of three new jigs for the Hartwell Classic – all under the Gripper name.
The three models – Hank's Football jig, Ike's Finesse jig, and Jay's Flippin' jig – share the same root design principles, with tweaks for different applications. And like the Hollow Belly, each comes in a kit – one jig, two trailers. The Football and Finesse are packed with PowerBait Double Tail grubs, while the Flippin' jig includes two of the new Chigger Chunks.
Shared design elements include:
> 3D "Angry Eyes"
> Triple-coned, double-barbed bait keepers that keep even Gulp! pinned down
> Color-matched nylon weedguard
> Flowing silicon pro-designed skirts
> Recessed line-tie (Football and Finesse)
Hank's Football (named for Hank Parker) is engineered to stand upright when crawled across rocks and hard cover, whereas some other footballs fall to the side. Comes in 1/2-, 3/4- and 1-ounce sizes in six colors.
About the jig, Parker said: "The Football jig is the ultimate in jig fishing when bass are clinging to rocks. As you drag your jig along the bottom and feel rock or other cover, stop your retrieve and shake your rodtip to make the PowerBait trailer dance – that'll trigger more strikes. Use the football jig year-round in both clear and stained water."
Ike's Finesse jig (named after Mike Iaconelli) is built with a flat head to stand upright for shaking and rocking. It's especially aimed at smallmouths everywhere, and tough-bite largemouths in pressured lakes. This one runs in four sizes (1/4-, 3/8-, 1/2- and 3/4-ounce) and six colors.
Ike noted: "Whenever I locate fish that have been highly pressured, a finesse jig is designed to be used with light line and attract inactive fish in clear water. Drag it, hop it, shake it or rock it along the bottom – the key is to try different retrieves. Trying diverse presentations to sensitive fish creates more reaction strikes and leads to more fish in your boat."
Jay's Flippin' jig (named for Jay Yelas) is meant for the tough stuff. That's why the new bait keeper is so key – now you can easily tip with Gulp! in ugly cover, without the lost time for slipping trailers. It comes with a heavy wire hook and brass rattles. Sizes include 3/8-, 1/2-, and 5/8-ounce. A perfect teammate is the new Chigger Chunk.
Yelas said: "The Flippin' jig can be used all year in both clear and stained water. When fish are hiding in cover, let the jig freefall through cover, utilizing the PowerBait scent and lifelike action from both the PowerBait trailer and jig skirt. The unique Flippin' jig, accompanied with the PowerBait Chigger Chunk trailer, is enough to coax any bass hiding in heavy cover to strike."
The 5" Heavy Weights SinkWorms promise to be deadly on suspended fish and Skeet Reese says they're incredibly easy to fish, because the bait does 90% of the work.
5" PowerBait Heavy Weights SinkWorms
Here are two new 5" worms scripted to "sink faster than conventional weighted baits," Berkley said. The Classic at Hartwell might be won on suspended fish, and the idea here is equip the team with a bait that can be fished a little faster than most other "weightless" freefall worms. It should be killer for a deadstick bite too.
One version is the straight-up 5" SinkWorm, the other's the chubbier 5" Fat SinkWorm. Both are available in 10 colors, and a pack of six costs $3.95.
Reese noted, "Pair any technique with the 5" SinkWorm and you can succeed. It sounds too good to be true, but simply throw the bait out and let it freefall – the bait does 90% of the work for you. Designed to catch suspended and spooked fish, the Heavy Weights SinkWorm will quickly become your go-to bait for sluggish fish."
Notable
> Each week, the Catch More Fish site highlights key fishing tips from Berkley pro-staffers, plus stories about fish science, product innovation, and more. For example, the feature story right now is with smallmouth specialist Joe Balog. To check it all out, click here.
> For more about Berkley and its products, visit Berkley-Fishing.com.
