Hard to believe this stuff has been around 13 years. I still remember The Fisherman’s Pete Barrett coming back from a trip to Spirit Lake, Iowa back in 2003 and throwing a story on my desk about some top "secret" fish catching formula that he said would take the fishing world by storm. It had taken the Berkley scientists 20 years to unlock the mystery behind a water-soluble, all-natural bait that releases scent into the water 400 times faster than oil-based plastic baits, and true to Pete’s predictions, in less than 20 months the world of fishing changed completely.
I was pretty skeptical at first, as were many anglers. John Prochnow, the Berkley Chemical Engineer who developed Gulp! had combined scents found most stimulating and attracting to gamefish. "Once the optimum scents were selected, Berkley Pro Staff fishermen helped select the shapes, actions, colors and styles of baits that are the most popular with fishermen," Pete wrote in one of the early product write-ups in The Fisherman in 2004, adding "after extensive field testing, Berkley decided on the Sinking Minnow, Turtleback Worm, Minnow Worm, 6-Inch Worm and Minnow Grub for the initial lineup of baits, plus a series of jarred baits including corn, maggot, nightcrawler, earthworm and grub.
"The Pro Team anglers experienced catch rates for Gulp! that were better than live bait, and better than any plastic baits," Prochnow told us. Suffice to say, the skepticism didn’t last long once those Gulp! Saltwater baits hit the market in 2004, with the 4-inch Shrimp and 4-inch Swimming Minnow with the curly tail quickly gaining converts.
Following the historical timeline, as Berkley became a part of a much bigger Pure Fishing family in those early A.G. days, Prochnow and his team of scientists continued to tinker with Gulp!, releasing a multitude of new textures and styles, with the 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-inch Gulp! Swimming Mullet and 6-inch Gulp! Grub soon supplanting live minnows on many fluke trips, and the 4- and 6-1/2-inch Gulp! Nemesis building momentum with striper fishermen as well.
But even the best of mouse traps can be improved, as those same scientists at Berkley last year re-released Gulp! in a brand new formula with higher tenacity than earlier versions of the bait. If you’ve been sitting on Berkley Gulp! and Gulp! Alive baits for a couple of years, you may not have the tougher stuff heading into the fluke season – it still delivers as promised of course, but the stronger version of this now legendary bait was slipped into 2016 packages, with the folks at Pure Fishing saying that brand new Gulp! packaging with a new "leak seal zipper" is on shelves now at your favorite bait and tackle shops.
Gulp! Saltwater baits still disperse scent up to 400X faster than ordinary plastics, with scents and styles finely tuned both in the lab and on the fishing grounds for maximum fish appeal and strike response. But as you gear up for summer, look for those new, higher tenacity Gulp! Saltwater baits – they not only out-fish the natural baits you once used in those B.G. olden days, but now they stay on the hook longer, which should translate into more fish per bait in 2017 A.G.
Find Gulp! in bags and buckets at your local tackle shop, and take a look at the full array of Gulp! soft baits at the website.
