NEW - 3 Inch Hollowbelly smack the Tassy Bream

For those that haven’t seen or used the NEW 3” Berkley hollow bellies you are missing out! These things work and work well.

They are not all that dissimilar to the original 3” bass minnows, except they look even more lifelike! While the Berkley GULP Formula certainly catches more than its fair share of fish, it sometimes seems like the original power bait formula is overlooked. Be this the old school train or thought I don’t know…. I do know power bait still catch a lot of fish for me and will continue to for many years to come.

I love details in my lures, which is why I’m a big fan of the hollow bellies. Not only do they look like the real deal but the swim like it too. I personally hate lures that insist on twisting and turning as they please. Hollow bellies have a tendency to swim straight and true when you want but you can certainly make them swim erratically if you so wish. Their lifelike eyes and colours will make them irresistable to just about any predatory fishing in our waterways.

You can rig these lures on a standard jig head as you would most minnow style soft plastics, however I prefer to fish them on a worm hook (Owner 5101-091 are good). If you prefer your hook point showing use the same hook but push the hook up through the opening of the belly you can then place the hook point through the back of the lure. By rigging the hook internally and adding some solder wire to the shank of the hook you will create a silhouette in the lures body that looks very similar to a baitfish’s stomach!

If your not happy with those rigging styles you can always opt for a floating hollow belly! Adding some foam to the body cavity will make the lure sit in the surface film making it very hard for a hungry bream to resist. This foam can be sauced from any fly-fishing shops. Rigged on a weed less hook, you can skip casts deep into structure while keeping the lure near the surface to better your chance of extracting the fish once hooked.

They are available in a number of colours from AYU to a pearl white and available at all good tackle shops.'


Pat Sullivan - Sportsfish Tasmania.

Classics arrive.

Just a quick one for the collectors and those who want a no frills baitcaster that is tough, casts light weights and by today standards is affordable.

The long awaited Ambassadeur 1500c has finally arrived.

Choose between sunburst orange or burgundy. These 2 ball bearing reels are able to cast down to 3 grams, have a capacity of approx 270m 2kg mono, counter balnced paddle handle, push button free-spool and fast take down side plates.

This limited edition run is limited to 250 rels either colour so don't delay as they will not last and they will not be repeated in these colours.

tight lines,
Dinger

Recently, we posted a blog about the most exciting new soft plastic baits that are set to light up your fishing world!

These new baits are the Berkley Hollowbelly's. In the US, they are used for freshwater largemouth Bass fishing and have accounted for some unusually large fish. Currently, the demand for these baits outstrips the ability to supply. The US baits come packed with hooks, however, we deemed them too fragile for the tough fish of Australia and have succeeded in getting the baits in packs of three lures without the fine wire American hooks.

Matt Fraser of Nitro jigs has come up with a weighted worm hook in 6/0 size we call a Jungle Hook and it is perfect for the 6" hollowbelly. A 4/0 size is to follow shortly.
He has also created a button jig that suits both sizes. These are easily seen in the attached photo.
The need for a weedless and exposed hook is dependant on your situation. Barra in the weeds, use the worm hook. clear water, use the exposed jig.

The unique hollow construction makes this bait swim at super slow speeds and collapses on the impact of the strike allowing better hook-ups. Check the video clip on the Purefishing home page for sneak peek at the baits in the water.

Hollowbelly baits are coming in a 4 inch size ideal for big trout, bass, cod, flathead and a host of light to medium species like kingfish, tailor etc. The larger 6 inch size will send Barra crazy along with any number of tropical species, big kingies, snapper, jewfish and more.

The colour range is in the attached photo with pearl white also coming.

As stated, demand is high and we expect to have stock by the end of August, well in time for the coming season.

Remember, good things come to those who wait and the wait is nearly over.

Dinger.

Ps, I'm off to the NT to test these and some other new items shortly. Photo's soon.

Berkley Pro Team wins Qld Open.

Words Chris Britton, all pics from the ABT team.

QLD Open Round Up

It was always going to be a difficult task to defend a QLD Open title, especially with 15 other teams stacked with top anglers from QLD and NSW gunning for the title, and whilst it was a super close finish Anthony and myself came out on the right side of a 70gram differential for an unexpected but much celebrated 2^nd QLD Open title. I have given a brief rundown on our 3 days below and some techniques used.

1^st Day – On the first day we headed to the northern end of the bay, fishing both St Helena and Mud Island. Both islands had been fishing pretty tough in the lead up, but a 3kg limit in 40 minutes on the pre-fish day was sufficient to justify the “all or nothing” bet that is fishing in the Bay. What a difference a day makes!!! A South-Westerly influence had a massive impact on conditions and cleared the water up unbelievably. By mid morning, we were still without a fish, and starting to feel a bit ill. As the tide rose however, we slowly started to graft out a bag, and we were pinning our hopes for a big fish on the second half of the run-up. Whilst we got 1 reasonable fish over 30cm to the fork, it didn’t really happen and we headed home with a limit of 2.25kg, and sitting 8th. The approach we fished St Helena and Mud was fishing 3 inch minnows in Lime Tiger on very light Finesse heads – 1/20 and fishing them very shallow across the rough bottom, looking for a reaction bite -backed up with 4lb Trilene or Vanish leader, fished on Protactics and Abu 802 Cardinals.

2^nd Day – We needed a re-think and decided to abandon Plan A and go to Plan B which we knew had more fish in it, but we were not sure if the quality was going to stack up. We still headed north but not as far, not going past Cleveland Pt, where we fished surface lures for a couple of smaller fish. The gear was the same as before, but we were using Stren Magnathin on the surface lures to help with buoyancy. We then headed off for a milk run of spots on the lower bay Islands fishing larger minnow hard bodies. We filled our bag out, but our best fish came in the last half an hour or so, where we upgraded the entire bag for a limit of 2.71kg. This was the biggest bag for the day and moved us up to 5^thand 500gms behind the leaders.

3^rd Day – We decided to replay Plan B and do it all over again. We knew that we would probably need around 3kg for the day to have any chance of making up the differential. The day panned out similar to the day before, although we left our northern spot with a limit, albeit small. However, our milk run delivered results earlier than the day before and with a couple of hours to go we had a good limit. We still thought we were 1 good fish short at least and spent the last hour looking for another 30cm + fish. It didn’t happen and we thought that would cost us. The banter at the ramp suggested it was going to be very close. It looked like we had the largest bag again, but we were not confident that it was at least 500gms better. Back at the weigh in, we were the 3^rd last to weigh, and the bag went 2.89kg, which we were ecstatic with. The second place team went next and fell 70gms shy, which left the team that had led from the start to weigh in. The required weight was 2.41kg, and looking at the fish, it was too close to call. The reaction of the crowd was enough to tell us that they were short and when the scales lit up at 2.30kg, it was all over and we were the champs again for 2008!!!! It was quite surreal, but very exciting.

Whilst it was great to win the title, it was even better to fish the 3 days with my mate Wish. We generally only fish together once a year, and we had a ball for the 3 days, which in no small part helped, as we both tend to fish well when we are having fun, and we had plenty of laughs.

Anyway, looking forward to a threepeat next year!!!!

Chris Britton