It’s no secret to most anglers that Berkley Gulp are an amazing soft bait. The scent, texture, shape, action and many designs have been proven the world over cementing Gulp and Gulp Alive as the dominant soft bait in the world today. The Turtleback Worm is a fairly new design in the series and while it is not much to look at, it certainly catches fish and is a great addition to the Berkley line up. The Turtleback worms are 7” in length and come in 7 colours. It’s a great lure for targeting flathead, trout, estuary perch, bass and of course bream, which is what we targeted during the review process.
Casting, action and retrieving:
The curl tail on the Turtleback has a very tight wiggle that requires minimal movement to get it going, it will flutter on the drop with the lightest of light jig heads and you should rig this bait as light as possible or weightless. We caught multiple bream over two weekends of testing and a slow sink rate is necessary to tempt wily bream into striking. Berkley Nitro jig heads weighing 1/24oz or 1/32oz with a #2 hook were the best match-up. With these light weights and the fact a worm is not the most aerodynamic of shapes you don’t get a lot of casting distance with this rig, therefore light braids, small spools and long rods are your best option when fishing these. While the curl tail has a lot of action this alone isn’t enough to provide you with success. The main bulk of this plastic has little or no action and requires the angler to provide it; you can’t just slow roll this one back to the boat. Light lifts and the slightest of twitches are required and watch your line for an aggressive strike on the sink. This is a finesse lure that requires finesse retrieval, if you implement this you’ll find great success with this lure.
The strike:
At 4” this is a long lure. You can be forgiven for thinking that you’ll get a lot of short strikes and half worms coming back to the boat but we found this not to be the case. The bream were hitting the worm headfirst and I think over hundreds of casts we only lost two tails. In saying that you can cut this lure down to any size you wish to match the hatch and it will in no way affect its action.
The final word:
This is a kick ass bream lure, a go-to, the kind you should always have five packets of in varying colours! I believe it will catch many species other than bream and I’m looking forward to seeing how trout respond. Basically anything that feeds on worms and grubs will love it.
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