Berkley debuts Heavy Weights, HollowBelly, and Crazy Legs
 

Introduction: Walk up to the Berkley booth and you are sure to see a plethora of new lures from the king of baits. This year the Berkley team continues to build upon their popular Powerbait and Gulp! series baits and one of their new plastics even won the "ICAST Best of Show" in the lure category.

Crazy Legs Jerk Shad: Let's start with the "ICAST Best of Show" Lure at the 2008 ICAST. The Berkley Gulp! Alive! 5-inch Crazy Legs Jerk Shad features a proven Jerk Shad body with a split tail design that moves around in an erratic fashion that's designed to entice strikes.

Introducing the Gulp! Alive! Crazy Legs Jerk Shad

"It doesn’t matter if you’re fishing for prespawn or schooling bass or saltwater fishing on any coast, there’s an application where the Gulp! Alive! 5-inch Crazy Legs Jerk Shad will catch fish," said Berkley bait developer Mark Sexton. "It has even more twitch and action because of the added legs and it’s heavy enough to cast further and tough enough to withstand drag-stripping strikes."

The Crazy Legs Jerk Shad would be bent if kept in the original Gulp! Alive! bucket. The new and longer baits will be sold in the new oval bucket which keeps bait shapes truer for better performance by allowing them to suspend in the tubs. Plus, these baits are completely rechargeable: once the bait has been used for a while, it can be placed back in the container to soak up more fish-catching scent and flavor.

The split tail design goes crazy as it moves through water

The new biodegradable Gulp! Alive! bait comes in five colors including Black Shad, Chartreuse Pepper Neon, New Penny, Pearl White, and Watermelon. A pint sized oval shaped container of the Crazy Legs Jerk Shad will retail for $19.99.

Crazy Legs Grub: With the introduction of the Crazy Legs Jerk Shad comes the Gulp! Alive! Crazy Legs Grub. Tipping a jig with a Grub continues to be an effective way to catch fish. But when the fish aren’t overly aggressive and anglers are relying on reaction strikes to get fish to the boat, this finesse presentation needs to be taken up a notch. The new Berkley® Gulp!® Alive!™ 3-inch Crazy Legs Grub adds more action and movement to the proven Grub design by adding a bent, split tail to the grub, giving fish one more reason to bite Gulp!.

Crazy Legs on a Grub

“In the summer especially, when the fish are holding close to weeds, working the outside edge of a grass line with a jig-and-Grub combo is a great way to catch walleye when you prefer to cast to them,” said Berkley Pro Mark Martin. “The new Crazy Legs Grub increases the amount of movement on the fall, which triggers reaction strikes from fish that are using the weeds as an ambush point. If it makes it to the bottom, this bait dances as the jig moves, giving it as much visual appeal as it has scent and flavor appeal.”

Great fished on a jighead or as a trailer

Available in five fish-catching colors including Black, Black Shad, Chartreuse, Pearl White and Smelt, the biodegradable Gulp! Alive! 3-inch Crazy Legs Grub comes in wide-mouthed, re-sealable, plastic containers that keep bait fresh and reusable for the next trip to the lake. With an MSRP of $19.99 for pints and $35.99 for quarts, anglers have the advantage of fishing with a grub that not only has more action but also Gulp! Alive! scent and flavor technology built into every bait.

Gulp! Alive! Oval Buckets: The Berkley® Gulp!® Alive!™ round buckets are a big hit and anglers find great fishing success with the baits. But the demand for bigger baits in Gulp! Alive! has led to the introduction of the new oval bucket. Measuring 8 inches long and 4 inches wide, this new container provides the space needed to prevent crooked or bent baits.

The Best Soft Lure of ICAST in the new Oval Bucket

Included in the new bait shapes for Gulp! Alive! are the 4-inch Craw (in 3 colors), 4-inch Goby (in 4 colors), 3-inch Nuclear Nellie (in 4 colors), 4-inch Pogy (in 4 colors), 4 !-inch Slim Shaky Worm (in 3 colors), 5-inch Shaky Worm (in 4 colors), 5-inch Crazy Legs Jerk Shad (in 5 colors), 5- and 7-inch Jerk Shad (in 5 colors), 6-inch Floating Nightcrawler (in 3 colors), 6-inch Nightcrawler (in 3 colors) and the 6-inch Lizard (in 4 colors).

The oval bucket allows Berkley to put larger baits into the Gulp! Alive! formula

Like original Gulp! Alive! round buckets, the new oval bucket include not only the longer baits but enough Gulp! juice to fully saturate the lures. The baits keep their intended shapes and the Gulp! juice is 20% stronger than original Gulp!. Biodegradable Gulp! Alive! is water based. And the new oval shaped container is re-sealable, stackable and keeps bait ready for rigging. The MSRP for the new Gulp! Alive! pint-sized Oval Bucket is $19.99.

HollowBelly Pro Tube: Another addition to the PowerBait® family that follows in the footsteps of the enormously popular HollowBelly™ Swimbait, the new Berkley® PowerBait 4-inch HollowBelly Pro Tube gives anglers a large tube bait designed for sight fishing, swimming and flipping that is both durable and soft.

Introducing HollowBelly Pro Tube

The HollowBelly Pro Tube has the same feel as the HollowBelly Swimbait, with a soft body that allows hooks to easily penetrate the bait and stick in the mouth of bass. The large profile of this tube is more easily detected by bass – even in shallow, stained water – plus it’s easy to cast and flip with pinpoint accuracy. With PowerBait scent and flavor technology built into each bait, fish hang on 18 times longer.

Ten exciting colors are available

Other features of the Pro Tube include 3-D eyes, clear coat finish and new color introductions. The solid tip head is custom designed for enhanced jig or Texas rigging. The HollowBelly Pro Tube is available in 10 proven colors. A pack of 4 baits will retail for $8.95.

Heavy Weights: The Heavy Weights series comes in two different flavors, a standard Heavy Weights Sinkworm and a Heavy Weights Fat Sinkworm. Versatility is what the Berkley Heavy Weights SinkWorm is all about. The weighted formula allows the bait to sink faster than conventional weighted baits. The salted formula allows the Fat SinkWorm to slowly sink with a fluttering action, causing more reactionary bites than other sinking baits.

Heavy Weights Sinkworm and Fat Sinkworm

The Sinkworm and Fat Sinkworm both come in 10 exciting colors and will be available in three difference sizes, 4, 5, and 7 inches. Heavy Weights are 125 percent more tear resistant and cast farther than similar baits and both types will retail for $5.99 per pack.