NUCLEAR CHICKEN ! what the ?? put me out of my missery

[1lastcast]

Ive seen the ( NUCLEAR CHICKEN ) in some threads and i assume its a soft plastic of some sort i am a game fisherman so you will have to excuse my ignorance.

as some one with limited experience with plastics and has only caught flathead and bass on plastics can some one tell me what the bloody hell a nuclear chicken is .:-/

is this the brand ?

is this a colour ?

what do you fish for with these ?

where do they work best ?

Some one help please :)

cheers Peter

[webby]

Its a new breed of faster growing featherless red and green chicken, Inghams have breed for KFC.
regards

[T1]

LOL WEBBY! And they glow in the dark too...

Peter, the Nuclear Chicken is a colour of a SP. These come in the Berkley Gulp range from 2" shrimps to 7" Jerk Shads. Seem to be the colour of choice at the moment on the Bay Snaps. As WEBBY graphically described, they are (fluro) green on the top half and red on the bottom half... oh, and they are featherless ;)

Hope this helps!

Take Care T

[revs57]

G'day Peter

Ahh the nuclear chicken story.

I'd understand it originates when Berkeley developed a pheremone scented synthetic/plastic bait that is threaded onto a weighted jig head.

The Nuke chook began in a colour pattern called electric chicken. It didn't go off in the states, but worked well here.

Berkeley redeveloped the colour using glo in the dark colours of iridescent green and hot pink, tested it in the states and it worked well there, so they have now introduced that colour pattern in aus.

We've been using the nuke chook since late last year in a 7" Jerk Shad. Latey we've been braining the snapper, AJ and reefies on that pattern.

There are a number of different styles, 5" grubs with a long tail, 5" swimming shads which are a berkeley variant style of a paddle tail and 7" & 5" jerk shads.

There are other styles available, but these ones I mentioned are most suited to our style of off shore applications

We predominantly fish them in 50-80 mts of water on 1 oz - 1 1/2 oz jig head, cast them out, work the bait through the watter column with a series of short jigs, then slowly jig them and work them back to the boat.

We size the jig head according to water depth and current using lighter jig heads in shallower water

The old electric Chicken has been re-released in Australia as lime tiger.

The other colours that are really a variation around the hot pink/ green are Camo, lime tiger, mango ripple.

The gear I'm using is a Rapala Braid Concept rod 6-12kg, with a penn liveliner slammer 460l, loaded with 15kg sufix performance braid and 40lb fluro leader.

My other outfit is a 7' Penn Pro Guide 3-5kg with a 4000 Penn affinity loaded with 15lb suffix performance and 20 lb fluro leader.

Swano uses lighter gear. A 7' Penn Tournament Pin Point 3-5kg with a 4000 Penn affinity and 8lb sufix performance, 12 lb vanish leader, and his other outfit is a 7' Penn Pro Guide 3-5kg with a 4000 Penn affinity and 10 lb sufix performance with 15lb vanish leader.

It is a different aspect of our sport and an absolute hoot, particularly on lighter gear, with screaming drags! I've been done over on my Rapala outfit a number of times by unstoppables

hope this helps explain some of this new technology and phenomena
Cheers

Rhys

[nigelr]

Hi Monostretcho.
Answers to your questions -
the brand is Berkeley Gulps
the colour is indeed 'nuclear chicken', or flouro green and red to us common folk
fish for snapper and other reefies
personally I've only used them to 30m

I use the 7" version on a threadline snapper outfit running 30lb fireline with a 50lb platy platinum trace 3m long.
Snapper seem to find them very interesting.......

As a hardened bait user, they to date have only played second fiddle, but great fun to play around with while waiting for one of the drifting baits to 'take off'.
All my snapper fishing is done drifting lightly or un-weighted baits in a burley stream, I fish the chooks on 5/8oz TT jigheads into the burley stream but closer to the boat so as to avoid tangling with the baits, which are usually further out.
My larger fish to date have always fallen to bait, but the placcies are certainly more 'hands-on', and a ball to use.
Cheers and give'em a go, they are adictive, but!

[FNQCairns]

Peter I keep my head in the sand over new stuff as 9/10 it's same ol, same ol, have had my head yanked toward daylight over these NCs, plan to survey a little longer, have searched the net - no good pics found, I visit the tacckle shops only when I have to but plan to take a look next time if any are in stock..they seem popular.

I understand they are just a slightly different shape with another variation in colour over other soft plastics that are around...but still that is just an assumption.

cheers fnq

[Little grey men]

I'd love a job naming lures. I'm sure they drag people out of ward 10 b and say "What would you call this one ? uh huh, uh huh. got it, and how about this one?"
I think I might buy my soft plastics based purely on the creativeness of the name
from now on. Sounds more impressive when someone asked you what you caught it on, and you shoot back with....got it on a multi tailed wiffle glitter banger in transexual pumpkin cutter. the look on their face would be priceless.

[Hot_Snappa]

I'd love a job naming lures. I'm sure they drag people out of ward 10 b and say "What would you call this one ? uh huh, uh huh. got it, and how about this one?"
I think I might buy my soft plastics based purely on the creativeness of the name
from now on. Sounds more impressive when someone asked you what you caught it on, and you shoot back with....got it on a multi tailed wiffle glitter banger in transexual pumpkin cutter. the look on their face would be priceless.

I'd love the job of owning shares in these Plastics companies! Must be worth an absolute mint!
The old saying stands very true still - "Fishing tackle catches Fishermen, not Fish" ;)

Dave

[jackextracter]

I'd love a job naming lures. I'm sure they drag people out of ward 10 b and say "What would you call this one ? uh huh, uh huh. got it, and how about this one?"
I think I might buy my soft plastics based purely on the creativeness of the name
from now on. Sounds more impressive when someone asked you what you caught it on, and you shoot back with....got it on a multi tailed wiffle glitter banger in transexual pumpkin cutter. the look on their face would be priceless.
LOL.that would be priceless

[revs57]

Yeah Dave,

I used to think that lures, lure fishermen not fish. But I saw Swano and Birdy pull more fish with SP's than i was getting with bait over a long period, and that is good fresh bait, over the past 2 years and that's what got me to a point of having a go. I was very much like Scott, (FNQ Cairns) pretty skeptical about the whole thing, but when you see fish consistently caught on these things and then give it a go and you start getting in on it, it makes a believer out of you.

I still float pillies and do the bait thing, but I've added the SP thing as another string in my bow.

Cheers

Rhys

[Roo]

look here (http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthread.php?t=115888), the first pic is a nuke chook jerkshad.

[bushbeachboy]

They're a bit dear if you buy them in the tackle shops at around $11 per pack. Try looking on the net for them. Mo Tackle regularly have them for cheaper than that.

[theoldlegend]

Heard they're radio active as well.


TOL

[craigie]

Looking at a bulk order, best price so far is just over $7 a packet.

A pic from my first attempt Saturday morning, these things rock !!! Snapper, Pearlies, Cobia and a host of others epecies lov em !
Great fun to play with while waiting for the floaters to go off.

Cheers
Craigie.

[PinHead]

Its a new breed of faster growing featherless red and green chicken, Inghams have breed for KFC.
regards

do you want plutonium fries with that ???

[manchild]

Looking at a bulk order, best price so far is just over $7 a packet.

A pic from my first attempt Saturday morning, these things rock !!! Snapper, Pearlies, Cobia and a host of others epecies lov em !
Great fun to play with while waiting for the floaters to go off.

Cheers
Craigie.
You not wrong there mate but you forgot to add deepsea toadfishes ,they very found of them too unfortunately.
George

[scoota]

Peter

Got to agree with all that has been said about the Nuclear Chooks having only experimented with them twice and no real idea what I'm doing but they work.

Caught good pearlies the first time when the bait fishing seemed to go off while anchored and second time had the thrill of line peeling off at a great rate of knots for a quality snapper on the drift!

Had a great conversation at the boat show with an author for one of the fishing mags who has actually written an article recently on SP's Offshore and he is conviced that it's not the colour but the smell [being the pheremones] that attracts the fish and has caught many fish on all different colours.
He even stated that on a recent fishing trip off Fraser that out of a 140 litre esky full of fish between three of them only one fish fell to bait!

So if the Nuclear chooks are hard to find, I recon that any colour in the Berkley 7" Jerk Shad range is probably worth a try and a whole lot of fun.Mind you, every fish photo he had on display had a NC hanging out its mouth.

Coincidence maybe!!!!!!

Scoota...

[Poodroo]

do you want plutonium fries with that ???

Sure, I will just reheat them in the microwave!!! ::)


Poodroo

[1lastcast]

Thanks for helping guys i must give these things a go it seems im really missing out on something special i will be buying some and giving it a crack

some of the info you have given me here is great so thanks again guys

webby your a character mate when are we going fishing ? im heading out trolling in a couple of weeks ill give you a call but promise me that you will let me catch some fish too anyone who has seen you in action knows what im talking about lol

[barracat66]

If you can find them on the sunny coast then good luck, made a call to the suppliers/Berkley SP and they said that the 7" jerk shad in colour Nuclear Chicken will not be available till next delivery in a months time, On Monday i had 12 packs on the shelf, I know have 3 left.

[FNQCairns]

Been shopping bought a packet of 5 inch squid, new prawn colour and lime tiger glo in 5 inch (they are fairly small), looked for any 7 inch models but they didn't seem stocked, I would eat the squid -anyone fished these squid?? Bought them because they were the biggest model on display.

Hope they out-fish my snapbacks, fairly confident due to the reports above but this weekend will tell.

Will report back:)

cheers fnq

[Dan5]

I hope you got plenty of em MATE

[FNQCairns]

Dan there is an odd number in each packet....wrestle you for the spare ones :)



Nah...I have some snapbacks you can borrow if the gulps brain em :):).

cheers fnq

[Steven78]

They work very well in fact too well. My old man might buy the whole Queensland supply the way he is going. He landed a 88cm 6.8kg fish on the weekend

[Spaniard_King]

How many Nuke Chickens does one go through on a heavy Sp session, just incase I get the urge to have a go :D

[revs57]

They are reasonably hardy Garry,

We've used one whole packet between two of us in a good session, sometimes 5 or 6 fish per bait, but then we've had tails nipped and damage done on the first drop - that's usually only if there are vermin around. I'd take at least two packets of NC although I've got 6 on hand at the moment.

I also add a pack each of assorted other colours like blue pepper neon, camo, lime tiger, pearl white just in case

then theres a different style, like the newly released 5" grub and swimming shad...I'd add them in natural and smelt

Then theres....ahhh any wonder the minister for finance is cracking up at the moment!!!

yeah like I said, a couple of packs should see a good session, but you know the motto "Be prepared"!

Scott, we've used the 6" squid with some success, you can use them on a jig head like a jerk bait or set them up on a two hook paternoster dropper as you would fish dead bait.

I'd reckon the redthroat and spangles would love them...we caught coro trout on the nuke dooks at Fraser this year so trout shouldn't be off the menu either

Cheers

Rhys

[FNQCairns]

Beaut! thanks Rhy's for the good info.

[FNQCairns]

Had a try of these lures on saturday, shad in 7inch with 7/0 hook, forget colour not a NC thats for sure. Dan was soaking squid on small circle hooks. Many small reef fish around (brown hussar, emperor,fusiliers) I know this becuase this is what Dan caught on squid wihile I was trying the Gulps, I also caught some after switching to bait.

I got lot's of bites on the Gulp but failed to hookup, used all but the last one in the packet in 30min, they are not very hardy for use on the GBR, placed a 5 inch snapback on and almost straight away pulled a small cod up, 5/0 hook size.

The gulp got many many more nibbles than the snapback, but less than well presented squid bait strips, if a person knows there are big fish below I believe a Gulp is certainly the go for some fun!

Expensive fishing IMO cost me $7 in 30min for no return, will keep a packet handy in the box as I think they will be fun to use when I am better able to pick the spot to fish them.

They do work!!

cheers fnq

[Richard]

Trout seem to like them. I was fishing some beside a reef flat so I was just throwing the 5" versions around and a variety of reefies liked them..