Personally I reckon they're the biggest con-job and rip-off I have ever come across in my whole life. I've yet to hook any kind of fish on a gulp or powerbait, I "invested" some of my hard-earned money in jig-heads and packs of gulps and powerbaits, plus a couple of DVD's - one being BCF's Fishin' Tips on Snapper/Bream/Flathead, which has some good flathead tips, shot on location at the Gold Coast's own broadwater, and the other DVD being Berkley's soft plastics disc with that guy and his boat "Full tilt" reeling in fish after fish from the beach, snags, estuaries and shallow reef.
I'd like to see somebody in real life cast one of those rip-off mongrels into the water and get a hook-up because I'm buggered if I can get a fish to hook up on one of these little buggers.
A month ago, I started using these SP's, and for the first time in my whole life (I'm 42 and have been fishing since I was a teenager), I've gone two weeks without catching ANYTHING. Nothing. Not even something undersize to chuck back in the water.
The past two weeks, I've gone back to pumping yabbies, and take both my 12ft rod with the usual #4 mustad long shank hook and sinker, plus the 9ft'er rigged with a suitably sized jighead.
The breakwall at Tallebudgera river is great because when the water's clear you can see the fish in there on the beach side. Mostly Bream.
Cast a live yabby in there and you can see the fish moving around it and smashing into it. Cast one of these little snots in there and the fish largely ignore it. Yes the occasional Bream has a nibble at the tail, but that's mostly the long and short of it, as you can see from the pic.
Cast live yabbies, or pilchards into the surf and you pull out fish every now and then. There seems to be a lot of undersize bream around at the moment, but one things' for sure, gulps and powerbaits aren't attracting them beyond a nibble on the tail.
In one morning, I've had an entire pack (14) of these little snots wasted with the tails chewed off by bream casting into the surf off the Tally river breakwall.
These things are a complete waste of time in the Estuaries because the little Toadfish absolutely love them. Yabby island further up the tally river, toss one into the edge of the sandbank where I usually see a few flathead lies at the low tide, and bigger fish ignore them whilst toadies and little whiting smash into them and mincing up their tails.
Shaky shads, grubs, mullet (pictured), pink white pumpkin seed, makes no difference.
As you reel it back in and you can see it jiggling around in the water, they are chased by swarms of little whiting and toadfish, who both nibble into the gulp's tail.
Go figure. I'm doing everything the guys on the DVD say, three jerks, reel, three jerks, reel. Or with the shaky shad, just reel it in slowly along the bottom, but the past four weeks have seen me chuck $80 down the gurgler buying these little rip-off mongrels.
On the Tally River rockwall, I'd switch rods, put a yabby on the hook, cast out, and get nibble after nibble and a hook-up every now and then. Then I'd switch rods with one of these gulps on there, and it's nibble after nibble, no hook-up, just lost tails and wasted money ($9.95 a pack).
Rip-off !!