Once mid-summer approached, the fish began to settle into deeper areas, anywhere from 30 – 100 feet of water. When fishing these depths I tend to mostly fish 3-way spinner rigs with large plastic squid bodies. This is where the 5” GULP! Squid came into play.

I replaced my traditional spinner rig plastic squids with the GULP! squids by using a baiting needle to thread the leader through the bait. I terminated the rigs with my standard 4/0 octopus hook. I also added a plastic bead between the hook and the squid to prevent the hook and knot from pulling into the squid body. Over the side of the boat they went into 80 feet of water.

Again, I dead stick one rod and keep the other in hand. It doesn’t take long. I felt the usual “thump” and dropped the rod back to feed the bait to the fish and then came tight. After a nice deep water fight a 24” fluke is in the net. I repeated this for a few more drifts and caught fish on both rods.

It seems that I have finally found a packaged lure that will catch fluke as readily, if not more so, than the standard messy frozen and cut baits that have been the staple for fluke anglers for years. My experimentation with the GULP! products has only begun. With an assortment of sizes, colors, body styles and rigging variations to experiment with, I certainly foresee a revolution in soft plastic fluke fishing. And, its name is Berkley GULP!