Cutting my teeth in rallying certainly highlighted the key ingredients to success. Firstly, I guess you need to be fast, have a dedicated team supporting the program and be at the forefront of development. Moving away from blasting through the forest at warp speed and focussing more and more on fishing some of those key factors are just as relevant.

I’ve been involved with Berkley for longer than I can remember, testing new products, evaluating their performance, supplying feedback and better still catching some sensational fish along the way.

Without the motorsport engineering to dabble in I turned my attention to thinking more about lure development. I wanted to come up with something new that capitalised on one of the ultimate prey items in our waters. Let’s face it everybody loves prawns, but better still across the world so do nearly all species of fish.

Growing up I spent countless hours trudging around the shallows at night with my dad dolphin torch in hand scooping up energetic prawns. Anyone who’s ever done this knows just how crafty they can be, accelerating away and sometimes just disappearing all together.

The process started four years ago with a few sheets of grease proof paper and a whole pile of scrunched up sheets spread across the floor. I wanted the lure to not only look like a prawn but react and move like one as well. The project moved from my base drawing to go through the CAD process, initial moulds, first prototypes for testing and so on, but it wasn’t quite right so put on the back burner.

It was when my old fishing mate Mark Phillips joined Berkley as the Senior Brand Manager that the Shimma Shrimp was put back on the table and finally completed to pass the rigours of testing with flying colours. A key factor with any soft vibe is the way it swims down through the water column, with a prawn it’s that parachuting gliding style and the Shimma Shrimp’s gliding sink has nailed that. With each lift of the rod tip the soft vibe’s segmented tail tucks in and the body vibrates up through the water, a drop of the rod tip and the gliding action is repeated.

The range has three sizes 65mm 3.5g, 100mm 12g and 120mm 20g all fitted with Owner hooks and rings. There are 10 colours to choose from all with varying shades of mostly natural hues over a translucent base and a couple of brighter pink and purple models. As with a lot of lure fishing the clearer colours will lend themselves to clear water and the brighter tints to dirtier situations.

The 65 has already worked well on bream and whiting and I can see it being dynamite in the bass and yellowbelly impoundments. The 100mm is great for 3m to 12m and a killer on flathead, mangrove jacks, mulloway, threadfin and so many more. Then we have the 120mm with a great depth range of 5m to 20m, once again flathead, barramundi, mulloway, murray cod, snapper pretty much anything that swims and eats prawns.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the Shimma Shrimp get in the hands of anglers around the country. With the team at Berkley we’ve been right through the testing process to make sure this bait catches you more fish.

By Michael Guest – Berkley Pro Team

Also known as Guesty, one of Australia’s most iconic fishing show TV presenters who has lived and breathed fishing for 45 years. Guesty’s been a long-standing member of the Berkley pro team, using iconic baits such as Gulp! since their first introduction to Australia over 20 years ago.