MEET YOUR NEMESIS

Meet the Berkley Nemesis

Berkley Nemesis

Over the many years of lure casting it would be almost impossible to sit and list the varying types of plastics and artificials I have thrown around. What always holds serious appeal however is when a soft plastic can be labelled as a real ‘all rounder’. By this I mean a soft plastic that can be thrown just about anywhere and catch fish with consistency.

Berkley’s Power bait Nemesis is one such plastic. Their fairly recent release has seen an amazing soft plastic hit the walls of our Aussie tackle stores that is sure to please many anglers Australia wide.

Why the fuss?

While its fine to read from others about how fantastic a product is, it is always best to swim any soft plastic or lure yourself. In doing so an angler can quickly garb a ‘feel’ of how the lure performs and study first hand just how realistic and life-like the artificial may or may not be.

Taking a 4 inch Nemesis in hand it was hard not to be instantly impressed with a fish like profile tapering away into a ‘wriggler’ tail. Here we had the best of both worlds where this plastic could well represent a swimming fish while at the same time look like a wriggling worm or grub bouncing the bottom.Whatever you decide upon here what is assured is that these plastics do nothing but seriously impress in the water as they dart,slide and swim the water column with incredible life like attributes.

On the water

Rigging up a 4 inch Nemesis on a standard jig head the first and very obvious species of fish that was going to absolutely inhale the offering was of course flathead. Yes, they eat most but a wriggling tail always seems to really shine with these guys. Swimming the plastic throughout my local estuary it was actually hard to think of species of fish they were not going to eat this offering. Bream, various species of hard fighting trevally, mangrove jack and jewfish were all on the cards as were Australian bass in the upper reaches and dams throughout south east Queensland. Here we had a great ‘ all rounder’ and the possibilities were staring at me hard in the face.

Fish came on the board relatively easy and while picking the tides around various species the Nemesis were simply to much to resist. Flathead, bream, golden trevally, giant trevally and Australian bass were quick to slam the Nemesis in a variety of differing locations. As with any lure presentation the more ‘finesse’ approach will always out perform any other. Rigging up with a suitable jig head to match the conditions of the day while catering for ‘how’ you wish to present your lure is always the key. What this allows for is a far more ‘ natural’ looking presentation and when these Nemesis get moving you would be hard pressed to find a critic.

Weedless rigging has also been an excellent option with the Nemesis. For those unfamiliar with this type of lure casting what this involves is rigging up a plastic on one of the many ‘worm style’ hook patterns that exist on todays market. My personal preference here are the Owner ‘ Beast lock’ hooks which feature a twist lock keeper and make rigging up a plastic an absolute synch. With a Nemesis in hand all you need do is simply screw the twist lock into the plastic, line up where your hook point needs to protrude and push the hook through. What you are left with is a presentation you are able to cast in and around heavy vegetation, timber snags and rock bars without the fear of constant snag ups. This method of angling has led to some amazing captures and is serious fun around the more challenging terrain.

One very versatile plastic

As mentioned here the beauty of the Nemesis lies in its versatility. It not only caters for a very wide range of angling scenarios and species within our estuary, but will also appeal to soft plastic anglers out in the blue water. Casting these across our shallow reefs for snapper will almost certainly see a screaming reel or two.

Brent Hodges explains about the mulloway resurgence in Victoria..This series of blogs by Adam Royter is about all the things you really shouldn’t do but sometimes can’t help...