ICAST 2011 | Berkley Adds More Tackle to Fishing Arsenal
Posted by Jason Sealock on Mon, Jul 25, 2011 @ 08:15 AM
At ICAST, Berkley announced a lot of line extensions, added a bunch to their panfish arsenal, incorporated a few new additions on the bass and walleye side for powerbait, and added some tools. However, the most important release they had was their new NanoFiL line, which won the Overall Best of Show.
Specifically formulated for finesse fishing on spinning gear, the NanoFiL line has lived up to the hype. We've been fishing it more than a month and love it on spinning gear. We've been using 3 to 6-foot fluoro leaders with it because of it's white color, but love how it casts, it's lack of memory and how the Dyneema fiber has performed with various applications. Its Dyneema fibers fuse into one strand at a molecular level. We're not sure how true that is, but we know the line performs like magic on a spinning reel.
The main PowerBait addition we saw was the 4-inch Rib Worm. It's a ring worm made with PowerBait and comes in a bunch of great looking colors like oyster, firecracker and perch.
On the line extension side, they had a bunch of additions. New sizes to the Flicker shad in 4 and 6 cm, a Jumbo Chigger Craw that is 5-inches, a 5-inch and 2-inch version of their Ripple Shad finesse swimbait, a 12-inch Power Worm, and they re-released their Berkley Gripper jigs in Flipping, Finesse and Football varieties.
We really liked the multitool they came out with as well as the mini line winder and the Erase Odor lotion to remove fish smell from your hands and unwanted smells on your lures from your hands. They also released a nice pair of Superline Shears. The Multitool will retail for $19.99 and the Shears will sell for $4.99. The Mini Line Spooler attaches to any rod and will hold pony spools up to 1/4-pound spools with variable tension, handy for spooling on the fly.
And Lightning Rod fans will like that their $39.95 Lightning Rod is lighter, tougher and redesigned for next year. It features better guides with SS304 guides that are lighter and more durable than aluminum guides. The Skeleton Reel Seat gives you direct contact with the blank. So for a budget rod it has a lot of nice features.
While Nanofil took a lot of the thunder in their line offerings, there was another line we were intrigued by which was Trilene XL Armor Coated. It's said to have all the properties we like by the original XL line but it's 40% more abrasion resistant while being 30% more flexible. So it's smoother, casts better but is tougher. They are selling it as a premium mono line with Bi-Component Technology. A 220-yard spool will be $8.95 or $9.95 depending on pound test.
As per usual Berkley released a lot and extended a bunch of existing product lines. Every angler uses or has used their stuff at one time or another. The Chigger Craw has been a staple and the 5-inch size will fill a void for bigger flipping / Texas-rig offering. The Nanofil is going to do wonders for guys wanting better performance from a superline on spinning gear and their tools will make the prepping around fishing easier.
