Berkley Gulp Swimming Mullet Review [UNDERWATER FOOTAGE]
- By: Tony Acevedo
- on October 8, 2018
- Found In: Fishing Tips, Lure Reviews, Product Reviews, Retrieving Lures
A popular inshore fishing lure is the Berkley Gulp Swimming Mullet.
This is one of my favorite lures to throw at juvenile tarpon. It can also be used to target redfish, trout, snook and even black drum.
This lure has a tail similar to a bass worm tail, which gives it some very vibrant action in the water.
After thoroughly using the Gulp Swimming Mullet, I wanted to give you my honest review of this lure.
In this review, I give you my top pros and cons for the Gulp Swimming Mullet. I also show you how to rig and retrieve this lure in the video review at the bottom of the page.
Note: We are not affiliated with any fishing lure companies. If you’ve used the Gulp Swimming Mullet, let us know what you thought of it in the comments section. We love to hear your honest feedback!
The Gulp Swimming Mullet Specs
The Gulp Swimming Mullet is a soft plastic lure that is best rigged on a jighead. I like to rig this lure on the Saltwater Assasin Pro Elite Jighead.
This is a scented lure as well and comes with the Gulp scented juice in the pack.
The lure comes in four different sizes: a 3″, 4″, 5″ and 6″ model.
The lure comes in 4-11 different color combinations depending on the size of the lure.
The 3″ model comes with 11 Gulp Swimming Mullet per pack. The 4″ model comes with 10 per pack, the 5″ model comes with four per pack, and the 6″ model comes with three per pack.
Each pack of Gulp Swimming Mullet is $6.99 on the Berkley website.
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Top Three Pros & Cons Of The Gulp Swimming Mullet
In this section, I give you my top three pros and cons of the Gulp Swimming Mullet.
Top Pros Of The Swimming Mullet
See below for the top pros for this lure:
1. Easy To Use
This lure is easy to use. It casts well and is simplistic. It can’t really be used a wrong way in the water.
2. Can Cover A Lot Of Water
This is a lure you can cast far and cover a lot of water with. It is a good bait to “search fish” to find where they’re holding in a feeding zone.
3. Can Be Retrieved Many Ways
You retrieve the Gulp Swimming Mullet in a number of different ways to give it a different action. It’s great for twitch-twitch-pause retrieves, fast retrieves, slow rolling and even straight retrieves. The action makes this lure very versatile.
Top Cons Of The Swimming Mullet
This section covers the top cons of the lure:
1. Hard To Rig Weedless
This is a lure that is difficult to rig weedless. It does not fit very well on traditional weedless hooks. If you do want to rig it weedless, you most likely need to find some weedless jigheads in order for it to work effectively. This sometimes prevents you from being able to fish this lure over grass flats.
2. Can Foul Up
The longer tail and shorter body on this lure can cause it to foul up on the hook during casts and retrieves.
3. Durability
Like other Gulp products, there are durability concerns with this lure. The head can break down quicker than other lures. The lure will slide off the hook once the head breaks down.
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Gulp Swimming Mullet Video Review
In this video, I give you my full review of the Gulp Swimming Mullet. I also show you how it looks when retrieved different ways and give you my top rigging tips for this lure.
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Conclusion
This is a good lure to consider when targeting inshore fish.
It’s definitely used better certain ways than others and I highly suggest using this with a jighead.
It’s not perfect but can be effective for many different species.
If you have any questions about the Gulp Swimming Mullet or how to use it, let us know in the comments below.
Remember, we are not affiliated with any fishing lure companies and all our reviews are objective.
Tight Lines!
Related Posts:
1. Do Berkley Gulp Baits Really Work? And What’s In That Gulp Juice?
2. How to Rig a Berkley Gulp Saltwater Shrimp For More Bites [Product Review]
3. This Is The Trick To Avoid Berkley Gulp SHRINKAGE [VIDEO]
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Can they be used in freshwater?
Absoultely!
It isn’t true that the color doesn’t get affected. You’ll notice that the white gulp products come in a clear gulp juice. If you place the white gulp products into the brown gulp juice, they get tinted brown and lose some of their brightness.
Yes the color of the gulp liquid will give the lighter colored products a slight brownish tint. However the colors from each individual lure won’t bleed into each other when mixed in the same container.
Hooking the bait / artificial bait hasn’t been so much of an issue for me. My challenge particularly with the artificial is the retrieve on how to make it look real and I understand how fast or slow to retrieve depending on the time of year and water temps and such. I’ve seen underwater videos to show how real they look but unless I just missed the videos I haven’t seen anything that really discusses how to actually retrieve. Tired of using way too much live bait . Help?
I want to know if you can use them on a popping cork and still catch as much fish as the gulp shrimp on a popping cork because the swimming mullet is cheaper for the quantity that you get.
I fish this plastic a lot for trout, redfish and mackerel. Many times pin fish and puffers take the tail and I have found that the trout will continue to just bite on the body section. When the body section is small I keep it in the Gulp liquid and then use it on my hook, just like you would shrimp, when using a popin bobber. I like it better than shrimp because it is not as fragile as shrimp.
You can, however, they will be more vulnerable to being torn up. They sit longer on a popping cork which gives the pinfish and puffers more time to destroy them. The gulp shrimp tends to hold up better to pinfish.
Tony, great tip. Do you thing the tail on this lure works the same as a paddle tail in dirty water? Does it draw fish by noise same as a paddle tail? Thanks, Ron
Thanks Ron!
The paddletail lures definitely have more vibration. So if the fish are a bit finicky and not responding to a paddletail I will switch over to this swimming mullet. If they still don’t respond, I’ll change to something with very little action such as the gulp shrimp of jerk shad.
Capt. Tony, Great! I have used these before, and had some good success. But you had a complete discussion. Thank you, Tom Watts, Naples
No problem Tom and thank you for the great feedback!
Tony, I tend to have the same issue with this bait as with the shrimp — the pinfish love to bite off the end of the tail. So in grass flats I tend to avoid using them unless I have jig heads with mono weed guard. In mangroves, they work great.
Yep the pinfish and pufferfish will definitely tear these up. I mainly use them with a steady retrieve when the fish are more active and avoid long pauses. That pause is typically when the pinfish and puffers get at it, which is why the gulp shrimp and jerk shads tend to get destroyed fairly quickly.
Good point about the retrieve. So here’s a question — If pinfish are regularly following the swimming mullet, will a sea trout attack the mullet or the pinfish? And if the pinfish are constantly bothering the mullet, does that mean that sea trout are not around and one should move on?
It will definitely draw the attention of a nearby gamefish if the smaller baitfish are following it. Fish naturally go after the weaker bait, so if the pinfish scatter and all is left is your slow moving/twitching lure, theres a good chance the fish will go after it.
I have found when using the 4″ swimming minnow the trout will continue to hit on just the body section.
Thanks Frank.
Does the juice go bad? I had some old ones where the juice turned brown.
Hey Mark,
I do believe the juice has a shelf life of 3 to 5 years from what I have read, but it’s not really set in stone. Other factors can speed up that process, such as constant exposure to heat and sunlight.
If it turns brown, it would be wise to just replace the liquid with some fresh juice. Drain out whatever is in your container and then pour some Gulp Alive Recharge in.
Heya Tony, what I do to alleviate the tail catching the hook is simply turn the bait so the tail “hooks” away from the hook. (down) this hasn’t seemed to affect my bite rate in the slightest, but has eliminated the problem you discussed about the tail catching on the hook point.
Screamin’ drags sir!
Very interesting I’ll have to give that a try. Thanks for the tip!
Work great off the beach for flounder.
Yep flounder love these baits, as well as the gulp shrimp and jerk shad.
There are some really good YouTube videos by John Skinner on fishing for flounder with GULP curly tails. He did a really nice job with them.
I’ve used them for awhile here in Texas for flounders an have had very good luck with them.