Jul 19, 2010

GT Popping 2010 Season Summary

"Mine's bigger than yours "

Its been a tough season weather-wise, the worst I can recall in 8 years of gamefishing around Kadavu Island waters. January was great but the next 4 months were a mixture of cyclones, big swells and out of season tradewinds. Not what you need when you are trying to park a 7 ton gamefishing boat 30 yards from the outer barrier reef breakers... Even so, we managed a lot of nice GTs nudging 100lbs and a fair few doggies aboard Bite Me and Tease Me, the best of which were around 65kg.

Here are the Top Ten GTs on poppers this season (at least the ones I got a half decent photo of)
Not in any particular order....
Congrats guys, you popped hard and saw the best fish.

Tri (Australia)
Tim (Australia)

Scott (Australia)

Margaret (England)

Jin (Brazil)

Dave (Australia)

Dave (Australia)

Dan (Oz / South Africa)

Christian (France)

Bruno (France)

Brendan (Australia)


As for the hot poppers this season, the popper that accounted for the most fish was the Cubera. 150 or 180, they are relatively easy to work, pop well in all conditions and proved themselves over and over again.
Also fishing well were the usual top suspects - the FCL Labo EBIPOP, the Craftbait Megamouth, the Hammer Heads, the Halco Haymakers and the River 2 Sea Dumbell 200 poppers.
Full Scale was a newcomer this year with some Australian anglers and proved very tough and effective.
Buffalo lures were on test on Bite Me. Some early models had paintwork issues and have been changed but all proved themselves tough enough for the GTs here and have caught many fish. Not had one single failure.

Cubera 150 The all round winner

The Craftbait Megamouth in this clown triggerfish colour was deadly

Buffalo Lures on test - Very effective and good value for money

FCL Labo EBI POP

Newcomer Full Scale was very effective

River 2 Sea Dumbell Cheap but very effective

Funkey Hammerhead

FCL Panic Trout, pretty damn good actually....

Whackiest Newcomer ?

This Patriot Fizzer

Best Stickbait ?

The Orion Bigfoot



Most unusual catch ?
A Diamond Trevally (Alectis indicus) caught on a Buffalo popper

Ashley (USA)

Last Popping Week of the Season

Some pics of the last popping & jigging week of the Fiji summer season. These guys came all the way from Italy organised by an Italian specialist fishing agency - Fishmania Travel
Vincenzo Caccico from Fishmania takes specialist anglers to some of the best remote popping and jigging spots around the world. You can see his blog here.
One of the anglers, Antonello, came last year but this time nailed his personal Best GT over 40kg.
We jigged the seamount but the big doggies were absent so the guys had some fun popping for wahoo that schooled all around Bite Me.




A small GT in black spawning colouration

Blackfin Barracuda with an apetite bigger than its mouth

Vincenzo contemplates a big Great Barracuda and how much damage it's done to his Craftbait popper !


Popping for wahoo on the seamount

One of several wahoo taken on poppers

Some nice Grouper on the jigs


A very unusual catch - a Coronet Fish

Rosy Jobfish

Anto knocks off another mid-sized GT


Jul 16, 2010

GT Popping in Fiji

Nice fish from BIll!

JDM Tackle

JDM Tackle
USAs top GT Popping & Jigging tackle specialists