GT Popping

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)

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

GT Popping in Fiji
Originally uploaded by Matava - Fiji's Premier Eco Adventure Resort

Nice fish from BIll!

Jun 8, 2010

Hats the way to Popper in Style

There have been a great many technological advances in popper casting and jigging fishing gear in the past few years. Nowadays a popping and jigging expedition with a few mates to some far flung tropical destination requires more than a few Stellas on Hots Gipangs and a bag full of expensive lures that would qualify for a wall space in a museum of modern art.
The sun. Nice though it is to bask in its warming rays, the damn things can kill you. Pretty much everybody knows now about the sun's harmfull UVB radiation that at best will cook you to wrinkled bronze colour and at worst, can cause malignant melanoma that if not caught quickly will absolutely terminate your fishing activities and probably you.
Fortunately a range of products are now available to keep anglers popping like Englishmen in the mid-day sun.
Here are some examples seen recently aboard Bite Me :

The good old original Baseball cap and PFG / Colombia spf shirt

The Panama Look

Masau displays the traditional Fijian T-Shirt on the head trick

The just cover everything and try not to die from heat exhaustion option

The wouldn't be seen dead in that (good job it covers my face) accessory

and last but not least, the I don't give a stuff, I'm on holiday look

I just had a solar keratosis burnt off my nose by a doc wielding a 20,000v zapper thingy. (that's a technical term by the way). The sun needs to be taken seriously.
If you can see the sky.......you are getting a dose of UV radiation.

May 28, 2010

This Week's Tally

The GT bite has been a bit quiet this past week. Bill and Marc visiting from Australia had to work hard for their fish. Not quite sure why, perhaps the run up to the full moon yesterday had something to do with it although most people think that's a good time to popper !
The fish were there... they just demanded a bit of extra effort from anglers.
Thanks for the pics guys !

Bill with his new Personal Best GT of around 30kg

Small doggies on jigs

Fair few Yellowfin around but mostly schoolies

The ever present Red Bass are always a bit of fun

Marc aboard Tease Me with a respectable GT taken on a Halco Haymaker

May 11, 2010

Latest Popping & Jigging Pics

Just before I zoomed off to the main island to haul-out and do my Marine Survey I had Brendan and Justin over from Australia for a few days popping and jigging. Both were new to the popping dark arts but they armed themselves with the right gear and put the effort in to get some nice fish.

Brendan brought one of the new FCL Panic Trout lures and tried it out on a spot we call 'Double Trouble'. On the third cast it got smashed by a very big mackerel. After a brief struggle the mackerel bit through the leader and we thought it and the lure were gone....luckily a minute later up poped the lure....smashed to pieces and with a big Owner Jobu hook snapped.... That was one BIG mackerel.