Jigs and Poppers

Shannon Stocks from Shannon Outboards at Hornsby and I have been friends for over forty years. I used to take my first boat to him for servicing back in the late 1970s. That was the old Quintrex Fishfinder centre console with the wooden floor, and the factory 55HP Johnson outboard. Landed the biggest fish I’ve ever caught out of that little tinny – a 400 pound mako, which took five and a half hours fighting and another four hours to tow back to Crescent Head. Don’t watch this video if you don’t want to see a fish getting shot? It was legal, back then:

So when he asked if I wanted to come for a run last Saturday on his big beautiful Wellcraft, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. His son Harry and friend Westie were on board too. We quickly filled the live bait tank with yellowtail and headed for a long run off shore – to the same spot we’d had great success on my boat, the previous day:

Primary target was kingfish, with mahi around the trap floats being our fallback. Water was super hot at 27 degrees. Sounder showed kings under the boat, hassling bait schools:

The go at this spot is to take two rods. One, to set a live bait down deep. The second, rigged with a jig. The schools move around and, when they pass through, you drop down your jig. If the bite is hot you can be pretty confident of a hit either on the live yellowtail, or your jig. Shannon was first to hook up:

Harry got into the action:

Westie scored an absolute cracker:

Yes, it was a hot bite. We only kept two fish. I wish some of the other blokes out there could exercise a bit more restraint because the spot is getting hammered pretty hard.

The morning bite tapered off – as it always does. But not far south of where we were fishing we had marked a private FAD. We headed back in and found Steve in his beautiful BarCrusher Apache – who had caught a nice 90cm but left his ice back at the ramp. We had a bag to spare:

The hot currents are running late this year and have brought thousands – or maybe, millions – of mahi, to Sydney. A month or so ago these were all borderline legal. But being the fastest growing fish in the sea, and able to grow an inch or more in a week, the mahi are now 70-75cm. Not only are they swarming but they are well over legal length. If you use the right gear – for instance, your squid rod, with a popper or stick bait – you can have hours of fun fishing. And, bring back some delicious dinners. Here’s Harry, you can see the private FAD in the background:

There’s something special about topwater strikes! We all know that. So I tied on one of our little black poppers. A shameless copy of one I bought at the Cooktown Lure Shop maybe 25 years ago. The original was hand carved from a broom stick! I caught so many fish with the lure that eventually I retired it, knowing sooner or later I’d lose it to a fish. When we started the tackle business I sent it to a factory and had 200 made. It still works:

I’ve always believed black is the best colour for poppers because it gives maximum contrast to the bright sky, when fish look up from below:

Check them out here? They work on bass too. Four poppers for $50 delivered is a great deal:

4 POPPERS $50 INC DELIVERY

Back to the ramp with three blokes aboard having caught their PB kingfish and, a fish bag full of delicious mahi. Plus unforgettable memories of hard fights on the jigs and crazy topwater hits from hungry mahi. Such a great day out. Thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow

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