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Well, the stickbaits work in the tropics alright..

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Well, the stickbaits work in the tropics alright..
    Posted: 18 Jun 2011 at 10:38pm
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Titanium
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No doubt about it from me now. Always preferred poppers,, but it cannot be denied the various stickbaits I tried up there in the sollies thee last few weeks certainly got nailed....










Great trip, way more pics, but just don't have time to put them all up on here right now! :-)
Now... name the species pictured folks! :-)
and.... the lures too!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote snapazapa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Jun 2011 at 8:01am
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Great pics there Capt A,beautiful colours on the trevally with the blue fins,is that a coral trout in the middle,the red fish?
Live life to the fullest...
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote long john Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Jun 2011 at 8:29am
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red bass
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Fissure Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Jun 2011 at 9:22am
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out there doing it CA, nice one!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Jun 2011 at 9:24am
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Yup, Red Bass aka Malobar Snapper apparently. HAd a pile of fun on a lighter spinset as well, flicking around smaller poppers around the bommies and reefs inside the lagoons. Firstly, being just a smaller reel and lighter rod, it was way more challenging to keep the fish out of the coral, and it was just so much easier for my raddled old muscles to use than the full popper sets.
Here are a few of the fish we got on the light set.... heavy on the red bass this time, haven't caught so many in one trip for a very long time!

this is a crap pic, but the fish itself was by far the biggest RB I got all trip...weighed in at 7.4kg! These are VERY solid fish!
This bopper came along about ten casts later, about 500m away, and was just on half the size of the top fish. Ya see? It is all in the way you hold the fish for the camera, eh! :-)

smaller bluefin are pretty much everywhere around reefs in clean water. Great fun fish!

That is one of the most prolific coral trouts in the sollies, the Passionfruit or Squaretail coral trout. They tend to hand out in shallower reef/bommies I have found, you get them a lot on the poppers.



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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote photog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Jun 2011 at 9:58am
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Nice selection of species there Cap't A. THe Blue fins are pretty fish they are great on fly as well.
If I'm not taking photos I'm fishing. If I'm not fishing I'm taking photos, either way I'm having fun.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Espresso Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Jun 2011 at 10:08am
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Nice looking fishes alright.

Does the island version of our trevs taste good?
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Jun 2011 at 11:33am
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They eat everything up there :-) But yes, they are particularly fond of the bluefin. GT...well, OK. The golden/gold spots they reckon are quite oily, but still, it feeds the kids.
Bluefin is the top choice of the trevs there for sure though. You want ot curry favour with someone, give 'em a bluefin! :-)
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote fish i Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 Jun 2011 at 6:46pm
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Yip it looks like troppy trevs eat anything. I'd love to play with those blue trevs in the lagoons on light gear.
6th place in the inaugural Te Kauwhata Regionals paddle crab division
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote harry mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jun 2011 at 8:35pm
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monster bluefin trev in pic 7!!!!!!!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote PoppinTonga Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 2011 at 7:39am
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Looks like it was a great trip.  Took me a while to put stickbaits in the water also.  Though that poppers were the only way to go.  I do admit that the stickbaits are still pretty much reserved for when the old muscles start to wear down.

Love the light gear stuff, nothing more fun that Bluefin in the shallows.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 2011 at 10:25am
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Try the sticks mate. I was dubious, love the yo-zuri surface bulls eh, but I determined to give the sticks a fair crack this time around.
In the sollies it seems you only ever get one shot at a popper out of any bait-ball or where-ever, once the fish have had a crack at a lure, or there is much splashing in the water, they bugger off.  So it is, it seems to me, that really any bait school is only good for 2-3 casts with a popper before you move on.
With the sticks it was quite different. The fish seemed not to be as alarmed by the disturbance that the pppers usually make, and i would get 2 or 3 shots at fish where normally i would only get the one.
One issue i did have however was that it was not as much fun visually, as you could not see whare the lures were easily. That is why i really liked using the hot pink lures... then you could at east see just where the lure was a little easier, how far you'd retrieved it so that you could haul it back in when it got too far from the prime strike zone.
Reelappeallures, if you are reading this, perhaps you could put a flash of a fluro colour on the top of your stickbaits so that (in clear water at least) you can see just where the lure is at. Makes it a lot more interesting, kinda like the difference between flyfishing a river mouth at night, or sightfishing with nymphs or dry flies to trout holding in a pool..... both are fishing, both are fun, but one is a lot more fun than the other, if you see what I mean.
Anyhow, poppin'Tonga... give the sticks a go mate, I was pleasantly surprised at just how effective they were.

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote tobez Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 2011 at 8:23pm
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nice trip capt - excellent fun
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote PoppinTonga Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jun 2011 at 10:17am
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I must have mis-typed, I have used stickbaits for quite some time now.  Just took me a long time to give them a try.  I made the decision one day to use nothing else for a while.  I have not found that one is better than the other, except for on the arms of course.  I am going to give them a shot first thing the next time I run into a bait school and see if I can reproduce what you saw about the number of fish coming out of the bait ball.  There are not a lot of places in Tonga where bait congregates on a regular basis.  I can see how the noise of a popper may disrupt something (not sure what) in a bait school.  It does sound like a fun experiment.  Any excuse to go for a fish is a good one!  We do a lot of blind casting over the surfline and it is my feeling that the noise attracts more fish.  That assumption could be related to the fact that if a GT misses the popper completely it is usually still visible that an attempt was made.  If the fish does not touch a stick, I may not even know it was there.  Goes right to the visual fun you talked about.  That missed visible strike can keep me going when I am ready to quit.  

I noticed you had the R2S Rover, that is one lure I did not like at first, had a hard time figuring it out.  But once I increased my retrieve rate, it became one of the most successful lures I had until I lost it.  The Wideglide is one that was recently brought by a guest of mine.  I am really impressed with that lure.  I have not used the one he left me much yet, but he was quite successful with them during his trip.  Which ones did you like the best?  It is hard to beat the cost of the R2S lures.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Capt Asparagus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jun 2011 at 10:58am
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Personally I liked the doggies most, I was reluctant to start with the rover as it just didn't speak to me eh, but when I DID try it.... instant success. I use a moderate retrieve with that, and it zig-zags thru the water very nicely, I reckon it is kinda a cross between a popper and a stick bait.
The doggies I use slow, with short slow sweeps of the rodtip. Makes the lure flutter and flash away about  foot down, certainly they all got hammered.
The wideglide...well, that is trickier, as the colours are such you cannot easily see just exactly what action they really have at range and different speeds/retrieves. Certainly got enough fish with them to prove their effectiveness though.
These are the sorts of baitschools we get in the sollies a lot.... you find little patches of baitfish scattered all along the reef edges. They are not permanent features, but you do find them in areas where current flows off the reef or out of the lagoons usually.

Those were garfish, but often there are all sorts of other baitfish as well, fusiliers and mackerel type fish often.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote mole Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jun 2011 at 3:29pm
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that looks heaps Sh&t, will have to have words w the banker
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