Popper and Topwater Fishing - Aitutaki Popper Fishing report

Got back last week from a holiday in Aitutaki. I had hoped to get the opportunity to have a crack at catching a GT on a popper while over there.

Before leaving I spent a bit of coin and purchased a 3 piece travel rod, a larger spool for my 8000pg jigging reel (not quite the optimum retrieve for popper fishing but adequate for the task), 65 pd braid, 130 lb leader, a range of poppers, split ring pliers, some owner st66 trebles (I crushed the barbs) and some owner split rings.

I spent a few evenings having some practice casts on the farm and managed to successfully attach myself to plenty of thistle and gorse bushes (must get the missus out with the chipper to sort them out at some stage).

Trip#1 was an early morning trip on Black Pearl where we headed out to the south west FAD and deployed soft baits and live baits and landed a good feed of yellow fin tuna.

We then headed into the southern side of the reef where I cast a halco rooster tail 195 popper at the reef, we had no joy here but we had to take evasive action a few times to avoid the swell. We then relocated around to the south eastern side of the reef where I cast a zest pencil popper at the reef, (this lure cast further than the halco but did not make as much commotion), no joy here either. We moved offshore and dragged some lures amongst a fast moving work up of birds and landed 3 skipjack tuna. We then headed back and I cast a river to sea dumbbell popper along some gutters near the main channel to the harbour. I had follow and then on the last cast of the day I had a good solid hook up on the edge of the main channel. I lost this fish and we assume the braid broke on contact with some of the coral.

Trip#2 was an afternoon trip on Black Pearl with the plan to head out to the north west FAD to try and catch mahimahi (which had been on the bite here in the morning) and then to head along the west coast which is the prime GT location. The mahimahi were no longer on the chew but we hooked up to a reasonable yellow fin which took close to 2 hours to get to the boat (15 kg gear, small 1/0 live bait hook and light fluorocarbon trace). This fish estimated in excess of 30 kg was lost at the boat when the hook pulled. After dragging lures amongst some bird workups and landing a skipjack tuna we headed to the northern side of the reef where I hooked up to a GT and lost it and my 2^nd river to sea dumbbell popper. I cast another popper in the gutters near the main channel on the way back for no further action.

Trip#3 was an evening trip on Foxy Lady. We started at the northern side of the reef and worked our way along the western side of the reef. I had another 6-7 hook ups and lost another 4-5 lures along this stretch of reef. I hooked up and landed a needle fish and finally managed to land a couple of smaller GTs near the end of the trip.