Hi Jon
What lures do you think I should take? Have some smaller craftbait stickbaits, baby runbohs, will get some smith metal casting lures, do you reckon some pencil poppers as well? Usually just use raider type slices..
Have you had any experience of Zenaq rods?
Cheers for your help
Hi Dave ,
When tuna popping , one needs to match the lure to the bait they are eating and needless to say , sometimes even cow tunas eat very small baitfish , much smaller than any of the lures in the market .
In happened once to me , we were practically surrounded by YFTs eating baby rabbit fish not bigger than my thumb which were taking refuge under our boat , we cast every lures we have onboard and none got even a look at , we did foul hooked a few with Rapala CD but would soon torn off . I was at a loss of wits till I found a small freshwater spoon left over from my trip to the river/reservoir , changed the treble to a stronger one and needlessly to say I could not cast too far with such a light lure with my TN87 but we got fish after fish from each cast , everyone onboard took turns to boat the fish that day from one single outfit and in total we caught some 20+ YFTs weighing 15~25 kg speciments , wud have been more but we lost that spoon after the leader parted .
Pencil popper is the PREFERRED lure for tuna , chugger works but take too long to retrieve when the boat must move fast to chase the moving school , stickbait will work but won't be as good to cast as pencil popper . When targetting YFTs , bring pencil poppers weighhing 40 ~ 80 gr. .
As for Zenaq rod , yes I have tried belonging to a friend of mine . My advise is : before you buy one , try other brands and compare , many have this opinion : " the tip vibration is excessive " when being cast which reduce casting distance . As for Carpenter , they are expensive but when you want to sell your Carpenter rod , the resale value is still high and there are ready market , try that with Zenaq .
Jon .
