pencil poppers

[Mark Harris]

Andrew - personally I believe some anglers retrieve traditional type pencils too quickly. The retrieve only needs to be quick enough to get it skipping, no faster than that. It certainly should not be tiring .

A lot depends on the conditions of course. Ideally, I think pencils should be used only in the conditions for which they were intended - when there is lots of chop in the water making the use of chuggers and floating stickbaits difficult. In those conditions even a moderate paced retrieve will get a lure like Ocean Lady or Fisherman Long Pen skipping along nicely.

[James Wang]

U might be interested in this.
http://www.xpeditiontackles.com/product_details.php?category_id=49&item_id=457

[Matt Born]

when i was there we saw loads of flying fish so decided that pencils were to be the best bet. however, I only had a few adhek Penipens and one shell shaping pencil and my normal stick baits. Barry had a heru skipjack which worked very well! normally poppers are recomended, but we found anything wound across the surface worked.. even big gamma's simply retrieved quickly enticed a strike. I enjoyed the penipens, would surface surf, then intermittently dive. although 2 of them had the paint/finish torn off by the hooks....  the shell shaping pencil got distroyed.. in a good way! it was a favourite! luke had monsters come after his 250 gamma, which he was retrieving on the surface. ive heard of guys getting fish on the GT ice creams - which are easy to cast, easy to work - and quite a bit cheaper!

so whilst you may not have traditional pencils - stick baits can be as effective.

my 2 cents

[Barry Kurten]

Hi Marc,

As Matt mentioned, on our trip down to Southern Oman we had plenty success with Pencil poppers and Skipjacks.

We tended to find a trend in the way the fish bit, in the morning sessions the fish tended to favour pencils and Skipjacks, but thats not saying they would not bite on them at other times of the day, we just found them to work a bit better during this time.
Another thing that was noticed is that the fish tended to respond better to certain lures during the certain times of the day ie. when things went quiet the GT's tended to be more willing to smash a BIG stickbait worked on the surface and then there would be times were they would react better to a nice big chugger !

The nice part of the Skipjack is it casts well and allows you to cover alot of water with a good amount of action (hence it working better when the water was calm in the mornings). It is also relatively cheap compared to all the other Pencil type poppers. Its also easy to fish it out of the bucket.
I dont think the colour played too much role in the strikes, it was more the action across a larger area then anything else or at least i think so 

Ive attached a few pics of whats left of a Skipjack which my good mate Matt kindly donated to me after i had lost my last Skipjack

Tight lines

[Chris Young]

Here are some...the first one is the Aubrey Da Gama, and referred to as GT Ice Cream, as well as the teflon ones.

in the second pic, there is a skipjack, orion long tom, craftbait and patriot.

Andrew....probably just a typo but that "craftbait" pictured is actually a Full Scale Time Bomb 

[Brandon Khoo]

I'd also point out that the Aubrey de Gama is not the GT Ice Cream

[Marc Vandaele]

mark thanks, know what you mean and i am already turn of that way
james that's  what i was looking for but i think it's new by xpedtiontackle(i did not see it before)
chris thanks for the gear you build but i don't find the time bomb any more or the sidewinders...
heru's are good to find so i gone make them wet also the kattobi's
thanks

[Sachin Chaudhry]

Herus, Surface Bull and Timberwolfs. Lost count of how many have fallen to these. Deadly in the surf.

[Gary Krol]

Haven't seen you guys mention the large 100g yo-zuri surface cruiser, is it too small?  Has great action and casting, no longer made but still pretty easy to find a few

[George Pang]

Another vote for the crusty time bomb. Very tough lure, great slapping action - caught lots of fish before its retirement.

As much as Brandon will shake his head in disgust, the timberwolf is a deadly lure. Wont last long though, it will either get pinched or will be smashed to bits (not the toughest lure ever made )

[Brandon Khoo]

George retrieves a pencil popper faster than any man alive! 
He also has more success with a pencil than just about anyone I know with that horrible lure!!