Cheap Poppers

[jay currie]

I have allot of Halco and River to Sea poppers in  all sizes i have caught a number of fish on them but nothing huge. I have a mate who got a 30kg gt on a river to sea dumbell so i know they work on bigger fish, I was just wondering if they would withstand big gts on a regular basis and do these more expensive poppers work better in the water.

Would using the cheaper lures cost you fish due to failures in the lure even after the usual upgrades have been done?

Should i leave the Halcos and River to Sea's at home and stock up on some nomad lures?

[Brandon Khoo]

The Halco and River2Sea poppers are proven fish catchers BUT their construction is not to the same standard as the wooden through-wired poppers. I ahve seen some very respectabel fish caught on these especially the big dumbbell but just about everyone here who has used the dunbbell for heavy popping has had one broken. They break quite easily at the neck section.

if you want tot arget big fish regularly, I'd suggest you stock up on some more solid through-wired wooden poppers. The Nomads are a good popper.

[Colin P]

This is a lot of subject Jay!

A number of the bigger, heavier, more expensive poppers (say 150g plus) do have bigger cups than smaller, lighter, less expensive poppers (say under 150g) so they do produce a bigger pop and they will work better in a big sea and, theoretically, they will attract fish from deeper water.

My mate Dave Sharples (a frequent contributor to the forum) insists on using big, heavy, very expensive poppers at least some of the time and believes that the fishing gods will one day reward his efforts with a monster GT. That said, he, I and our mate Terry Smith have caught more and bigger fish from The Musandam (to just under 40kg) on 130g GT Mania. Furthermore, the GT Mania has proved bullet proof against GT of that size and against occasional collisions with cliff faces. The same cannot be said of Dave's more expensive poppers.

The most important thing as far as I am concerned, is to use a set-up that you are comfortable and confident with. If you can handle casting big poppers and playing fish on a Komodo Dragon or Wild Violence type rod and if you believe the fishing conditions warrant that approach, go for it. If not, consider a lighter outfit.

If money is not an issue, I guess the right answer is to have several different popping rods and a really wide selection of poppers, within the bounds of what you can handle in terms of power. Unfortunately, for most of us, money, power or both may be issues!!

[Sachin Chaudhry]

Hi Jay.I buy $15 pencil poppers on the net that are through wired and change the wire to 316 stainless myself for $0.50. After that I add owners and am done for much less that all the name brand poppers. They work very well too. Little bit of work but you cannot argue the cost efficiency.

[Ben Rutkin]

Blue Halco Rooster popper is great for your standard GTs but you can ditch the split rings and jammy VMC trebles straight up.

I have put some singles on them, usually forged/tempered hooks like Owner Jobu so they don't straighten. They do need to be appropriately sized because they are heavy hooks.

I agree with the guys tho, if you are in known monster country, then chances are you are paying top dollar to be and you want to give yourself every chance to get them into the boat.