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Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) => Reports & Expeditions => Topic started by: Tom Grubb on October 18, 2009, 08:45:52 PM
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Myself and my keen popping mad fishing buddys meet at 4.30am fri to head out to a few local reefs in search of that big one. contitions were better than perfect, didnt see a wind line till 5pm when we headed home. The fishing started off abit slow as the sun was only just cracking the horizon when we got to our first location, we managed to land afew macks with the stick baits and some 6-10kg GTs, we moved on from that location as the bait wasnt in large numbers, Next two locations were similar as the bait wasnt thick or being worked. Pete managed to have a cracker of a hit off the top of the reef from a large trout, hooked up for a short time till it managed to free its self(fin fish closure we say)
pulled up at location 3 where the bait schools were thick in numbers, we were casting cubera 150, GT mania 130, orion stick baits, and skipjack 150. our poppers didnt get a look at the first few bait schools till we hit the other side of the reef, cast after cast we had hook ups and striks landing fish between 6-20kg, had one GT come out of the water 4-5 times hitting the cubera with no hook up(till next time), plenty of great action. had a tripple hook up at one stage and plenty of double hook ups. pulled a beautiful blue fin gt, amazing colours. while the lads were landing a fish i saw a bait school pop right up behind the boat, grabbed my new xzoga PE10 rigged with a stella 18k and weapon of distruction was a skipjack 150. cast, splash, bail arm down, first pop(AKA turkey slapped the skipjack) BOOF, fish on. i knew this fish wasnt any 6-20kg like the rest we had been catching that day. He had afew hard runs till i started getting some line back on him. I finally got to experience what a mid-large GT felt like, hands down to you blokes landing 50kg+. got the fish onboard after a good tough fight, PB fish for myself. the beast was released and swam away to grow bigger. didnt have any scales on board as i would have liked to weigh him, any ideas to what this fish may have come in at?
we had singles and trebles on our poppers/stickbaits but found the trebles with a skipbait had better success rate on the day. I couldnt have been happier with the xzoga rod on its first trip, light weight, easy to cast and loads up great. Value for money i say coming in just over $600. finds the big ones too ;-)
After afew more location moves, alot more action with GT's, Macks and the one other 20kg+ fish saw us heading back for the port of Townsville. Great day fishing.
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Sweet ;D
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Awesome work, sounds like a great trip...Bluefin Trev is still on the wish list, they're a great looking fish.
That's a cracker Gt, congrats - got a massive boof head on it doesn't it! Always hard guessing weights from photos - more than 30 less than 35kg?
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very nice.
i wish i got a GT like yours on my first ever GT Popping trip but unfortunately it did not happen.
hopefully next time i will get some good ones which will hopefully be with in the next 11 month's though i unfortunately have quite some time to wait but it should be well worth it.
Tom if it is ok of me asking you,
what was your Xzoga like to cast with and to pop with?
were you happy or very happy in regards to the way of how it handled the GT on the bottom 2 photo's?
my guess would be 30-40kg.
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Tom, you lucky bugger, you got the bigger fish that I. how good are those Xzoga's. I'm getting them in stock soon. I used Danny's n Thursday and was very impressed. mind you i am still happy with the performance from my Wilson Texalium.
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Hey again Tom
thats a stonker, really nice fish mate ;)
lets hope for more weather like that in early November on the full moon !!
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sam, Any trip is worth a wait, have been popping for about a year now had afew between 20-25kg but this is my pb.
I have popped with a number of rods including Carpenters, the xzoga is on par with the top brands for me, one difference-price, i was VERY happy with the new rod, no kick back through the rod as your launching your popper, it has a real nice tip and you can work the popper with ease yet still get a great action, its not too hard or too soft, great for both working poppers and stickbaits. As for landing the fish, i found the rod loaded up well as i wound up the drag, didnt have any trouble getting this fish in at all. I woke up the next day not as sore as i normally would be. its working for me.
Jarrod, i told rob he wouldnt find bigger fish without me on the boat :-) next time. you guys had a top day i see.
John, a trip down you way is on the cards for myself. explore more of the area around these parts. already praying for the weather.
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hey Tom check out Dingo reef on the map ;)
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HEY I LET YOU HAVE THAT CAST,SO YOU OWE MM A RUM .I GOT BIG ONE TOO
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Mate thats a thumper,good work on landing it on the new rod... ;D
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great stuff! glad somebody took advantage of the great weather last week....
a little off the wall, but are you the same Tom Grubb from townsville who kiteboarded and was linked to Its Extreme there some years back?
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come on now pete, we all know i offered to let you cast at that bait school, i even had to get my rod out of the holders to cast cause no one else would ;-)
hey andrew, yeah mate thats me, given the kiteboarding up now tho.
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Hey Tom pete still sounds like he from the Burdekin having a whinge about you catching the biggest fish ;D :P
and he telling us he got a big one too :o bit rude :)
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come on now pete, we all know i offered to let you cast at that bait school, i even had to get my rod out of the holders to cast cause no one else would ;-)
hey andrew, yeah mate thats me, given the kiteboarding up now tho.
ha its a small world...my brother and i ran (he still does) wipika australia, being from cairns we knew roy and bruce well.
i moved back to cairns last year, am still an avid kiteboarder (best of both worlds, fish when its flat, kite when its windy!)
again, great report, i'm looking forward to the day i get out off here
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haha yes john, pete grew up in the burdekin and it hasnt left him ;) always some good old competition in the boat :D. .
gee yes it is a small world andrew, your name rings a bell now. may have to meet up for a fish one day.
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no worries...hopefully i'll nail my first GT this summer, have gear just need a bigger boat to get out there on a regular basis
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this what happens when the boy take piss out of you when you trying to hold the fish for a picture,hey grubby
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I think the GT has a better smile :-)
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Great fish mate, well done. Some good photos there too.
Scott.
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I couldnt have been happier with the xzoga rod on its first trip, light weight, easy to cast and loads up great. Value for money i say coming in just over $600.
Hi,
I don't mean to take anything away from a good report, but this is one of the few times I have heard someone describe an Xzoga as a light-weight rod and furthermore, value for money (at $600). Of course, the comparison with Carpenter made me go wow too! :o ;D
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Hey Tom, interested in having a look at one of these rods(I thought that they only made jigging sticks), can you give me a model number?? I can't seem to find anything on the xzoga website apart from pe5/6 popping rods. Also, I can't seem to find anything Japanese about the rods apart from the components, all the field testers photos on the site are all Rompin sailfish skippers ??? ??? ???
Kasey, I agree with you, from all the Xzoga's I've handled, theres no comparison with a Carpenter!! Although with a high Aussie $$ makes buying from Malaysia very cheap! Hope the monsoon goes away early in Feb, and we can finally go for a fish together! :D
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we have been testing the proto-type since dec last year. The xzoga PE10 has only been in country 2 weeks, may not be anything on their web site yet. The code is Pi7710. Tackle world stores should have them in stock soon, or are able to get them.
I myself have used carpenters and other rods, everyone is open to their own comment about products but until they use them it cant be an accurate opinion. Try the new xzoga PE10 if you get a chance. I myself rate it highly.
The xzoga PE10 weighs 440g, the PE8 carpenter (Super popping 79M) weights 410g, of course your heavier rated rod should weigh more. just weighed both on electronic scales. 3x20cent weight difference :-)
the weight difference in the rods is all in the top half(both pieces were weighed on both rods), the xzoga has a thicker rod blank but xzoga pride their rods on their tips, the tip action on the PE10 is softer than the carpenter, i find this easier when working poppers/stickbaits for myself. Yet this rod still loads up very well and works well in your favour when pulling in fish.
For myself i cant justify spending nearly double the money when something like the xzoga is on the market. Just my opinion.
Attached is afew photos of the rod, qaulity of photos is poor, sorry.
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Of course, and everyone definately is entitled to their own opinion.
There was nothing to agree or disagree with Sunny, I was merely stating that I had not heard such positive feedback before.
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I myself hadnt heard a great deal of info about these rods eather,it was 50/50 with positive and negative feedback. It was great to get a proto-type and test it out and be apart of the design of this rod, we actually cut some off the tip to make it stiffer as the tip was too soft to start with, the finished product came with a good tip :-).
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Hey Tom, I just Got those Xzoga's in stock, the PE 10 and 8 models, pretty neat sticks. I was greatly impressed when I used, Robs and Danny's so they no have a perminent seat on my poping wall in the shop.
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Nice fish, Tom and good to see Xzoga finally getting their GT offering onto the market.
With regard to the debate that is brewing, everyone is of course entitled to their opinion and are welcome (within reason) to express their opinion on the forum. We are, however, sensitive to posts which can be construed to be critical of equipment particularly in the cases of equipment failure where we have no context to the reason for the failure. We are also sensitive to posts whereby there may be a commercial interest in the product where an opinion is being expressed. In such a case, I think it would be appropriate to advise of the interest in the product.
As to the claim that Xzoga are now producing superior products to Carpenter, this is not the first post I have noticed in the recent past where a rod from another manufacturer is being claimed to be comparatively superior to a Carpenter. It is up to individual members as to whether they believe such claims are overly extravagant.
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Jarrod, they shouldnt even have time to collect dust :-)
Brandon, The claim about xzoga being on par with carpenter is a report based on people who have used this product that i know, and of course in the end the individual is the one who decides if the claim is overly extravagant or not. But until the product is used by this person a accurate claim can not be made from what they hear or read.
I wasnt having a go at anyone with my posts i was simply stating that everyone who 'hears' or 'reads' about a product wont have a correct opinion till they try it. I am only posting some facts/info and feedback on a product to help out others, seeing as there isnt much info on the market about these PE10 rods as they have only just been released.
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Hi Tom,
I hope you don't mind if I seeked a bit of clarification:
Brandon, The claim about xzoga being on par with carpenter is a report based on people who have used this product that i know, and of course in the end the individual is the one who decides if the claim is overly extravagant or not.
There seems to be some form of contradiction here.
It was also previously mentioned that this 'mid-large sized GT', was by your accounts, your first. It is then hardly fair to compare an Xzoga to a Carpenter - because, and surely you would agree, one really needs to fight a similar sized fish on both rods to compare them evenly (although I think to fully test out the maximum potential of the rod, you'd need to hook a fish that would give PE10 a real run for its money).
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Hi Tom,
How if Xzoga send me a demo rod to Jakarta, we can test it out in a couple of weeks time against the SP78H and SP78EXH on some (hopefully) solid Indo GT's.
We'll have some experienced GT anglers on board and we can do a fair comparison over 6 days of fishing !!!
How does that sound??
Cheers
Andy
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There seems to be some 'quotes' being posted here which i have never said, brandon-i have never stated that xzoga are producing 'superior' products to carpenter and kasey-i never said anything about this being my 'first', only my PB :-)
i do agree that to accuratly compare two rods LOADED you need to use both on similar size fish, my report also covers casting and working lures with the rods. The reason we use PE10 is because we are chasing that one that will give it a run for its money :-) Like i have said before and will time and time again my info/facts/report what ever you call it is based on info that i have gathered from my own experiences. I am yet to go on an overseas charter trip chasing large GT's(bring on the big ones i say, would love to get a chance at it), i go out when ever the weather lets me casting hundreds and hundreds of times, producing plenty of fish between 6-25kg mainly. i have had to work hard to find my PB fish, would love to go somewhere easier to catch my next PB. i am not one of these 'keyboard casters'. I enjoy my fishing and like sharing things on this forum to hopefully help out others. I havnt bagged out any other brands only said the xzoga is on par with a carpenter based on my experiences. Dont get me wrong the history and development in the carpenters is great-i love fishing with the rods as well.
Andy- i myself would love to hand you a demo rod to test out. You would have to contact xzoga for that one. I am just your everyday fisherman who got a chance to lend a hand in the development of this rod and then purchased one.
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Thanks for the clarification Tom,
As I said, sorry to deviate from a great catch report. Those are unreal conditions.
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I acknowledge my error - your comment was the rod was on par, not superior.
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Hi Tom,
How if Xzoga send me a demo rod to Jakarta, we can test it out in a couple of weeks time against the SP78H and SP78EXH on some (hopefully) solid Indo GT's.
We'll have some experienced GT anglers on board and we can do a fair comparison over 6 days of fishing !!!
How does that sound??
Cheers
Andy
Should the Xzoga's be as scared as the Kaibutsu's currently are around your mates? ;)
[/quote]
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Hi Tom,
How if Xzoga send me a demo rod to Jakarta, we can test it out in a couple of weeks time against the SP78H and SP78EXH on some (hopefully) solid Indo GT's.
We'll have some experienced GT anglers on board and we can do a fair comparison over 6 days of fishing !!!
How does that sound??
Cheers
Andy
Should the Xzoga's be as scared as the Kaibutsu's currently are around your mates? ;)
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Luke, I don't know anything about kaibatsu's.... :D
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Hey Tom
Was in tackle world last night and had a look at the new Xzoga pe 10 rod nice looking bit
of gear it is mate, and i can see why you like it with the tip being shortened as it is a nicely balanced rod
one question though what rod angle was the max drag rating tested at ?
Cheers John
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john- the proto-type got the tip cut off it because everyone found it too soft. The on shelf model should be same length as what the proto started off at, but have similar tip to what they cut the proto down too. as for the angle of the rod with relation to drag i couldnt tell you. Id ask rob next time your talking to him. when is your next trip planned?
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Hi Tom
Ok i will check with rob, mate i am watching the weather hoping wed-thurs might be an opportunity
to sneak out the reef and do an overnighter with scott who is also a member on this forum
visiting from Sydney, looking at the map though its about even money as to which way the weather
will go for us :-\
john
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yeah i see its dropping wed-thu. i hope it drops for you guys. id love to get out but my mon-fri job doesnt alow it every second week :-) look forward to your report.
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Hi Tom
Ok i will check with rob, mate i am watching the weather hoping wed-thurs might be an opportunity
to sneak out the reef and do an overnighter with scott who is also a member on this forum
visiting from Sydney, looking at the map though its about even money as to which way the weather
will go for us :-\
john
Good luck boys