Popping for Rompin sails

[Patrick Cooper]

Hey all.. not really sure which category to post this in but some of you might find it of interest..

I just got back from 4 days fishing Rompin in Malaysia.. The sails were very shy the first few days, only following the popper back to the boat before turning their nose up at it. On the 4th day they were in feed mode and on the 3rd strike of the day i finally managed to land one on a popper..



Not the biggest of the trip but by far my highlight.. including the sails which were caught on bait we landed 19 over the 4 days.

The popper that finally did the damage was a mini gecko with a single 7/0 SJ-38 rigged on assist cord off the tail.

[Chuen Fan]

Nice one mate, they are real bastards to get a solid hook up! You've done well as I've heard that they have had a really lean season this year. Not much beats seeing a pack of sails lit up, some getting airborne trying to eat a surface offering.

[Anthony Dillon]

Hi Patrick,
great post to start and Chuen I hear you man and until you've tried it its hard to gauge just how hard it is to set the hook. On the other hand when you have that bill following and swatting your popper right to the edge of the boat, you lift it out and watch in horror as 5 sails pass under your feet all lit up words escape one. The other thing that I struggled with was waiting till they had picked it up and turned away or downwards as the natural tendency when you see it grab the lure is to strike. I was given some advice after I struggled the first few trips I made to Rompin and that was to set the hook 9  times if you can. even then I have had poppers come flying back over my head.

I was shown to use 2 single hooks #8  joined together which have a much better hook up chance. I have also seen hooks straightened whilst fighting a sail - from memory it was Kei Hiramatsu. He makes a range of lures by hand called shell shaping and he kindly  gave me a lure that worked really well in Rompin aptly names the Rompin. Slender profile enabling ease of pickup in the bill.

It is great fun and works well to bring the sails into the live bait as well. I fished my 2 young sons this year for 2 days and there was the usual huge volume of sails around. However bait was easy to catch which usually translates into sails do not feed or are feeding on tiny fry but are visible everywhere. I landed 1 popping and my boys caught 7 on live bait - for a 9 and 11 year old that is no easy feat. I will try and post a picture a bit later.

There is a Captain that taught me a lot about popping for sails called Ah Pao - he is also one of the top captains there and the only one I use after having made 15+ trips there to fish sails. Did you get any bye catch ? last trip got a nice Spanish and in the past have caught big Gar

[Chuen Fan]

Those gars don't have teeth do they?? Shitloads of long toms there that get very annoying when they start snipping your leaders off!

You should give Pekan a go next time, much better variety and overall better fishing in my opinion. It's only a short drive from Rompin and is excellent for the light tackle jigging for coral trout, diamond trev, golden trevs and pennant fish, and you are also in with the chance of some small GTs there as well!

[Patrick Cooper]

Hey Chuen - yeah they are tough to get on the hook! Our guide said the Gar's at rompin are actually long tom.. we caught 3 or 4 i guess.. they become a bit of a pest killing the livies.. I'll look into pekan next time.. this trip was purely about the sails!

Hey Anthony - Thanks.. i know the feeling, quite a few times my heart sank as i'd spot 3 sails trailing the lure just when it reached the boat, on the positive side the live baits would usually go off as soon as this happened! Yeah waiting for them to turn before striking is difficult and easy to strike too early or wait too long.. Its also quite stressful watching the sail jump and seeing your popper flying around just hoping it doesn't shake it!

I'd read a lot about the twin hooks, and  had a few of my poppers rigged baker style with 8/0 aki's but my guide said he has a better hook up rate with the assist rigged hooks so i switched them. I guess everyone has their own preference.

Yeah got it in one Anthony, on the days we had no problem catching bait you would see a lot of sails but the fish were a lot fussier but when we had a difficulty catching bait the sails we much more responsive!

Great work on getting the kids involved!

We went with Bluesails, mike is a great guide. Apart from the gars we caught a bonito on the bait jig and a few spanish macks trolling, i had one leap out of the water and onto my popper.. left some nasty marks but didnt hookup..on one day there were heaps of mack's leaping 12-14 ft out of the water around the boat very impressive sight! the next day at that spot we counted 7 trawlers.. which is a shame.

[Matt Kilpatrick]

Great work Patrick. I don’t have much advice to offer but thought I would share my recent sailfish experience. A week and a half ago I fished with two mates from the Surfers Paradise Game and Sports Fishing Club for sails off Mooloolaba, Qld. It was a perfect day before the bad weather came through and we had a hot bite early in the morning on slow trolled live baits. Each of us having landed a sail, including my first, I then spent time blind casting stickbaits from the nose of the boat at various times during the rest of the day, unfortunately without a strike. We did spot on free swimmer, but with a bit of breeze in the afternoon conditions weren’t great for sight casting.

I was using a HOTS GIPANG Tide Lez 72M and a Stella SLT10000SW with 50 lb Tuf Line to cast a sinking Baby Runboh and Nomad Dogtooth 60, each rigged with a single on the belly and a Shout Power Assist 5/0 on the tail.

[Patrick Cooper]

Good stuff matt! i tried with a runboh and a few other stickbaits but i think the noise and bubble trail from the poppers gave me a bit more confidence getting the sails attention over a larger area when blind casting.. i think stickbaits would work well for sight casting or if the sails arent finning, casting into baitballs. Great photos.. They are such a awesome looking fish.

[Nathan Cefai]

Great work....Something i wish to get oneday on popper..A mate of mine got one in Rompin 2 weeks ago on a maria pop Queen...

[Patrick Cooper]

I can highly recommend it.. Its great fun and the large number of sails there gives you the best shot at landing one on a popper.. as a bonus its a relatively inexpensive exercise to fish at Rompin..