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Karl Danneberg

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How long is a piece of string ?
March 18, 2013, 09:20:00 PM
Hi Guys

I'm new to popping , I primarily do offshore fly-fishing for bill-fish and yellow-fin tuna. Occasionally I do trips where fly fishing doesn't run the show.

This April I'm going to Maldives with 3 other mates, non of them have fished for GT's. I have a fair amount of gear that will cover our basics for Jigging and Spinning/popping. The gear ranges from 1 oz to 7 oz and varying rod lengths and actions, they matched with stella 10000's , twin powers, seagates, Avets and on the lighter gear penn spinning reels. The lighter outfits have 50lb power pro or whiplash , the heavier outfits have 100lb whiplash, Tasline or power pro.

I do have one major issue though, I have no idea how many GT Ice creams , Poppers, stick baits and jerk baits I need to take along to cover 4 anglers for 10 days? I did a rough estimate and came up with 200 plugs. This should cover the vary rod sizes and loss rates.

Apart from the cost of purchasing ,  I cannot see how we can fit so many lures in our bags and still pack the other essentials.

Im hoping you guys can shed some light on this for me as I have no clue how many plugs one looses on average per day.

Thank you

Karl

Andre van Wyk

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Re: How long is a piece of string ?
March 19, 2013, 01:54:05 AM
Howzit Karl, welcome to GT Popping bru... always good to have another Saffa on here!

There is no quick answer to your question mate... and as you so rightly put it, its a bit of a "how long is a piece of string?" scenario...

But I can tell you this:

* Most of us take far too much tackle on a trip.... somewhere between 20% and 75% too much in my opinion
* No matter how much you take, you will always have too much of one thing, and not enough of what you really need... its a fact of life and a law of nature ( that doos Murphy at work as usual! )
* You need far less than you think, usually....
* Most of us fisherman, Poppers and Swoffas included, love tackle, and the collecting/hoarding/acquiring of it... and there are very few types of angling that have more cool gear, and desirable kit, than GTpopping.... so we always try justify our tackle addictions by taking as much as we can on our trips, because we've paid for it, the wife would kill us if we didn't at least attempt to use it!

So, while the above is probably useless trivia, the below might help.

Heavy Popping - If you are going with inexperienced/less experienced guys, this facet of angling will probably see less action as its alot more labour intensive ( casting heavy lures in the boiling sunshine is hard work )... While the rewards can be amazing, Maldives in general is a small to medium size GT fishery... that being said, there are big fish there, but for the most part you'll be dealing with fish in the 10 to 20 kilo region, which doesn't require very heavy tackle.... But you want the heavy stuff for when you do potentially run into some big buggers... but you probably don't need dozens of large lures for a trip like this... Between 4 of you, I would look at taking maybe 12 to 16 "Large" poppers/Stickbaits for the heavy gear...

Maldives requires alot of long distance casting, so your medium long casting outfits with lures in the 40 to 100gram range are gonna get the most action... this is a case of fishing anything from 30lb to 80lb braid set ups, and 40lb to 120lb leaders... this is where your GT Ice Creams and such come into their own.. relatively cheap, cast like rockets, can be fished fast over large areas of water, and they slay the fish... add some smaller stickbaits and poppers, and you set... So with 4 Anglers, I'd say you want at least 15 lures ( 3 different sizes, 5 of each )  in this range per person, so 60 lures total.

Add some jigs, some plastics and you are up around the 100 mark and you sorted...  8)

If you fish smart ( don't fish too light, rather go a little heavier than you normally would to prevent bust offs etc ) your loss rate should be minimal, and you should last the 10 days...

Hope that helps... unfortunately there is no set formula to go by, thats just my advice... \

It would be worth getting hold of Nick Bowles and chatting to him... Nick has run numerous charters round the Maldives, and is one of the most experienced guides and GT Fishos out there, so would be able to advise you accurately I reckon...


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Marc Inoue

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Re: How long is a piece of string ?
March 19, 2013, 07:20:39 AM
Hi Karl
I agree with what Andre said! I have been to the Maldives many times, in fact I just spend almost a montht there in January this year! You will encounter mostly small to medium sized Gts! This year we got a lot more strikes on poppers than on stickbaits! If you take around 20 poppers in the 100 - 200gr range you should be ok! The Heru Cubera 100 - 150gr, and the River 2 Sea Dumbell work very well, and they dont break the bank! Additionally carry 10 stickbaits max. - just in case! For light tackle spinning take your favourite lures, but def. take a selection of small casting jigs, like the Shout Dangan in the 20gr range! We catch an unbelievable variety on those jigs every year!
Hope this helped a little!
Cheers

Karl Danneberg

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Re: How long is a piece of string ?
March 19, 2013, 07:14:12 PM
Guys
Thanks for feedback, it's definitely shedding some light.
K

Mark Harris

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Re: How long is a piece of string ?
March 19, 2013, 07:27:11 PM
Am off to The Maldives soonish for the first time and the critical advice I have received from those who been multiple times agrees with much of what Andre says.

That is, casting distance is very important, so think about longish rods (I will not take anything shorter than 8 feet), lighter lines than you might normally use for GT fishing (suggest PE6) and don't go too big on the lure size.  I will be taking a number of lures that are renowned for flying well, and leaving the casting dogs at home!


Steve Li

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Re: How long is a piece of string ?
March 20, 2013, 04:07:14 AM
I fish Maldives at least once every year and here's my personal take on the appropriate tackle.

Jigging (day)
Rod: PE 4-6 or PE5
Reel size: Shimano 8K/10K or Daiwa 5K
Jigs: 180gm to 250gm during moderate current. Up to 300gm if current picks up.
Jig depth typically between 70m+ to 100m+
Line class: 50lb to 65lb

Jigging (night)
Rod: PE 1-3 or PE3
Reel size: Shimano 4K or Daiwa 3K
Jigs: 40gm to 80gm
Jig depth typically 20m to 50m+ (boat anchored)
Line class: 20lb to 30lb

Popping
Rod: PE6-8 or PE8 will cover 95% of what Maldives can throw at you
Reel size: Shimano 8k/10K or Daiwa 5K
Poppers: 100gm to 130gm will suffice (you don't need big chuggers there)
Line class: 65lb to 80lb
If fishing from a mother boat, you will need distance to get into the zone. As such, a longer rod will be an advantage. Take something 8ft or longer. But I have used shorter 7ft9" rods there but your casting ability will count a lot.

Based on personal experience, take 4 to 5 poppers for each angler and maybe 2 or 3 stick baits will do. The GTs there are mostly between 7kg to 15kg but you get bigger ones (20kg to 30kg+) occasionally. A PE8 setup will not get bullied so losing lures to cut offs / rocks are minimal. During my last trip in Jan this year, stick baits produced better results than poppers but I guess it differs from time to time.

By the way, which atoll are you fishing at??? The extreme north atolls holds bigger GTs and is a better place for top water fishing.    ;)

I have attached a couple of pics showing the typical size GTs you will encounter plus a couple of bigger specimen. Good luck!

Steve

Steve Li

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Re: How long is a piece of string ?
March 20, 2013, 04:10:07 AM
They come up sized too.....