popping at night questions?

[tim watson]

I know early dusk and very early morning can work very well - but what about when its dark, dark?  Are you wasting your time, are the fish purely visual feeders or do they feed using their lateral line or similar to sharks electrical etc? cheers hope this aint a stupid question - new to the game but not fishing..Love it!

[Duncan O'Connell]

There is plenty of shore based popping that goes on in Japan at night, some really big ones have been caught that way.
I have tried a couple of times off brisbane at night but without success, yet. I have seen them on the sounder coming up for an investigation, just need to get one to go all the way.
For smaller trevallies, the gold coast canals and seaway are alive with bigeyes and GT's at night

Cheers

Duncan

[Angus Hulme]

We've caught a few GT's after dark on poppers, but our land-based fishing mostly occurs in a location that makes fishing at night quite a hazardous pursuit, ie lots of sharp rocks, oyster-covered ledges etc.

But certainly, if you found an area that is quite safe to fish from at night, (a jetty perhaps ) then I'd reckon it'd be well worth trying. After all, I assume that a large component of the success of surface lures on GTs is due the noise they make in the water, and GTs will have no trouble finding the source of that noise in the dark.

Anyway, those are just my random thoughts.

[Jay Burgess]

Tried a few times at night over here in WA on a full moon with plenty of light. Heaps of current and proven location (during the day) but not a sniff at night. Had a few strikeless nights... next morning on sunrise it's usually game time.

[Mark Harris]

I have tried as well but without success.  One technique we used was to "power up" lumo poppers with a flashlight before casting... in theory that seems like a good idea. In any case it was great watching these bright luminous poppers whizz out into the darkness .

[Luke Wyrsta]

Hunting at night is arguably more difficult. There needs to be obvious attracting factors for fish to hunt at night, GTs in particular.

For schooling fish it would seem there are prime night bites but I definitely subscribe to GT being more active during dusk and dawn periods, as opposed to night.

Therefore, you must ask yourself - why do GT hunt at night? Why does there seem to be more prevalent night feeding than other places?

It would seem that places where GT activity at night is famous, there is always something going on - like at dusk and leading well into the night when mullet are pushed or forced to migrate along the Oyster Rocks at the North-West Cape in Exmouth. In Japan, there is also an event going on - the spawning of Flying Fish. The flying fish are attracted close to shore for protection and light (from marina's) - this in turn attracts GT.

Therefore, in my mind - you must find a genuine event or gathering which would attract GTs.

Yes, you will probably have success fishing structures like headlands and reefs without significant events as territorial GTs patrol and pick off easy opportunities, but this is so much more dangerous with reduced visibility. Camping out over night and 'slide' baiting in Hawaii is popular - but I would again, it's GT patroling the shorelines/headland, doing what they do and picking off prey.

You most certainly won't get as much succcess as you would with the habits and behaviour exhibited by the above 'gathering' events.

[Luke Wyrsta]

I will be fishing Tokara for 2 weeks this year and hoping to get a bit more of an insight into the night behaviour and fish spawning event.

[craig breadsell]

I'm not sue how consistent they are but we have caught GT's off the motherships etc while parked in  lagoons. Even on our relatively small 24 footer at Bugatti Reef a few years ago (pre Nomad charters working around there) we managed a fish or 2 when we mucked around with it.  I'm sure those guys would catch them similar to the saying of shooting ducks in a barrel. I don't know about moon phases as I havn't had enough days or recorded the exact times of when we did it but it happens.

We also caught a few early 2000's when I lived in the whitsunday islands off the jetty's ( South Molle was a great location ) However we never tried night time seriously with boats etc...

[tim watson]

Thanks guys, i know there is a permanent light source where i am heading, ie the jetty, and that there are shed loads of bait fish that come in close at night, so i am presuming that im gonna have to live bait to get consistent hits.
will definetly have a go at popping lure and even possibly jigging and see what happens....something about hooking and playing a big fish at night makes my hair stand up on the back of my neck, very atmosheric, the sound of the ratchet/cluch taking line at noght out of the blue,,,,,man i cannot wait to do it!
I will let you know how i get on and im hoping what Luke said about a natural occurance happening to make the fish come in is correct, im fully behind that as i see that sort of behavoir for pike in the uk. Im hoping the bait fish that comes in are there in numbers and with regular occurance to create that feeding situation.
Cheers to you all again and thanks for your thoughts - got me thinking.................

[Al Morrison]

The jetty on the Cocos Islands certainly fires at night, and the GT's certainly hit poppers at night. the jetty is alive with garfish and the Gt's cruise around and then attack in a pack, with the water turning to foam as the bait gets hit. Never managed to land one and nearly lost my son over the side due to a close up hit, high drag and no stretch braid !! They hit in the glare of the lights and also in the darker areas, it didnt seem to matter. I've never caught a monster but some of the fish there are large to say the least and can be seen clearly cruising around. They come in at night to hunt the garfish hanging around by the zillion.

[luke peters]

I have caught smaller GT's and tailor with popper of the rocks at Fraser Island at night but nothing serious.

I was just using a little Halco rooster 135 i think it was.

Its pretty wild you can hear them swiping the lure but cant see a thing,  it was good lesson prior i had always switched to bait when the sun went down