Is our favourite fish getting smarter?

[Luke Wyrsta]

With all the anecdotal evidence coming out from the Ryukyu Islands (southern Japanese islands home to famous islands such as Tokara and Amami etc) of Japanese popping anglers having to deploy more cunning/smarter techinque and tackle to fool big GTs - has anyone noticed any kind of this pattern happening elsewhere? My first thoughts would be no since popping is such a niche sport in itself, however, i would love to know if there are any areas that have begun to experience this kind of behaviour.

[Brandon Khoo]

mate, that new avatar has just got to go!!

On this issue, I don't have too much doubt that fish learn - if you're going to saturate the area with poppers continuously, then the fish are going to learn that those funny things aren't much good to eat. The Japanese Islands cop a beating, I think, and I also think there is an element of that in Komodo.

[Peter Morris]

I reckon the Big GT's of the Whitsundays are hard to fool.
Last trip I saw some Big 30kg plus fish just following my poppers and not striking....
Different styles of retrieves were tried from slow to fast,big bloops and small bloops and they were very hard to entice.
Going back at the end of this month for another crack.

Pete

[Sachin Chaudhry]

Sometimes I wonder if that is the case. Had a few really big fish follow the popper and not matter what sort of retrieve I tried they would not latch on. The other thing was that if they striked and missed they left it alone which was surprising as usually I have found that the bigger fish tend to go at it till they hook up. This weekend really made me think that the bigger fish may be smarter. The old saying about the big fish not getting to be big by being stupid. The moon phase was spot on for popper fishing so I cannot think of too many reasons for this.

[Peter Morris]

Getting off the topic here I suppose but what moon phase do people prefer...

[Sachin Chaudhry]

2 to 3 days around the new moon and 2 to 5 days before the full moon tends to raise the biggest fish in my opinion. The couple of days before the full moon (especially if the high tide is an hour or so before sunset) also has them at their most aggressive I reckon.

[Stephen Polzin]

Any fish is going to learn from it's mistakes.  There's some well known spots up here where the big GT's are thick as thieves, but they won't take a lure, and baits can't show any hook or they'll be rejected.  Quite often you have to scale leader back to 50lb mono just to get a bite (and then hope it's been hooked in the lip)

Best phase 2 days before new onwards until/including new moon.  Have had some incredible action in that period.