Aitutaki - popping in paradise

[Mark Harris]

anyone have a link to bfp swimbait, does he have a website as I don't use facebook and can't find a link

https://www.facebook.com/mark.vaughan.988?fref=ts

[Wayne Brown]

Mark can be contacted via email, as follows:  [email protected] 

[Nick Bowles]

Very nice Brandon and Malcolm! Good read and some interesting ideas! Will have to give it a try!

Cheers,
Nick

[Nathan Tsao]

Awesome action report! Great to see other guys using the sinking lures in the whitewash too. During the heavy surf season here in hawaii, sinking poppers and jerkbaits work great to get below the wash in between pops, deadly!!!

[Brandon Khoo]

What kind of jerkbaits of do you use, Nathan?

[Malcolm Crane]

I forgot to mention earlier that another lure that worked extremely well in the whitewash were the Heru Bobara 100XX's. They cast like a little bullet, weigh 125gm and measure about 185mm. Very easy to work and keep in that zone under the wash.

[Mark Harris]

I forgot to mention earlier that another lure that worked extremely well in the whitewash were the Heru Bobara 100XX's. They cast like a little bullet, weigh 125gm and measure about 185mm. Very easy to work and keep in that zone under the wash.

It was that exact lure which turned me on to targeting GTs in this fashion.  There is an old report here somewhere from early 2012 when that lure and only that lure caught half a dozen GTs on a morning when the water was way too messy for any surface lure to induce a strike.  In those conditions, it's remarkable what a difference allowing a lure to get down 30 cm will make!

[Peter Morris]

Beautiful report Brandon & Malcolm.

Another destination to put on the list.

Pete

[Teddy MOUX]

Kaoha Nui,

Very nice report.

Malcom, so pleased to see the "silent force" again !

Take care and wish you great futur trips !

ps: tomorrow, Fabio and his group will be there for a EIAO trip ...again. Sure, like everyone, they will try to catch your ghost at your spot ! 

[Nathan Tsao]

Aloha Brandon,
I've still yet to find the perfect GT jerkbait, and most of the tuna jerkbaits have poor action. My favorite one for heavy whitewash conditions right now is the largest Rapala X-Rap; obviously rigged with upgraded hooks/rings. Biggest one i've taken on it so far is about 22kg sight casting to a fish coming out of a small surf break, and the wiring held up fine. A bigger fish would ruin it handily though!
Much like you guys found on your trip, i too feel that i get much better reactions to smaller sinking lures in shallow whitewash. And i definitely think that an all black color lure gets more action when the surf gets real big and nasty; probably the best contrast amongst the washing machine.   

[Alex Jordan]

Awesome guys - looks like you had a blast!

[Mark Engelbrecht]

Great Report, enjoyed the read, thanks for posting

[Mahmoud Salem]

Thanks for Sharing Brandon, seems like a very nice trip

[Mahmoud Salem]

The smaller lures were just hammered in the white water. We also had success with the little FCL Labo CSP150S with really upgraded trebles. That little lure took ST76 3/0's in its stride and performed way above its station.

Dear Malcolm, I'm excited to see this size of hooks working well with such a small lure, I will be using the CSP-180s for big blue fin tuna and DO NEED something stronger than the ST66 3/0 that is not strong enough, I will give it a try with 3/0 ST76 like you did
Hopefully action don't change too much for BFT to notice

tight lines

[Aaron Levien]

Awesome Read Brandon. Glad i stumbled across this. We are off with Mike in exactly three weeks and cannot wait. Little gutted now as i have dedicted our artillary to big poppers and floating stickbaits.

May have to rethink the artillary now.

Cheers