TERRE ROUGE, MADAGASCAR, NOVEMBER 2009

A trip dedicated mainly to vertical jigging reserved some brief topwater fishing to confirm old faithful lures and new prototypes.
A place surrounded by a striking nature and a endless sea.

The lodge and the places:

Company in navigation:

And the trevallies, not always big but very picky and not easy to locate...

This one swallowed the new proto "bean":

BLUEFIN TUNA IN ADRIATIC SEA

I'm happy to show you what is probably the first bluefin tuna of legal size ( 122 cm and 32 kgs ) caught on a popper in the Adriatic sea an possibly all Italian waters.

The achievement is due to the friend Giuseppe Bandiga Magnani, who caught the fish on my SW 125 model in a sardine pattern, with Gt popping tackle.

CUBAN ROAD TRIP

A brief photostory of a little trip to Cuba, in my mind destined to field testing of topwater lures; the very hot waters of September caused a lack of interesting fishes in shallow waters and a very slow fishing .
Wonderful places and a good company assured a pleasant vacation; the only good fishes on a popper came on a slim version of SW-pop 45.

SOME LITTLE COLOR EXPERIMENT

On the "Bicho Grande", 68 grams for leerfish, jacks, bluefish and so on.....

NEW COLORS

Hope you'll like them....

Wahoo color....


.... and "Psycodisco" Pato:

PATO "HALF"

"Half" because it is about half the size of the original, it weights 75 grams but mantain all the bad noisy popping attitude of its big brother.
Perfect for medium tropical fishing for tarpon, snappers, jacks, or when big predators react lazily to bigger invading lures.
It's on its own also in the mediterranean fishing for leerfishes, bluefishes and even middle size AJs.

SPECIAL LEERFISH

Popper SW in 60 grams size; it pops on the top and swims with a wide wobbling movement just under the surface. Here in a new heavy glittered coloration to blend and camouflage in the foam and bubble trail for educated fishes.

Bicho Grande, 20 cm in a color serie developed on my experience in my home waters of the North Adriatic Sea; the pic miss the black/goldish imitation of the backcountry mullet, but I'll post it very soon.

Of course these are lures for the hunt of large specimen and not intended to pursue the small schoolies that should be left free to grow.

They have shown their value also for big bluefishes, AJs and medium tropical critters such as roosters, snappers, tarpons and jacks just to mention a few.

LITTLE LURES TOO

Not only big lures for tropical monsters, but small ones for everyday fishing in home waters.

In the last pic:

Mini bichito short 18 grams

Baby SW 21 grams

Patico 23 grams

Available on request.

NEMOMANIA

The unforgettable clownfish. Special striped coloration help to break the visual shape of the lure to the educated fishes, not only a simple painting exercise.

Popper Patico, 23 grams 8 cm in "turquish nemo", Bichito 28 grams e Bicho Med 42 grams in classic "nemo".

Small sizes studied for european seabass, leerfish and bluefish, but strong enough to be cast to barracuda, jacks, cobias and tarpons in Caribbean or Guinean waters.

BICHO, THE PENCIL EVOLUTION

Bicho means "little critter" in Spanish, not a better name to me to describe a frantic escaping creature on the top of the water.
Like all pencil lures can be retrieved fast on the wave with little jerks of the rod to animate it, or can be retrieved WTD style; but its special carachteristic is in the popping mouth.
When a big fish follows the lure on a regular retrieve but doesn't want to connect with it, we can give the rod a downward jerk to make Bicho pop with a lot of noise an bubble, and this action results often in a vicious strike.


In these pics the bubble trail generated by the medium size of 70 grams:

LIGHT TACKLE IN GUINEA BISSAU

A perfect destination to relax with a lot of nice fishes on light rods, Ile Kerè is a special place in that corner of Africa

Among mangroves and sandy beaches you can fish from shore or from the boat, with so many catches of jacks an snappers that a poor popper cannot relax a moment.

Small swimming poppers like SWpop60 or small pencil like the Bichito are perfect for these waters.

E.D.POP

Born from the need to present in long distance a popping lure not too destructive on the user's back.
"E" means easy and "D" distance, because it's easy to cast and to produce a lot of noise for its size with a little work of the rod; just point it to the lure, sweep on the side and you see EDPop catch water at first and then emerge with a big bloop. Perfect for the beginner, anglers not so strong or not so big or simply for relaxing fishing on somewhat lighter tackle.
It weights 95 grams and measures 16.5 centimeters.
I use it perfectly with a Daiko Hemingway HBGC-77BD or with a Shimano Caranx Kaibutsu Light Pleasure CKLPS7604, both tools with a casting weight of 100 grammi but enough backbone to handle big fishes.

MALDIVAS, LATE NOVEMBER 2008

This is the photo report of our trip to the famous islands in the Indian Ocean.
We touched North Male, Laavianhi and Noonu atholls in the north and found a mix of sun and bad weather, that was largely predicted before leaving from home.
Not a problem for the fishes, not a problem for us.
Under dark skies big black poppers like RingPop 100 made the difference, leaving lighter colors for bright conditions.

Big bloopers like the Pato 130 made often the difference over pencils and cruisers


Smaller lures like the EDpop we was testing resulted in mixed coral trouts an average GTs




Unespected Napoleon fish on a kalamar stickbait skipped across the surface like a pencil:

And the big one on a prototype stickbait worked underwater: