Large Whiting Are Good Eating & A Great Live Bait Too!

[jewgaffer]

Hi Everyone.

I noticed a request in another topic by fellow member RPL asking for advice on surface poppers for whiting and comments were made and questions were raised.

I've decided rather than add a lengthy reply, to look at this from a different point of view rather than relying on one's own experiences with one or two brands that work reasonably well.

The fact is whiting are an excellent bread and butter fish and naturally the aim is to catch big size whiting for the table while others may wish to use legal size live whiting as bait for predators. In fact live whiting are one of the best baits for Trevally and Mangrove Jack

In the case of sand whiting a minimum size regulation applies. Where sand whiting are prolific the bigger ones become a little harder to catch, there being so many undersized fish in whiting schools at certain times and the older, larger fish have far more survival instinct and awareness.

Because of this the aim is naturally to dig out as many legal size whiting and get lot's of the largest size fish whenever possible and as quickly as possible.

In regard to getting strikes from Trevally and Mangrove Jack, timing is of the essence, and unlike jewfish hanging around for most of the run out at times, the time and tide window is very narrow for catching these species, particularly when the tide starts to run back under a culvert or bridge etc. where the back sections are unfishable.

Rebel whiting poppers have not been mentioned in replies that I could see. There is no doubt recreational fishing results get better and better as technology improves.

I'll just say this. Almost every brand of surface popper has been tried and fully tested by my best friend Jimmy Bowers who I have just spent the best part of the past month with up in Ballina as I do quite a few times a year.

Jimmy has the opportunuity and the know how to test out new artificials for tackle shop owners, young fishos and sponsored tournament players alike, many of whom he coaches. One of his understudies is the young gun Jay Cotterill from Kingscliff aka jakjayno1 on Fishraider who some of you may remember caught that 21.8 kilo GT trevally on a gold bomber as featured with pics along with Mangrove jacks and Cobia in one of my topics in fishing reports about 6 months ago.

Neither Jay and Jim would tie on any other brand of surface popper other than Rebel whiting poppers for their whiting no matter what.

Jimmy and Jay rate Rebel surface poppers as the best of all time and describe them as absolutely lethal on whiting and the only lure to produce the required large size whiting constantly.

My comments on this topic are not just idle comments and simply recommending another brand for the sake of it.

Jimmy Bowers is Australia's best fisherman in almost every aspect whether it be deep sea game fishing or fishing for estuary predators under a creek culvert. This is not just idle comment and loose words and our own Stewy Fishraider will attest to that, once being a brother in law to Jimmy many years ago and a fishing mate of Jim as well.

Between the two of them they beat the waters white all over the countryside in the eighties, even studied coastal currents and travelled miles up and down the coast when the elements coincided to fish for game fish off the rocks and Jimmy and Stewy chased those currents up and down the coast for days on end and that's also a fact.

I know most of the Ballina grass roots boys who simply must have whiting of legal size, live whiting being considered as the best of all natural baits in that area for trevally and mangrove jack seasonally, and they often have to use lures over nippers when blood worms are hard to get because bream get to nippers before whiting do, whereas for some reason whiting are better attracted to blood worms and quicker on the draw in their own domain to sense out blood worms over bream and that's a fact.

I have Rebels myself and still fish with lures occasionally in spite of the fact that I am rather guarded in casting action these days because of my back. So far I have caught whiting, flathead and bream on Rebel whiting poppers, and one day recently in Ballina before the floods, I caught a jewfish shown in a report on my behalf by Roosterman. That jew was out of area but came in and rose to a hardbody meant for a flathead, but I reckon that jew would have risen at a higher speed had I used the popper.

As to colour they are clear see thru with a blue hue at the neck and the typical red mouth. They contain a little ball bearing that makes them rattle away and the main body is about 45mm long and have about 30 mm of bucktail with glitter thread in among the rear trebble hook set up.

I would recommend these poppers as a super lure for any fish that rises and I would feel so negative using any other popper. Others have agreed these poppers are so good they get that feeling as well when using any other type of surface popper and in that company at get togethers after a fishing session, there is hardly any other talk that's not related to fishing.

I hope this information helps you all catch more whiting, more often and the largest of whiting more consistently and they are very nice on the dinner plate - as well as large whiting being a lethal weapon as live bait and particularly when used as live bait in deep water well away from their normal areas of habitat

Cheers

jewgaffer

Edited January 24, 2008 by jewgaffer

[Davemmm]

I have the lure that Jewgaffer is talking about and can attest to it being able to catch bloody pike, pike and more bloody pike. This is fine when I need bait but usually I am looking for something else.

I'm sure though with perseverance I will land whiting.

Dave

[Hodgey]

G'Day Jewgaffer

I was one of the members who made comment in the described post, and the blue and white popper I mentioned when targetting the Flatties is a Rebel. The smallest whiting I have landed on popper was 36cm and the largest was 42cm.

I would like to add, in my humble opinion, that lures often have different success rates in different locations. For my local lake/estuary system, yellow is the go. I also believe there is a lot to be said for confidence casting. I don't doubt that I 'work' the yellow popper better than the blue simply because I have more confidence in its performance. A lesson learned ...

Hodgey

Edited January 23, 2008 by Hodgey

[The Iceman]

I agree with Hodgey here as I have tried quite a few poppers including the rebel(which are a bit on the expensive side) and so far the yellow over pearl popper is the best but in saying that I could not raise a fish on it last week yet when I changed to the new ecogear surface lure I started catching fish till I lost it to a tailor and then continued catching whiting on a smak skywalker So I suppose they required a different type of surface lure on the day

[RPL]

Thanks for the reply and helpful information, yea i have tried the rebal popper with no luck so far, and the river2sea, im getting hits but no fish.

[DaveD]

Some nice info and history there Byron. I think everyone could get a bit out of that post, even if it's a few lines. Then again as mentioned in the posts, everything is different on the day which members should be aware about. Bait, lures, each always need a variation.

[arpie]

Hi Jewgaffer

A local Gun Jewie fisho here told me the other day he caught his last jew on a livie whiting! We have plenty of them in the system just now. I was watching him the other day - caught some livies including a small bonito. Put it out & it died within 10mins!

The look on its face says it either got scared to death or was gasping for oxygen!! Mouth wide open!!

Roberta

[jewgaffer]

Hi Roberta

I have found that jewfish will take fish which we commonly know as baitfish without exception, including other species particularly slender and soft finned varieties such as whiting, and similiar types of fish as long as they do not have an inbuilt toxidity to gives them immunity from predators in general.

As an example I believe bream develop a toxic affect in their spines etc as they mature, yet in the overall balance there would be other predators in the pecking order that can tolerate that.

I have never been happy when there are lot of baitfish around the particular area where I'm fishing for jewfish. However I am happy when eels, rays an shovel nose sharks are active in jewfish waters. To go on to clarify a little more, if I encounter sharks such as estuary whalers and hammerheads in the Hawkesbury I will immediately move to the opposite side of that paricular waterway as the jewfish would have already determined where it is safer for them to feed or dwell and if they are tempted to seek food elsewhere they themselves may well get devoured.

Overall there would be other fish that have immunity from being taken by a predator fish as such but there would always be other types off river and ocean uglies that could find a way of killing them and feeding from their bodies when they are decomposed etc. It may be good warning to what we know as edible fish for example too stay out under of underwater environments which are not safe for the survival rate of their species etc.

It's a form of natures way I suppose that determines what marine species needs to have numbers culled, nature having determined what species can eat what.

Cheers

jewgaffer

Edited March 7, 2008 by jewgaffer

[Davemmm]

Byron

We all love your work but if you are going to continue to recommend using whiting for bait I am going to bar you.

No Jew is worth losing a perfectly good whiting to. Give them mullet, yakkas, pike, squid I will even give up a nice blacky but you are stepping over the line with whiting.

dave

[dipship]

I use poppers pretty consistantly for bream and whiting and find that almost all types of poppers work.

In saying that some work better than others. The dearer japanese lures out perform the others by a long stretch. The rebels and stiffy are a good second option. It may be the waterways i fish but this is a consistent pattern so far.

The best performers in the jap stable are Lucky Craft Keroll, Megabass Pop-X, Lucky Craft Bevy and the Jackall Bros sk-pop. They are expensive but a quick scout on ebay will get em cheap.

[luderick59]

i used to think if tailor were thick on the beaches i would tailor as bait either live or fillets for jewfish

but found there were more jew around when the whiting were thick

if your a re a keen jew addict any live bait is a good bait

peter