About a year ago, Bite Me Gamefishing Charters at Matava was asked by Palm Fishing & Outdoors Australia to test and comment on a whole range of new skirted lures and bibbed minnows manufactured by Lurestreet in China. Palm Fishing was interested in stocking the best lures from the range and needed some field testing.

My deckie Joeli and I were happy to oblige and a number of lures proved particularly successful.

From May to October, packs of wahoo congregate along the Great Astrolabe Barrier Reef. The average size of wahoo is about 50lbs with a good fish weighing in at 75lbs. Each wahoo pack usually has a fish of close to 100lbs. We almost always use lures when targeting wahoo however we often get jumped by fish when bait & switch fishing for sailfish. If your teaser is rigged with mono…wave bye bye to the end of your daisy chain….

The biggest problem we encounter is a mass attack, wahoo porpoising in at break-neck speed, every rod in the spread going off and then multiple bite-offs as other wahoo attack lines or swivels cutting through the water. We combat this by trolling a full spread until we find a pack and then switch to towing just two lures. Often, just a garfish (ballyhoo) on a two hook rig with a small pink skirt on the nose. Trolling speed is usually around 6-7kts. Most wahoo skippers around the world troll faster. Here, higher speeds do not increase strike rates. Last week on the Kadavu Seamount, we were feeding a skip bait back to a small blue marlin and a 60lb wahoo hit a Lumo green Pakula Sprocket that was only doing about 2kts.

All lures are rigged on at least 4 feet of 124lb 49 strand wire. (Longer if we thing sails are in the area) At this time of year, if it isn’t on wire, it isn’t coming back….