Proper Tuna Popping

By Nick Honachefsky

Here it is, the moment you’ve been waiting for. Up ahead, the water is exploding with tuna smashing bait schools in a frenzy in such a fashion that you can barely stand, knees buckling with incredible excitement and heart pumping so much you may just white out. The popper or slidebait is loaded, finger on the line, bail open, ready to launch. As you creep up on the exploding school of tuna, its time to keep these tips in mind:

A proper popper placement scores big

SLOW IT DOWN

First and foremost, when you are sliding into that tuna school to cast poppers, slow it all down. Like in the Matrix, channel your inner Neo and slow time down as best you can. By not excitedly panicking you will be able to think and act effectively. Before you make that cast, take a second and be aware of your surroundings. Way too many times I see people, myself included, that are so amped up in the super quick mayhem to cast and hook into a tuna that tips get wrapped with line and snapped, lures get hooked into the gunnel or the outrigger, or worse, into a crew member. Before you launch, take a deep breath, look around, and then launch.

AHEAD OF THE GAME

Tuna are constantly moving. If you make a cast to where you see them, you’re probably already 50 yards behind. You need to pay attention into the direction they are feeding in, how fast they seem to be running, and then calculate a cast to intercept them at the perfect time your lure lands to pull them off the school. Topwater poppers allow for surface commotion to pull a few tuna off the feeding pack to chase the “lone, fleeing baitfish”. I always launch around the outside of a busting school as your presentation can pull fish out of the outside lines of the circle. Unless the tuna have the bait corralled into a ball in a stationary area for a few minutes, then you will have to chase and pinpoint casts to get ahead of their path for a successful shot.

POP, PAUSE AND SLIDE

Now, when it comes to actually working topwaters for tuna, there are a few schools of thought. Large concave poppers like Madd Mantis or Nomad Chug Norris throw a ton of water and are best worked in a long rip, pause, long rip, pause, type of cadence. Slidebaits like the Savage Gear Mack Stick flash and glide through the water in a side to side, subsurface walk the dog style. Work them in a rip left, pause, rip right, pause cadence to mimic a stunned bait.  The key to garnering a tuna strike is truly to attract them with commotion, then seal the deal with the pause. Tuna dig the pause on poppers or slidebaits as its the moment they can pounce on the injured bait. Many times I can visually see tuna chasing a popper zipping on and off of it, but would not commit as it was moving too quickly. The moment I stopped with the pause is when the deal was sealed. Conversely, you can really rip a popper outrageously to make a ton of commotion on the surface and get the tuna fired up, then slow it down as if it was stunned.

It’s not to say tuna won’t hit a ripping popper on the move, but most times it’s the snap slow down that commits them. Once a tuna hits the surface offering you need to come tight as quick as possible, and though that statement may seem common sense, many times a tuna will hit a popper and you’ll feel slack as either the tuna will be swimming toward you or it will hit on the pause when the line is slack. Once you do feel weight on the line, be sure to really set the hook on the fish so as to insure the tuna either does not spit out the lure or dislodge a mediocre hookset. Once you dial in a few of these tips, you’ll be connected. Let’s get poppin!