Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
A few years ago we were anchored up over one of Ocean City’s offshore wrecks. It was a beautiful day with calm, clear water and the sea bass were snapping pretty well. After about an hour, we noticed a golden-yellow glow deep in the water off our port side. It didn’t take long before the blur of color took the shape of fifty or more big fish and we realized that the presence of our boat had caught the interest of a school of 30 to 50-pound amberjack which were now ascending from the depths to check us out.
Forgetting all about sea bass, we grabbed a couple spinning outfits and started firing lures out to the jacks, which by then were milling about just 20-yards away and so close to the surface that their fins and tails occasionally broke water. For the next half hour we worked jigs, soft-plastics and diving lures past the school but to no avail. We then tried cut bait and whole peanut bunker, still with no success. One fellow even caught a small porgy and cast it out, but the jacks refused it as well.
While frantically going through my tackle to find something that might tempt a bite from the jacks before they lost interest in us and disappeared for good, I found a 6-inch surface popper and had one of those “Eureka!” moments of “why didn’t I think of that before?” In no time, the popper was hooked up to a spinner and flying through the air en-route to a patch of water just to the right of the amberjacks. As my client cranked the reel, the plug had barely gone three feet before the school started to turn towards it, a few more feet and we were suddenly witnessing a race as every fish tried to be the first one to the prize snack. Of course, only one fish won - or lost, depending upon how you look at it. Either way we were the “winners”, finally being hooked up to a nice AJ on a beautiful day off Ocean City.
Once the fish was landed and released, the popper was shot back out to the school with similar results, which was then repeated one more time before the school had enough of our deception and sank back to the depths, not to be seen again for the rest of the trip. Thank you Mr. Popper!
I think that surface poppers are one of those lures that most anglers see hanging on tackle shop walls but are reluctant to buy because they have a hard time imagining a time when they would put them to use, and I’ll admit that the preceding story is not likely to light a fire under anyone’s rear-end to do so. Most anglers in this area probably have never, and will never encounter amberjacks, let alone have a chance to cast plugs at them. But substitute jacks for dolphin, bluefish, tuna, stripers or any big fish that eats little fish and you can have the same story with the same happy ending thanks to the same lure.
Though a lot of fishermen might consider surface poppers as something to use for largemouth bass out on a lake, there really aren’t too many saltwater fish that won’t take a whack at one when conditions are right, and a lot of the time having the “right conditions” only means that the fish is in close enough proximity to the surface that it can hear or see the plug splashing and chugging its way along. Poppers (aka – “surface plugs”) are just a whole lot of fun to fish with, as there is nothing like seeing a fish of any kind come up from below and explode on a plug as you work it across the water. There’s never anything mild about a surface strike – they’re always fast and explosive!
Just like other hard-body lures, poppers can feature anything from built-in rattles to hi-tech holographic finishes, and just about anything else a lure manufacturer figures will help to get fish to open their mouth and anglers to open their wallets. But no matter how much they are (or are not) tricked-out, the real magic that brings a fish to a popper is the “pop on the top”. Think about it. In nature, about the only time something is splashing about the surface is if it’s injured or feeding, and either way the commotion is sure to tempt a look, if not a bite from any hungry predator below. To be effective, poppers really don’t need any bells or whistles – just a flat or concave face and the ability to stay up on top and splashing is all that’s required to get the attention of hungry fish.
Back when big bluefish were abundant all summer, we used to fish poppers a lot on light spinning tackle and I got tired of spending the money required to replace all the plugs we lost, so I started making them out of wooden mop handles. I’d cut them to length, dish out the front, taper the tail, paint them up like the ones in the tackle shops and add two hooks. My creations worked great, but after a while the paint would all come off and they’d be riddled with so many bite marks that it looked as though they had fur – but they kept on catching fish! To save some effort I eventually resorted to just cutting the wood to length, attaching a single hook at the back and an eye screw at the front and that was that. My clients sometimes thought I was kidding when I’d hand them a rod rigged with one of my creations and tell them to “cast this out and catch a fish”, but they’d lose their skepticism when they saw big bluefish fighting over the six-inch chunk of wood!
These days we don’t go through so many poppers in a season that I have to resort to making my own just to stay out of the poor house, but after seeing how effective the most basic lure can be, I’m definitely not inclined to spend extra money on plugs just because they have more frills. Most any simple dowel-shaped plug will work just fine. A scooped out front throws a bit more water on a slow retrieve than one with a flat face, but either one will produce under most conditions. Depending upon what they’re made of and if they have a weighted rear-end, some poppers will actually sink when they are sitting still in the water and others will always float. The sinking poppers are usually heavier and can be cast further, and of course will rise to the surface when being cranked in. Since the floating poppers are lighter they don’t usually cast as far, particularly into the wind, but they land softer and have an advantage that they can be floated back with the current, which can be an advantage when trying to get a lure among spooky fish. To take advantage of any situation that might come along, I like to have both floaters and sinkers on hand at all times.
Around here I’ve used poppers to hook tuna, dolphin, king mackerel, bonito, false albacore, sharks, seatrout, rockfish, jacks and of course - bluefish. We often use hookless poppers as teasers to bring fish within casting range of light tackle or fly-fishermen or just to fire-up fish, such as sharks or stripers, when they show a reluctance to hit other baits. Surface poppers won’t catch fish every time at every place, but under the right circumstances both inshore and offshore, they can be just the ticket to change the attitude and appetite of stubborn game-fish.
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
