ONE of sportfishing’s most popular gigs at present is topwater fishing. What’s topwater I hear you ask. Well, there are many variations on topwater fishing because it covers so many species and types of fishing. It can be fishing small poppers and stickbaits in shallow estuary water for bream, whiting and even flathead.
It can be fishing cicadas or surface lures for bass or murray cod in the sweet water. At the high end, topwater involves casting big poppers and stickbaits at GTs, mackerel or yellowfin tuna. Now, topwater has been around for quite a while in some forms. I can remember my father fishing home-made cork and feather Cicadas for south coast “perch” sixty years ago but the past five years has seen topwater fishing move from bass to saltwater in a very serious way.
The big attraction with topwater fishing is the visual and sound aspect. Even smaller species like whiting and bream absolutely belt a small stickbait and that’s the stuff that gets the heart pumping and adrenalin flowing. Tossing surface lures around over shallow estuary flats is exciting stuff but imagine casting a 200mm stickbait on PE10 tackle with 70 kilo yellowfin busting up in casting range or 40kg giant trevally lurking around a coral bombie. That’s the sort of stuff to induce a heart attack let alone get the heart pumping.
One of my most exciting fishing memories is casting a 180mm Nashy stickbait into a school of 50 kilo yellowfin tuna while 40 miles wide of Newcastle in 2020. Those fish were smashing sauries off the surface and even jumping out of the water while the hapless sauries showered in all directions. I hooked two fish that morning on PE5 tackle and both surface strikes were the stuff that life long memories are made of.
It’s those surface strikes from any species that make topwater so addictive but this style of fishing has spawned a completely new mindset and range of tackle right across the fishing spectrum. Top water fishing has seen the emergence of a whole new range of lures such as small stickbaits to cod surface lures and soft shell cicadas for bass and EP’s.
The biggest innovations from topwater fishing have come in the upper end and these include specialist casting rods in PE8 and 10. These are all in the 7’6″ to 8’6″ length range and designed specifically to cast big poppers and stickbaits, but most importantly to put the hurt on big fish during fights that can last several hours on big tuna. Threadline reels have seen incredible advances due to the higher end of top water fishing and braid lines have also made significant inroads and improvements due to the demands of topwater fishing.
Some of the most exciting innovations have come in large lures and braid to leader connections. Topwater is virtually a tackle industry of its own with specialised rods, reels, lines, leaders and lures. The high end of top water fishing has seen the invention of the FG and SC knots which have revolutionised braid to leader connections and even found their way into more conventional lure fishing techniques. Both of these knots rely heavily on the old Chinese Finger Trap technique where the braid line is wrapped tightly around the leader leaving a knot that has a very low profile due to the absence of any knot in the heavy leader. They cast easily through runners and are very strong while being reasonably easy to tie.
Lures and hook arrangements have also seen huge innovations due to the demand of top water fishing. Most smaller poppers and stickbaits used for whiting now include rear stinger hooks on a short cord in an attempt to prevent short strikes from whiting.
These also allow for much easier releases when compared to rear treble hooks which can often do serious damage to a fishes mouth. In the higher end areas of top water most stickbaits and poppers are fitted with single hooks or a treble up front to “keel” the lure and a rear single hook facing upwards. The science of hook design has also been stood on its head over the past decade due to top water fishing. Treble and single hook design has had to keep up with the trends and demands of top water.
If you haven’t tried topwater fishing in some form or another I’d suggest you look into it and maybe even have a go for a few local species. It can be as simple and cheap as tossing a few stickbaits around over the local flats for a bream or whiting or fishing a popper around the local headlands for a salmon, bonito or rat king.
