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Gold Doggies blue Doggies … somewhat slimmer, more conventionally shaped Stickbait lures and need a very different action from the R2Cs. Whereas the R2C lures need a slow, controlled retrieve, I found the Starwalkers worked best with a larger, longer, more aggressive sweep of the rod-tip so they shimmied along beautifully through the water. I found them to be great to have on hand to give me a mix of options in speed retrieves and actions. I had two colours and two types of these lures, one a koheru colour, a very sexy black/ blue/silver sinking lure, and the other a hot pink "Barbie" floating one. Both worked superbly. Sadly the koheru one only worked for a short time, as the second fish that ate it, kept it, dammit. The perils of fishing over coral reefs… However, I managed to keep the Barbie lure for long enough to take several different species on it. What I most liked about the pink floating lure was that I could actually see exactly where it was. This is true for the Doggies as well. The favourite Doggie I used throughout the trip was also pink, as I could always clearly see the lure, its action and how far out it was. It makes working the lures way more fun, I think. With darker lures like the Wide-Glides and the Starwalker koheru you really have no clear idea where the lure is until it is very close to the boat, so when you get a hit, you miss that thrill of seeing the lure get nailed. It's a small thing, but certainly a factor in the fun fishing stakes. This is why I like the Doggies so much, I suspect. I had with me the full range of colours, but my favourites were the highly coloured ones. The pink, the blue/chrome and the gold were all very easy to see in these tropical waters, the slow wiggle of the lures flashing off the polished flanks. In one afternoon (a very sad afternoon for me!) I lost three in quick succession, the koheru Starwalker, my blue chrome and then the gold Doggies. Bugger! You should have heard the language! Perhaps it's lucky you didn't. If these had been the crazy expensive lures, that would have and pink doggies all worked! Rovers proved just as deadly been a really stressful event. Imagine losing $900 of lures in one afternoon. As it was, these lures run between $30 and $40 each and the agony was not too intolerable. Still, ow. This is what you have to expect when you cast into shallow, reefy areas surrounded by bommies and haunted by lurking sharks. One thing that did interest me was that when I used Stickbaits I would often get two or three fish at a time from each target area, whereas with poppers I really never got more than one hit. Perhaps I should explain. In order not to cast our arm off when we're up in the Solomons, we just cruise along the reef shallows, looking for small pods of baitfish. These pretty much always have predators lurking nearby. Dropping a lure into these baitfish to make them explode in panic on the surface is even better, and we were almost certain to attract a predator's interest. This is called "working the bait". If you just chuck and chance it without any bait being seen, that is "blind casting". Anyhow, by using the Stickbaits I found I was getting far more hits per baitball than with the more aggressive poppers. Don't ask me why, I can make a few guesses, but all I know is I have never had three fish in successive casts from one bait ball in the Solomons before, whereas this happened several times when I was using the Stickbaits. It was great to have lures with different speeds and actions, too. I loved the way the Doggies were such a slow action on the lure. The lure itself stayed in the target areas far longer than poppers or the faster-actioned Stickbaits would do, and I'm sure this resulted in more fish being taken on the Doggies than on all the other lures. That was my experience with Stickbaits this time around. I gave these lures a serious crack with three weeks solid casting for giant trevally, bluefin trevally and all sorts of other tropical toothies. I was very pleased with their success. You can be sure next time I head out to go surface lure casting, I will be taking a stack of these new toys! Welcome to my world, a paradise called for fishing, diving, surfing or just relaxing in the sun, visit ZIPOLO HABU RESORT ZIPOLO HABU RESORT Munda,Western Province, Solomon Islands. Visit our website at www.zipolohabu.com.sb Email zipolo@solomon.com.sb • Ph 00677-62178 or contact Captain Asparagus Email StuCawkerCapt.Asp@xtra.co.nz VIP.S79 September/October 2011 Professional Skipper 51