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Lure Test - The New "Mother In Law" (MIL)

Recently, Palm Fishing & Outdoors Australia sent us a selection of the new upgraded Mother-in-Law popper. We tested the older version last year and found them to be extremely effective so were looking forward to giving the new version a good workout along Kadavu island's Great Astrolabe barrier reef. Now with upgraded split rings and new colours these poppers just got even better.

We got the perfect opportunity when two guests of the resort, Magdeline and Malcolm arrived from Australia for a few days fishing aboard Bite Me. We spent the first day out on the Kadavu seamount having fun with the wahoo and yellowfin but day two was all about popper casting for trevally along the reef. Rather than just pepper the reef on heavy tackle, we decided to target a few Fiji National Records just to add a bit of spice to the day. We rigged a range of  poppers with short wire traces including a few Halcos and yo-zuri's and started pitching them out on 8kg and 15kg line class.
The bite on the Mother-in-Laws was just ridiculous. Virtually every cast got nailed by something. Between them, they hooked, fought and landed GTs, Bluefin Trevally, Bigeye Trevally, barracuda, red bass and Spanish Mackerel. The highlights of the day were Malcolm's 50 minute fight with a nice 40lb GT on 8kg and Magdeline's 30 minute fight with a 20lb (9.40kg) GT on 8kg that earned her the new Ladies W-08 kg line class Fiji National Record. Every fish that day bar one was caught on the new MILs.

A few days later we took Glen & Cherie Gardner from Sydney out for some fun with the Trevally. Richard, one of Matava Resort's Directors joined us for a day out of the office. The first thing he did was take the M-15kg Bluefin Trevally Fiji Record with a nice 5.6kg Bluefin on a red/gold MIL.
Glen is a professional deckie aboard 'Bounty Hunter' out of Sydney and a light tackle nut so he whips out a 6kg outfit, kisses his MIL goodbye and flicks it out. Fortunately, a bluefin trevally jumped on rather than a big GT and 15 minutes later after a bit of fancy boat manoevering round the breakers, Glen boated the new M-06 kg line class Fiji National Record Bluefin Trevally.
At 7.2kg it was just 1.87kg shy of the IGFA World Record.

 

3 new Fiji National Records in two days fishing with about 20 other trevally, red bass and barracuda released and quite a few fish reefing us as the GTs love to do...you can't argue with those numbers.
The MIL casts as well if not better than any other similar sized more expensive popper and outfishes them ten to one. It is now the only type of light to medium tackle popper our game boats carry. I will be pestering them to make a super-sized version for the heavy tackle GT anglers. I know it will be just dynamite on the 50kg+ monster GTs out there. Until then, if we get a few adventurous light tackle nuts on Bite Me, it will only be a matter of time before we take a World Record on the new Mother-in-Law.

Adrian Watt
Director, Matava Resort Gamefishing,
Tel: + (679) 3336 222 or 3336 098
http://www.GameFishingFiji.blogspot.com
http://www.matava.com