By Zeno Hromin

This article originally appeared in the On The Water magazine

Unconventional Wisdom : Poppers in the Dark

Few hardcore surfcasters would deny that the most exciting moment in our pastime occurs when a gamefish is enticed to rise from the depths and explodes on the surface, aroused by the ruckus created by a popping plug. Water sprays in every direction while the broom-like tail of a large striper furiously slaps the water. Near misses seem only to enrage the fish even more as it attacks the plug with a newfound vengeance until the trebles are firmly planted in its jaw. This exhilarating display repeats itself daily everywhere that stripers roam and fishermen pursue them, but in the minds of most anglers once the sun sets, all that can be done is wait for dawn to again make a popper do its magic. Poppers cease to be effective in the dark. Or do they?(ital.)

The quiet and limited visibility at night make gamefish wary of exaggerated motion and noise and they can be spooked quite easily, especially in shallow waters. This would lead most anglers to conclude that popping plugs with their signature gurgling sounds and commotion are not the best choice once the sun sets. There is some truth to that assumption but only if you are considering the way these lures are commonly used, skipping across the surface. Time to re-think the strategy.

I readily admit having a really hard time accepting the fact that popping plugs can be productive at night. Consistently, that is. For years, my friends told me of their success with this technique but I rebuffed their efforts to get me to try it. One frustrating night after fruitlessly casting every darn plug in my bag without a touch while my friends standing ten feet away were bailing fish, I relented and came over to the “dark side”. Boy, was I in for re-education that night. Bass greeted every cast as if they’d never eaten before. As long as I kept the retrieve steady and the popper under the surface, I was in. I’ll admit now, I tried cheating by sneaking another lure from my bag while my friends weren’t looking, figuring if bass were that thick, they would hit anything. Wrong! I could not buy a strike with a darter, needlefish or a metal lip swimmer that night. I was convinced that the law of the averages would predict that the lure used most would get the most hits, but I was wrong. My friends were catching because fish wanted “that” lure more than any other one. Talk about being humbled and grateful to be there, all at the same time.

One of the first lessons I had to learn, however, was that not all poppers are created equal. There are certain popping plugs that will swim under the surface with just a steady retrieve and still feature enough built-in action to be very effective. Super Strike 2 3/8-ounce Little Neck poppers are my absolute favorite in this category. They cast like bullets, cutting through the stiffest winds and are an extremely versatile lure if you are willing to think outside the box. One caveat before we go any further: As with any “niche” concept, this technique is limited to certain conditions and I doubt a popping plug will ever be the first lure you take out of your bag at night. Come to think of it, they probably will not be your second or third choice either but they are worthy of a little corner in your bag. Unlike most poppers, which float and feature little or no action except what you impart with your rod, Little Neck poppers sink and when retrieved slowly under the surface they swim very enticingly. They swim this way because of the way the water is pushed around its large head and along its slender body. Let’s get serious. It will never wobble like a metal lip swimmer, but have you ever tried to make a decent cast with a metal lip swimmer? How far did it cast? Not too far I bet, which brings us to one of the reasons for using poppers at night, distance.

Though gamefish will often move into the shallow waters under the cover of darkness, there are times when they are feeding at the end of your best cast. In this situation the Little Neck is about the only non-metal lure that will reach the feeding fish. Very few, if any lures currently on the market, will cast farther. Even its 3-ounce sibling will not cast as far due to its larger body and increased wind resistance. In addition, when fish can only be reached with a long cast and they are feeding on smallish bait; this little gem of a plug becomes an excellent teaser delivery method.

If there is one key to fishing this plug at night, it is the retrieve. Unlike when used in the daytime with an exaggerated popping motion, at night the retrieve should be kept just fast enough to keep the lure off the bottom with an occasional slight flick of the wrist. This will cause the popper to “plane” upward slightly on an angle and then drop back, tail first. Most of the hits will occur on the drop, as the fish will often react reflexively to the sight of a wounded baitfish fluttering toward the bottom. I know some will be up in arms immediately after reading this, hollering that many needlefish lures will do exactly the same thing. True, but they don’t cast nearly as well, nor do they have much action to speak of (at least compared to this particular plug). The Little Neck popper has a very seductive wiggle when retrieved slowly while its body moves on a forty-five degree angle with its nose pointing up. Another thing to consider is although needlefish lures are excellent producers when gamefish are feasting on sand eels, Little Neck poppers with their bulging midsection and large head are a better imitation of larger profile baitfish that are present in the surf during the fall months.

You’ll also find these lures are easy to keep at specific depths. If you want them closer to the top, speed up your retrieve slightly and slow it down if you want it to go deeper. And even though it may seem you can cast them a country mile that doesn’t mean you should not fish them all the way back to your feet. Especially under the cover of darkness, striped bass are often found scrounging for a meal in close proximity to the shore, patrolling the trough between the sandbar and the beach.

Of course all of this stuff means nothing if you’re in the wrong location. Being at the wrong location with the right bait or lure will usually result in a skunk just as surely as being in the right location under the wrong conditions with an ineffective lure. I’ve found that on nights that feature light to moderate surf conditions, oceanfront sandy beaches are the best places to employ this technique. In calmer water I’ve found that fish actually prefer some surface action, just not as pronounced as what you would employ in the daytime.

While I am talking about locations I would like to mention two things I find immensely important in regard to the success you find with one particular lure: Confidence in the lure itself, and the knowledge of your equipment. Although this also applies in the daytime, at night it becomes increasingly important as we are unable to make visual contact with the lure and must rely on our other senses to work the lure properly. An angler who knows what his rod and his line are “telegraphing” to him about how his plug is swimming is the one who usually catches most of the fish. Having “the” lure in your possession and working it correctly in pitch darkness are two different things. The reason I am mentioning this is that working a popping plug or pencil popper at night is considered folly in many places and if you are curious about its’ effectiveness you will not get a lot of encouragement from your fishing buddies. Therefore, you will have to convince yourself that the technique is worth an honest effort rather than just making a few casts and then going back to whatever lure worked for you in the past.

Of all the other variables that come in play when swimming these lures at night, one that stands out is the color of the plug. I admittedly am not a big believer in carrying a rainbow of colors in my bag, but in this instance color seems to play a large role. Dark colored lures, specifically black, black over purple, or olive seem to out-fish the lighter colored version by a very wide margin.

Another perplexing thing that still has me searching for an answer is the increased hook up ratio when modifying a lure by removing the back treble hook and replacing it with a single hook dressed with dark colored hackle feathers. Modified this way the hook up ratio increases tremendously compared to the standard treble or even a bucktailed single hook. Strangely enough, bass, which often go for the belly hook because of their inability to chop the bait and therefore must swallow it head first, seem to prefer the back hook to the belly one. I don’t have an explanation for this. Since the retrieve is steady and not exaggerated like the one used during daytime when popping on the surface you would think that bass would have plenty of opportunity to examine the lure before it hits. Yet more often than not they hit the back hook.

Whoever coined the phrase “don’t sweat the small stuff” probably never excelled in the sport of surfcasting! Paying attention to little things is what usually separates success from failure and seemingly mundane tasks, such as hook replacement should be done with a clear idea as how this change will affect the lure’s action. When it comes to attaching back hooks to Little Neck swimmers I prefer to do it via split ring instead of an open-eye hook for two reasons. As the plug moves through the water, the tail hook is able to swing freely resulting in a much better presentation, adding a little extra pizzazz to the plug’s movement. The other benefit of adding a back hook via a split ring (and this goes for any other plug on which you might want to replace a back treble hook with a single one) is “castability.” Split rings allow the hook to lie against the body during the cast resulting in less air resistance and consequently, longer casts.

Those who are determined to work the popping plugs on the surface after dark should search for “quieter” water instead of the oceanfront beaches. Booming surf, rolling white water and more importantly lack of willingness by gamefish to chase anything down at high speed in pitch darkness makes open beaches a poor choice for employing this technique. Waves also make it just about impossible to retrieve the plug properly considering that most of the time you will have little if any visual contact with your lure. A better approach is to seek structure in calmer water often found on the backsides of the inlets or in back bays. In these locations the retrieve sequence is only limited by ones imagination. I find that popping plugs in these locations work well when fish are aggressively feeding and swirls or splashes can be observed in the area, such as you’ll see when fish are feeding on sand eels. Unlike when “swimming” a popper, in these circumstances I prefer a floating model, preferably made out of wood. There are many poppers on the market that will fit the bill in this category and it’s hard to go wrong by going with smaller surface lures manufactured by Gibbs Lure Company. Most of my success has come by working the plug with a series of short pops and then letting it rest on the surface motionlessly. Often, the fish will rise to investigate the commotion caused by a popper but will not commit itself. However, once the popping motion is resumed the predatory instincts seem to kick in as the sight of a meal getting away is often proven to be too much for fish to bear, triggering a reflexive strike. Maybe it is a mental block or because it was drilled in my head over the years that night fishing equates to slow retrieve but I have a hard time retrieving any lure at high speed in the darkness and surface plugs are no exception to this rule.

As I mentioned before, using a surface lure at night is an acquired taste but to disregard them as ineffective without ever trying it might be a mistake. Eagerly anticipated by boat anglers who usually cash in on faster then normal currents in the deep water rips, nights around the full moon periods find most of us standing on shore praying for some cloud cover to “hide” the illumination of the moon. One night a few years ago after spending the whole tide casting darters in the rips around an inlet, I walked dejectedly toward my buggy with not even a bump to show for my efforts. “Wish I could extinguish that moon,” I said to myself as I looked onto the rocky shoreline that was almost glowing in the moonlight. Everybody had already given up and returned to the comfort of their buggies parked on the beach. As I approached my truck I could see a silhouette of a person leaning against the hood, with a large cigar in his mouth. It was soon evident it was my buddy with whom I split up earlier this evening as we went in different directions in search of fish.

“What are you celebrating with that cigar? It’s sure not fishing with this darn full moon. Its like daytime out here,” I said. He informed me that he hammered bass all night long not far from where I was fishing. “You must have been throwing bait!” I said jokingly, knowing this old-timer had given up on the stinky stuff decades ago.

“Pencil poppers,” he said. I think my jaw dropped low enough that you could have probably fit a pineapple in my mouth. “Yes, pencil poppers work real well on a bright moon but you got to work them really slow. Don’t beat the water to froth but use a walk-the-dog retrieve instead. Make sure you pause it every few cranks, just let it lay there without movement, then start it up again.”

So of course the next night out of my bag went darters and in their place went pencil poppers. I was almost giddy with the idea of catching fish after dark on surface plugs. Well, what do you know, a storm system moved in and the moon was peeking in and out of clouds all night, and what did the fish want that night? A darter of course (which by the way I left in my truck).

But all was not lost; it never is in this sport. Something you learn today might not be of use to you tomorrow or the next day but it is knowledge acquired. You can bet that next month’s full moon found me casting pencil poppers to bass more than willing to inhale them. There is one frustrating part to working pencil poppers at night and it’s the hits to hook-up ratio. On many nights I have consistently raised fish only to hook up maybe ten percent of the time. During the day you can count on bass or blues to take at least a few swipes at the plug before they give up; not so in the dark it seems. I find that at night the fish will take one swipe at it and then retreat. I think the most likely explanation for this behavior is their unwillingness to chase baitfish in the dark, preferring to ambush their meals instead. There is really no solution to this annoyance other than keeping the retrieve as slow as possible and hope that the fish follows the plug on a retrieve.

Although I find popping lures quite versatile and useful in more ways than the manufacturer probably ever intended, I doubt they will ever replace metal lip and Scandinavian-type swimmers we all carry in our bags. Metal lips in particular, most effective when used with an agonizingly slow retrieve, are usually exactly what fish want and it would be difficult to replicate a retrieve that slow with any surface lure. However I have seen surface lures out-fish anything in sight on many occasions and I now include at least one in my bag when I feel nighttime conditions might be conducive to this technique. Look at it as another weapon in your arsenal. In a sport where there is very little predictability and change is constant, in which bait disappears during one tide change and today’s “hot” lure might be ignored by those same fish tomorrow, we need options. Instead of loading a bag with ten different colors of a same lure, why not take a surface plug along and give a gamefish a completely different presentation? Who knows, it just might save the day, or even better, your night.