Buzzing for Summer Snakehead

Bass anglers like to talk about the summer being the best time of the year for topwater action. The same seems to be true for snakehead, although its safe to say that most snakehead fishing is done on the surface regardless of the time of year. This time of year, however, snakehead seem paritcularly irritated by anything that flaps, wiggles or splashes across the surface. Maybe its because many of the fish are guarding schools of fry. Their hair triggers may be all the more sensitive. 

This morning, revisited a pond I had not been back to for several years. Its near my home and I had written it off as containing nothing but tilapia. My error may have had to do with the fact that I was fishing the wrong baits on my last visit. This time I arrived with a tackle bag stuffed with frogs and buzzbaits. 

I started off with the frogs and got a few promising strikes, but no hookups. Then I reached for a Booya Buzzbait that I had originally picked up up for bass fishing. A couple of casts parallel to a bed of weeds and water lettuce and a small striped snakehead hammered it.

Looking closer at how it was hooked and it was easy to see why the hookup had been easier then with the frogs. While fish seemed to target the legs of the frogs I had been fishing, usually missing the hook, this fish seemed to home in directly at the buzzbaits skirt which hides a sharp 2/0 long-shanked hook.

I switching locations on the shore and was quickly into two larger fish. These fish were hooking themselves without me having to worry about waiting until they took the bait all the way into their mouths. This can be a problem when using frogs on small to medium-sized snakehead, as they have smaller mouths than the bass many of these lures were designed for. Again, we are talking about smallish to medium fish, not the big toman and haruan found down south.

The only drawback to the buzzabaits is durability. A couple of hard hits from snakeheads and my Booya Buzzbait's wire was bent out of whack. It was almost impossible to bend them back perfectly straight. 

Chiayi Snakehead Sets New IGFA Record

Gerhard with his IGFA record breaking chevron snakehead and a little souvenir for his efforts (note the treble hook buried in his index finger).Big things are happening down in Chiayi these days as a handful of expat anglers are indulging in some record-breaking snakehead action. Last October, South African Gerhard Terblanche caught a 3.6 kg. chevron snakehead (haruan) at Tsengwen Reservoir that set a new IGFA All Tackle World Record. Just this week he received the official certification confirming his record-book status.

A month later, fellow South African Duane Christie landed a massive giant snakehead (toman) that at 9.775 kg. was just shy of the IGFA record of an even 10 kg. Duane asked that I keep the location of his catch a secret for now. He and his fishing buddies down south are still on the hunt for that record-breaking monster toman, and though they have come close, one on the scale of the November 2011 monster has so far eluded them.

It’s safe to say that there are big snakeheads in several of Chiayi’s reservoirs—Tsengwen, Paihe (White River) and Renyi Tan—not to mention local streams, ponds and canals. The next record-breaker is just waiting.Almost there. Duane Christie with his monster 9.775 kg. giant snakehead. Just shy of the 10 kg. record.