By Stephen Booth

It’s no secret that I love surface fishing. I love it so much I’ve even been known to hold out with a surface lure while others are catching fish on soft plastics in deeper waters.

Over the last three years I’ve worked my way through plenty of surface lures and a few have come up on top for me, and one of those is the Berkley Frenzy 7cm Popper.

What I like about it

This popper has a few things going for it that really appeal to me. Firstly they are dirt cheap. You often can find these lures floating around tackle stores for less than $10 and that is fantastic for a lure that catches plenty of fish.

Secondly, they are shaped perfectly to allow the hooks plenty of exposure when a fish strikes leading to a pretty good hook up ratio.

Then you have the tail hook that comes with feathers. So what’s good about feathers? Not much apart from they help to stabilise the lure in the water and they hold a bit of water to sink the tail of the lure below the surface, which leads to the tail hook being in a great position to hook those tail nipping bandits like tailor.

Overall it’s a neat little and cheap lure that is always in my box.

How to Use It

The beauty of this little ripper is that it can be used in a variety of ways that all catch fish. As it’s a popper let’s start with that.

Blooping a popper is pretty simple. Cast out the lure, wind up the slack and jerk the rod tip to the side or downwards sharply. The popper will make a really loud Blllllooop sound. You can vary the strength of the bloop by how hard you rip the tip of the rod depending on the situation and what you’re trying to attract.

As a very rough guide I use the bloop when fishing for bream (very subtle bloop), flathead (mid-strength bloop), jacks (loud bloop), barra (loud bloop) and bass (subtle through to loud bloop).

The second way that catches plenty of fish is to virtually walk the dog with the lure. Now I am not professing to know how this lure does it, but this little cup faced beauty can actually walk the dog on the retrieve. If you get your cadence right and don’t try to work the lure too hard, you will see the cup face not bloop on the surface, but rather skate across it to the left and then to the right.

I will not say this is the easiest way to fish this lure, but it works so very well on fish like jacks, tarpon, bass, bream and tailor.

There is one little trick to this retrieve I have to tell you too – make sure you pause every now and then. This pause is essential if you’re targeting bream, not so essential if you’re targeting tailor or salmon.

The last retrieve is a flat stick wind. Because this lure is actually a popper it hops, splutters and bloops out of control on a flat stick wind and tailor, salmon and sometimes jacks just love it. The only problem with this retrieve is sometimes the tail of the lure will outpace the nose of the lure and your leader will wrap around the back or middle hooks. This usually means it’s a wasted cast, but don’t be surprised if an angry tailor smashes it just for fun and separates your leader. Yes I’ve lost a few that way. On the positive side though, the lure floats and the tailor are rarely hooked when everything is tied up so you can motor over and pick up your lure and start again.

Short But Sweet

This is only a small glimpse into how successful this little lure can be in Australian waters. I love this little popper and it’s been everywhere from Port Phillip Bay in Victoria right up to Weipa in Queensland and even across to Seven Spirit Bay in the Northern Territory. It’s caught fish everywhere! And the Berkley 7cm Frenzy popper is my number one flathead popper.

Get it on and give it a go!

This article appears courtesy of Fishing Monthly Group and first appeared in Queensland Fishing Monthly.