Sports Fishing: Snakeheads – Toman (Giant Snakehead) Fishing Part 4
Fishing Tomans With Spoons and Spinners
By: The Angler
While fishing with spoons, and spinners are nothing new when it comes to snakeheads; the snakehead species normally associated to spoons, and spinners are usually the brown snakehead or haruan (Channa striata) and seldom toman (Channa micropeltes). That said, spoons, and spinners work with tomans too. It is just that not many anglers fish them on spoons, and spinners.
[ As for spinners, cast them at tomans that surface for air. If the toman does not take it and heads for the bottom, just allow your spinner to drop to the bottom too… ]
Fishing toman on spoons can be done two ways. One is sight fishing where you cast the spoon at a fish (toman) that has come up for air. The fish may hit the spoon when in lands, out of reaction or reflex usually. If the spoon is late to reach, meaning that the toman has gone down, just let the spoon drop to the bottom with hopes of registering a hit. If the fish does not take the spoon, then just move on to the next one.
Tomans or giant snakeheads are awesome freshwater game fish.
You can also cast your spoon out and let it sink to the bottom, and then giving it a few twitches before reeling it back with a slow to moderate retrieving speed. Adding a trailer helps with attracting nearby tomans, and hopefully register a hit.
As for spinners, cast them at tomans that surface for air. If the toman does not take it and heads for the bottom, just allow your spinner to drop to the bottom too. If nothing hits the spinner, just retrieve it back at using a slow retrieval speed. Hopefully, there are nearby tomans that see it and decide to hit.
Spinnerbaits are awesome for tomans.
Spoons, and spinners are great for blind casting too. Just cast out and allow them to sink to the bottom before retrieving them back. The other trick is to start retrieving the spoons, or spinners at different depths. Tomans may be holding out at different depths and not necessary all the way down at the bottom. Do note that they are air breathers and will need to surface for air. Same goes to fishing with softbaits.
So far we have covered places where tomans hangout at, what they eat, how they react, and the usage of hard bodied lures, softbaits, spoons, and spinners when fishing them. I the next issue we will look at landing and handling them properly. This is important as tomans can very easily chomp off fingers should one be careless. Also, they are can get hurt without proper handling. So, stay tuned for part 5.
