Seth Hartwick

Seth Hartwick is a topwater fanatic and one of the most well-traveled popping and jigging anglers anywhere, with more than 83 overseas trips chasing giant trevally and tuna. A journeyman lineman from southeast Michigan, he casts big poppers and stickbaits in the world's most remote fisheries, from Papua New Guinea to the Maldives. In his In The Spread videos, Hartwick teaches topwater and sinking stickbait tactics for yellowfin and bluefin tuna, speed jigging for fish holding deep, and the lure and tackle choices that produce worldwide.

Instructor's videos

Seth Hartwick is proof that you do not need to run a charter boat to fish at the highest level. He works as a journeyman lineman for a power company in southeast Michigan, and on his own time he has become one of the most well-traveled popping and jigging anglers you will find anywhere. More than 83 overseas trips, and counting.

Hartwick is a topwater fanatic. Popping with spinning tackle is his game, throwing big poppers and stickbaits at giant trevally and tuna and living for that violent surface strike. The more remote and pristine the water, the better. He has cast at fish in Papua New Guinea, the Maldives, New Caledonia, the Andaman Islands, the Galápagos, Sri Lanka, Panama, and the Great Barrier Reef, and he keeps adding to the list. That kind of mileage, across that many fisheries, teaches things no single home port can. Hartwick has learned what actually triggers strikes across wildly different conditions rather than what works in one place on one day.

That global perspective is what makes his instruction valuable. He is deep on lure selection, having tested poppers, stickbaits, and jigs alongside top anglers and craftsmen and refined his kit down to the pieces that consistently perform. He knows when to stay on top and when to go subsurface, switching to sinking stickbaits when birds crowd the surface and to speed jigs and knife jigs when yellowfin suspend at depth and refuse a topwater. He is precise about the gear too: rod and jig matching, reel gear ratios for the right jigging cadence, and drag systems built to survive a sustained run.

Conservation runs through all of it. Hartwick loves the ocean in its natural state and fishes with the resource in mind.

In his In The Spread videos, Hartwick shares his top tuna lures, topwater and sub-surface tactics for yellowfin and bluefin, and speed jigging for tuna holding deep. If you want to cast poppers and work jigs for the strongest fish in the ocean, learn from someone who has done it everywhere.