20 Jun 2010

The Wahoo are Moving In

Some pics from Terry and his mates, Matt, Ray & Norbert from Australia fishing aboard Bite Me. Still getting a bit of a mixed bag but the good news is the wahoo are moving in. We are all set for a great winter wahoo & sailfish season...


How to impress the Skipper !


Wahoo

Still schoolie Yellowfin around

Good Wahoo are now thick in certain places

Still time to throw a popper or two

Terry with a trophy Narrow Barred (Spanish) Mackerel

Another big Mackerel for Terry the Mackerel Slayer....

He was pretty handy with a jig as well

Joe Takes on a Shark.....and loses...

Its rare, but occasionally we accidentally hook up sharks, despite going to some lengths to avoid them ! As a founding member of the Shark Free Marina Initiative (SFMI) in the Fiji Islands we automatically release all sharks.
On this occasion we had a quadruple hook-up over the seamount from a pack of marauding wahoo....except that one of the fish took a lot longer to fight to the boat than the others....
Joe had the unenviable task of attempting to (safely) remove a hook from a rather cheesed-off shark with a Black Pete De-Hooker.

Joe's pretty good at it and 9 times out of 10 we get a nice clean release. Tension the leader as the shark slowly cruises along with Bite Me, slide the de-hooker down, a quick nudge and off cruises the shark...


This little Whaler though took one close look at Joe and made other arrangements...



Well....whatever works for you sharkie.... See ya...

Mixed Bag - The End of the Summer Season

Its that slightly odd time of year where the summer season of popping and jigging starts to overlap with the rapidly approaching winter wahoo and Pacific Sailfish season. The fishing can sometimes be slow but is always varied !

A Bull Mahi mahi puts on a show

for the anglers in Bite Me's cockpit

Mahi mahi are spectaculor gamefish and allways jump

Carlos from Brazil with a popper caught GT

Jigging producing some nice Cod

The first Wahoo of the season are moving in

A baby Wahoo (released) displays beautiful vivid barring

This GT had some serious old war wounds, amazing what fish can recover from

12 Jun 2010

Pacific Sun flights priorotised to Kadavu and Taveuni - Fiji Times Online

Even better news for Taveuni and Kadavu local domestic flights:

"With the Mamanuca Group serviced through ferry service as well as boat and air charter operations, Pacific Sun will be able to prioritise its flying on other key tourism destinations including Kadavu, Savusavu and Taveuni," Mr Samson said. "Pacific Sun will focus its operations on more distant points that link thousands of international tourists each year."

Charter flights replace routes - Fiji Times Online

9 Jun 2010

Hats the way to Popper in Style

There have been a great many technological advances in popper casting and jigging fishing gear in the past few years. Nowadays a popping and jigging expedition with a few mates to some far flung tropical destination requires more than a few Stellas on Hots Gipangs and a bag full of expensive lures that would qualify for a wall space in a museum of modern art.
The sun. Nice though it is to bask in its warming rays, the damn things can kill you. Pretty much everybody knows now about the sun's harmfull UVB radiation that at best will cook you to wrinkled bronze colour and at worst, can cause malignant melanoma that if not caught quickly will absolutely terminate your fishing activities and probably you.
Fortunately a range of products are now available to keep anglers popping like Englishmen in the mid-day sun.
Here are some examples seen recently aboard Bite Me :

The good old original Baseball cap and PFG / Colombia spf shirt



The Panama Look



Masau displays the traditional Fijian T-Shirt on the head trick



The just cover everything and try not to die from heat exhaustion option



The wouldn't be seen dead in that (good job it covers my face) accessory


and last but not least, the I don't give a stuff, I'm on holiday look


I just had a solar keratosis burnt off my nose by a doc wielding a 20,000v zapper thingy. (that's a technical term by the way). The sun needs to be taken seriously.
If you can see the sky.......you are getting a dose of UV radiation.