Winter Kadavu Fishing Update

Its Wahoo Central now around Kadavu Island !
The Wahoo are thick and we are catching many Wahoo in sized up to 45kg (100lbs).

Magazine Editor Shane from Fishing SA Magazine with a 40+kg Wahoo

Vicki & Wayne (Mine's bigger than your's - Ooops) Nice one Vicki !

 Ben from Australia with a nice Wahoo caught trolling aboard Bite Me Too

Lance with a 40kg Hoo

The Wahoo are not the only species around. We are seeing some nice Pacific Sailfish mixed in as well as Mahi Mahi schooling a little off the reef.

Some anglers are even tossing a few popper at the reef and catching some great winter GTs

Vicki with a nice winter GT on Popper

The Wahoo will continue to be our main target species for the next two months as well as Sailfish along the outer barrier reef. We expect to still have great winter fishing well into October. With the water temp now hovering just above 24 anglers fishing offshore should also see some Striped Marlin and short billed Spearfish.

New Offshore Fishing Boat Almost Complete

Work is well under way on our brand new offshore sportfishing boat Bite Me II being built by BlueWater craft in Navua, Viti Levu. She will be a 28ft go-fast go-anywhere fishing machine designed to perfectly service the growing GT Popping and deep water jigging specialists as well as offer anglers the opportunity to go after pelagic gamefish such as marlin, Pacific Sailfish, yellowfin Tuna, Dorado and Wahoo on stand-up tackle. Powered by the very latest Twin 150 Mercury 4-strokes she will cruise at 25 kts and be capable of reaching 35+ knots at WOT.

Sister Ship

Our vessel will be based on the above design however we have added a number of modifications to suit our fishing around Kadavu Island.

The main hull is complete with the large centre console going on now.

With a 400L in-floor fuel tank she will be very stable for casting and jigging and have extensive range.

We have specified grab rails at the perfect height for safety and ease of casting poppers

There will be plenty of rod storage

and of course easy access transom door for hauling in a big Yellowfin or sliding in the big GTs for release !

I will be personally supervising the finishing touches and loading all the required brand new safety equipment in a few weeks and we hope to have her in Marine Survey and in service by the beginning of December. We are now taking bookings for the summer season starting 1st January 2014.

I can’t wait to barrel out to the Kadavu Seamount and drop some jigs !

New Shortbill Spearfish Fiji Record

Fishing report from Rick & Sheila from Australia who recently completed a live-aboard fishing trip aboard Charterboat Ika Levu. He writes;

The trip I just had was an awesome trip fishing from first landing and heading out wide to the inside of the Yasawa Islands. Then East through the Bligh Waters and onto Koro Island. Next we headed for Savusavu for a re supply. We then headed out wide and took a North direction and headed onto Taveuni, then further North to the Ringold Isles. We had a really good trip and will do something similar next year and hope to extend our trip from the 12 days this year to maybe 21 days next year and travel a further a feild.

Over the course we caught some nice Mahi Mahi to 20 kg, Spanish Mackeral to 23 kg, Wahoo to 25 kg,

 

Some large GT's, some big Rainbow Runner ( 14 kg ), a Blue marlin 130 kg, Short Bill Spearfish 24.8 kg,

Yellow Fin Tuna to 35 kg, the other Tuna Species and also Travelly Species, scad were around, barracuda in numbers, whales were very playful........so all in all we had a wonderful trip.

Its great to hear of successful fun fishing trips from all over Fiji, not just from our Kadavu neck of the woods !

Prime Slot opens up for Anglers

Summer Dolphinfish are numerous

Matava Eco-Adventure Resort was totally fully booked with divers for early January however it has just had a cancellation from the 1st to the 10th January 2012 opening up some accommodation space.
This means that Bite Me Gamefishing Charters now has a slot available for any anglers who might wish to charter Bite Me or Tease Me between the 1-10th January 2012

During our summer season we usually concentrate on offshore heavy tackle gamefishing for blue marlin and yellowfin tuna or we focus on heavy tackle popping for GTs and deepwater jigging for Dogtooth Tuna.

Summer time is usually when we see the larger blue marlin

The summer Yellowfin Tuna run is when we get the big cow yellowfin

Yellowfin boiling on glassy seas....a typical summer sight

Weather conditions are usually hot, humid and calm, ideal for offshore gamefishing, working outer barrier reef slopes with poppers for huge GTs and deepwater jigging.

If anybody is interested, please drop me a line any time at adrian@GameFishingFiji.com

Some Pics from this Week

Steve & Kathy from Florida

Jigged the Seamount this week, no doggies just a few odds & sodds like Almaco Jacks, groupers...
A lot of small yellowfin and skipjack tuna in the area.
Marlin bite has been quiet this week. We had a sinking skipbait whacked by a billfish whilst we fought a yellowfin but it didn't return to finish off the bait. Raised another small blue that lit up like a Christmas tree, methodically inspected three lures and then disappeared...probably because of all the tuna around us at the time.

Steve helps Joe bring in another nice Yellowfin

Jayson from Perth joined Steve & Kathy for a day on Bite Me landing this nice Yellowfin Tuna.
He spent the rest of his time popping aboard Tease Me - More on that later

Steve with a pretty female Mahi mahi

Late January Gamefishing Update

Joe leaders a nice Yellowfin Tuna

Father and son Darren & Josh had a few days gamefishing aboard Bite Me to celebrate Josh's 16th Birthday. We really wanted a nice blue marlin for Josh but the blues didn't want to cooperate. Despite trolling some of the world's best marlin lures around skipjack and yellowfin tuna schools charging around chasing flying fish....no blues.
The tuna were moving too quickly for us to livebait so it was Moldcrafts, Joe Yees, John Laus, Marlin Magics, Black Barts and Pakulas that we used on stand-op 50lb gear and 80lb chair tackle.

Darren with a beautiful Yellowfin Tuna

Joe hoiks in a Mahi Mahi (Dolpninfish)

A trip round the North side of the island found us yellwfin, Mahi mahi and even a missed bite from a Pacific Sailfish but the blues remained elusive.
(They are worse than London busses....Three bites in an hour then nothing for ages....drive you nuts they will )

Josh with a Mahi around 12kg

After a couple of days we turned to some popping and jigging. Weather a bit ordinary and the churned up choppy water not ideal for popping but we found some fish.

Darren loads up one of our Saragosa 18,000s on a GT Special

Josh lands and releases his first ever GT

and his first ever doggie on a jig

August Roars, September Fizzles

We had an awsome August with numerous wahoo packs, glorious weather, Fiji Records and even a new pending womens Wahoo IGFA World Record aboard Bite Me but I suppose it couldn't continue for ever....
September has opened up with windy weather and a rapidly increasing water temp, neither of which is positive news for the wahoo.
Despite this, we still continued to catch wahoo whenever we were able to access the hotspots.

Another Hoo hits the deck

Michael's first Wahoo

Alex's first Wahoo

Nick Kennedy with a nice Mackerel

Doggies and emperors on jigs

Some big Bull Dolphinfish around

The weather and the water temperatures will now dictate the fishing for the next 2 months. The wahoo will soon start to thin out and we enter that 'grey' area between the winter and summer seasons. Normally we would expect the first run of summer yellowfin tuna around December but with this early winter season ending and the water temperatures rocketing we hope and expect expect the summer yellowfin to show early.

Some winter yellowfin - Scarce this season

And the prize for 'Most Bizzare Catch of the Month' goes to Bob for this Starry Triggerfish (abalistes stellatus )

Hmmm....."I'm not getting *that* thing off the hook Bob, you're on your own mate...."

August Starts With Mixed Weather....Mixed Bag....

The past week the weather has been somewhat challenging. A strong Tradewind with frequent rain squalls gusting to 30kts..... Didn't stop us fishing of course but ruled out jigging and limited our popping options to the calm side of the island and barrier reef.
We are fortunate enought to always have a lee shore, no matter what the weather brings but water temps rule in the winter season and sometimes the biggest fish prove elusive.
Oh well...that's fishing...

Rain squalls not a problem on the lee side

Mind you...even in the lee of the barrier reef it got choppy....

Great weather for Mackerel

A few Yellowfin around

Dave Christens his new Stella & Hots Gipang 75XXH

This big Barracuda loved his Cubera

Some very good bull Mahi Mahi around

Adam with a nice GT on the popper